Chapter 7: Reassure Your Customers
Your job is to eliminate buyer’s remorse as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
Consumers are naturally apprehensive after purchasing a product. They fear that they've spent money in vain, spent too much money, or acted impulsively. Your job is to eliminate this buyer’s remorse as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Depending on the type of product or service you're selling, it's most likely that people will have some questions about it. If it's software, they’ll have trouble installing it. If it's an e-book, they'll have questions about certain sections. Whatever product or service you have, people have questions about it. You need to be there for them during this initial questioning in order to build trust and have a chance at future sales.
There's nothing more frustrating than a web company that disappears after the sale.
If you have software to manage your help desk, make sure it works at all times and that customers get quick responses to the questions. A good idea is to send an automatic message as soon as the person has submitted a request, confirming that the request has been received and will be addressed promptly.
If your product is a bit complicated, you may want to offer a video tutorial explaining how to use it. This could be on your thank you page after the payment is processed. On the same download page, you should include full contact information for how to reach your company in case there are questions or concerns. This is the one time in which you want to make yourself the most accessible, because your client has just purchased a product from you and doesn't know you that well. You need to establish that you are fully committed to providing support after the sale.
If you're selling physical products, you could slip in a CD or DVD at practically no additional cost. Another idea is to send a follow-up e- mail, or even a phone call, after a few days to make sure that the person has not experienced any problems with the product. This follow-up will earn you respect and admiration and in almost all cases will lead to a long-term relationship with your new customer.