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Ten years ago I discovered this very exciting and dynamic world of direct response marketing. While in law school I took a job as a customer care representative. Looking back I now realize what an amazing experience it was for me now as the CEO of Blue Vase Marketing, LLC a premier full service Direct Response Marketing firm.

It is somewhat of a cliché when other companies “talk about” providing quality customer care in many businesses but yet provide the complete opposite. Have you ever called your bank, your credit card company, or your mortgage company and waited on hold for 3-4 minutes? Large, multi-national companies for some reason are always “experiencing high call volume” pretty much any time of the day. One of the fundamental core basic customer service requirements is being accessible to your customers. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting on hold, then getting sent to a voice automated system or an IVR (Interactive Voice Response). An IVR can be helpful and speed up the wait time for your customer but the use of them should be well thought out and used only when it truly will improve the customer experience.

Being available 7 days a week is critical in the direct response industry. At Blue Vase Marketing, LLC our Customer Satisfaction department is open 7 days a week. It doesn’t make sense to only be open during the week. In the direct response industry most of our business is conducted on the weekend and to have your customer service department closed on the weekend is a mistake. Also, since direct response marketers generally do business all over the country it is important to have your customer care department open until at least 6pm in all time zones during the week and at least 4pm during the weekend. Your customers have jobs and many times can’t call from work, so you need to be available when they are available to call you.

In this digital age, it is also important to be able to communicate with your customers through other mediums like email, a dedicated Facebook page for your product, a Twitter account or the ability to chat with your customer over the web. Depending on your product or service Blue Vase Marketing, LLC can help you determine what type of communication should be available to your customer base.

One thing that hasn’t changed, and research shows is crucial to providing excellent customer satisfaction, is having good people answering your phones. Training your customer care representatives to be pleasant, polite, and perky at all times is paramount. The old saying “the customer is always right” still remains true and should be engrained in all of your customer care representatives brains. At Blue Vase Marketing, LLC, we have “Customer Satisfaction Representatives”, and their job is to provide a satisfying experience for the customer every time. At the end of the day, any business would not be a business without customers and they need to be happy.

Since we are in the direct response world and processing credit cards, there are simple, easy, and effective ways to protect your customer, and your business. The term “chargeback” is a scary one, but many of the “Charge Backs” can be avoided if the product or service is properly set up from the beginning. Basic things, like making sure your descriptor is accurate, and your 800 number appears on the statement properly can go a long way. At Blue Vase Marketing, LLC we are PCI complaint and we have many protocols in place to minimize charge backs and provide a “Better Than Good” experience for both the customer and the client.