Moving from Customer Service to Customer Experience

We all know the difference between good and bad service, but in order to compete, you have to move beyond this and focus on the overall experience you create for your customers. Successful companies must shift their focus from providing satisfactory customer service to creating a memorable customer experience that builds loyalty.
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How to Mine Your Customer List for Sales Gold

As a business owner, your biggest potential gold mines are often closer than you think—it’s just a matter of knowing where to look. By going beyond what’s worked in the past and being open to new strategies, you’ll be surprised by how many untapped profit centers are just within your reach.
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A Great Product Will Fail Unless You Price It Right

One of the toughest decisions for a startup is how to price their product or service. The alternatives range from giving it away for free, to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). The implications of the decision you make are huge, defining your brand image, your funding requirements, and your long-term business viability.
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Moving Your Prospects to the Next Step

For most organizations, a sale is a multi-step, complicated process. So keep that in mind as you create your calls to action. You’ll have a lot more success getting people to take one baby step at a time. Just give them the steps.
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5 Ways to Brand Like the Fortune 500s

Branding can be daunting at the best of times. For small- to medium-size enterprises, budgets to address brand initiatives are just a fraction of what a Fortune 500 company may apply. If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly educating yourself on ways to fine-tune your brand.
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5 Tell-Tale Signs That You’re a Bookshelf Brand

“A Bookshelf Brand.” It sounds like it might be a compliment doesn’t it? At first glance, you might think of the bookshelf as a place where you keep your important stories and reference resources. I can see how one could think that way, but I have a different idea in mind. To me, a bookshelf brand refers to brands that are inactive for any reason.
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Take Customers by the Hand with a Call to Action

Few businesses realize the importance of a strong call to action. In addition to a compelling marketing plan, you must take customers by the hand and lead them to action. What is a call to action? The call to action, simply, is telling people what to do to obtain your product or service. It’s a clear instruction of what steps to take, leaving no ambiguity about where to go.
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