Perfect Customer Support and public relations can make a middle-order company into a high-ranking and successful company.  I’ve recently had a demonstration of that in a real life example.                                                                   Why You Need Perfect Customer Support

I have a confession to make – I’m not good at dealing with the frustration of a computer or a website that refuses to do what I want it to do.

Special Offer! For a short time you can still get The All in One SEO Plugin at the Special Discount Price of 30% off.

I installed the free SEO All In One plugin made by Semper Plugins on my websites and I couldn’t have been more pleased with it.  I installed it because it had some really good reviews from people I respected for their Internet skills and experience.  I wasn’t disappointed.

While I was researching on how to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to boost traffic to a website, I got confused by Tag Titles, Meta Tags, Titles, Tags and Descriptions.  Are they the same thing?  And what are they anyway?? Yes, frustration was building.
So, because I’d already installed the Semper All in One Plugin to handle my SEO, I did a Google search for Semper which took me to Semper Web Designs – a big mistake!

I should have Googled ‘All in One SEO Pack’ or ‘Semper Plugins’ which would have taken me to the correct Plugin info page at WordPress where Semper has an easy to understand page which tells you everything you need to know about how to use their Plugin for maximizing traffic to your site.

I spent a long time at the Semper Web Designs website and could not find the information about the SEO plugin I was looking for – because I was searching at the wrong site, but didn’t know it.  I finally cracked and fired off an angry email via their ‘Contact Us’ link.

I don’t come out of this smelling of roses, but anyway

Here’s What I Wrote:

“I’m a beginner website owner. I’ve installed your free SEO pack, signed up for the emails and wanted to search your Support section. I couldn’t find out how to register or log on there anywhere.

I ended up registering for the Pro support – partly by mistake and because it was the only option I could find anywhere, and I thought it might give me access to some support. I don’t want to upgrade to pro yet as I’m a complete beginner. I could not search or post at the pro support.

Anyway, I was very cross by then.

Is there ANY support at all for the free version??

In terms of your marketing, I’m very frustrated and annoyed right now and am feeling very negative about the constant sales pressure to upgrade to pro. It’s likely that I will never upgrade after this experience.

And you should be grateful that I took the time to give you user feedback!”

Yes, I know…what can I say….

I expected to hear nothing at all, or to get an equally angry email back telling me exactly what they thought of me.  But No.

I got a diplomatic, helpful, patient reply from their Client Relations and Support Services manager, who explained exactly where I’d gone wrong in my searching, and how the Semper Web Design website was for anyone wanting to buy designs or professional services from Semper. Here’s what he said:

The Perfect Reply:

“Thank you for your feedback.  As with every WordPress plugin you get from the WordPress plugin repository, free support is available from the WordPress Support Forums.  For example, the link for the free All in One SEO Pack Plugin Support  is:  http://wordpress.org/tags/all-in-one-pack

As the developers of All in One SEO Pack, we believe in offering our customers a greater level of support than the free WordPress community support so we have our own Support Forums at http://semperplugins.com/support/.

This is open to everyone, but you do have to have a paid, support subscription to view responses from our development team.  Our Support Forums are staffed by us, the developers of the plugin, and we respond to all questions within 24 hours.

So our plugin users have the choice as to whether they want free community support through the WordPress.org Support Forums, or paid Professional Support through our own Support Forums.  We believe in offering that choice, many plugin developers do not or cannot do this.

I hope this helps”.

I have to admit I was surprised.  And impressed!

I hadn’t even bought anything from Semper, and had even stated that I probably never would!  And yet they took the time to be extremely helpful, and be nice to me as well.

Semper Plugins had been so agreeable over this that I sent back an email (politely) suggesting that it might be a good idea if they catered for idiots like me, by putting some information about where to get plugin support, inside the SEO plugin download itself.  And he replied again, by return:

Another Perfect Reply!

“This is something we intend to improve on.  We have a major new version of All in One SEO Pack Plugin coming soon and with it is a much cleaner look with more information such as this.

Thank you for your feedback, we really appreciate it”.

How good is that!  That’s impressive!

The Outcome of Good Customer Relations:

With one single email, Semper Plugins had changed me from a frustrated beginner with really negative feelings towards the company and everything about it, into someone who is now writing a whole article telling the world what a wonderful, helpful and supportive company Semper Web Designs really are.

How They Did It.

1. They cared enough to reply to me – one single angry beginner who hadn’t even bought anything from them – and replied by return
2. They were diplomatic, helpful, and gave me more information than was required, just because they cared that even users of their free products, were happy with them.
3. Then they even thanked me for sending them an abusive email!

Take Home Message:

Good Public Relations and Customer Support translates into happy customers.

Happy customers are much more likely to buy your products, especially if they also know that you have good public relations and Customer Support.

Everyone who visits your site is a potential customer – don’t disregard the little guys – one day they might rule the Internet…..

…………Cue Motto!

Plan Well. Start Small. Think BIG!