eCommerce: Powered by People or Software?
 Your business might be using Internet technology to communicate and conduct business with your customers but don’t forget in the end it’s a HUMAN experience.
Customers often desire a relationship as much as a ‘product.’ Not all are necessarily looking to be your friend (although some are), but they at least want the confidence and knowledge that should an issue or question arise, there is a human around to help. They want communication and verification from a living, breathing being. Don’t you?
The Internet is a tool and a medium to communicate and conduct commerce. It shouldn’t and won’t ever replace a welcoming voice over the phone, a warm handshake at a conference or reassuring guide to overcome some technical glitch.
Many online merchants will tell you how often they receive phone calls from prospects just to “make sure they’re real” and to confirm there are humans behind the web site. There’s a lot of safety and security provided for credit card transactions online and we try to emphasize it with logos of trust and verification. But in the end, it’s the sound of another human’s voice most people trust, even though they’ve never met and may not ever see that person!
While you can use an automated, all-in-one ShoppingCart solution, I encourage you to continue to make the Internet experience as ‘human’ as possible. Make the extra effort to personalize your email broadcasts and autoresponders so your customers feel like your friends. Then watch your sales grow.
In fact, exponential growth online is based more on human interaction then pure Internet Marketing. Affiliate Programs, like the one in 1ShoppingCart-powered systems, provide you with a means to have a huge sales-force working for you. Happy clients tell others about you and you reward them with commissions, but only after a sale.
Learning and using the Internet is a fantastic way to expand your current business, start a new one or improve your finances while you remain employed. Presumably, you may want the freedom to live the lifestyle of your choice, the ability to spend time with your family and friends, and to earn as much money as you’d like, with greater ease.
Why not?! After all, you’re only human.
Martin Wales is founder of Customer Catcher Communications. He works with 1ShoppingCart as ShopT@lk’s Editor, in Business Development, and as the teleseminar host for ShoppingCart’s biweekly Power Session.
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