Questions that you absolutely must answer in order to close the sale!

Think about it. You and your friend both need running shoes, so you decide to go shopping together. After checking out the various brands and models, by coincidence you both happen to focus on the same pair. They seem like great shoes… but you both have questions.

You're a casual Sunday runner who needs shoes that are tough enough to withstand the muck and mud you encounter trail running. Your friend is a hardcore endurance runner who hits the pavement for 30 to 50 miles every week. So while you're both interested in the same pair of shoes, your questions are very different.

You both read the sales literature that the store has posted on the wall. You read about the shoe's features… but don't really find the answers you're looking for. So you start looking around for a salesperson.

There's only one guy on shift, but he's on the phone and tells you the earliest he'll be available to answer your questions is in an hour.

Yipe! An hour? You both leave the store and the sales are lost. Neither of you is impressed. After all, when you visit a store, you expect quality, personalized service. Had the salesperson been ready with answers to your questions, chances are you both would have purchased the shoes. With nagging doubts, however, you're not ready to buy yet.

Will either of you revisit the store to ask your questions and buy the shoes? Probably not because…

1) the service you received was poor,
2) it takes time and effort to go back to the store,
3) and without the shoes directly in front of you, it's hard to remember what really interested you about them in the first place.

This same scenario occurs on hundreds of thousands of web sites, millions of times each day. And if you're a regular web surfer, it has probably happened to you too.

You're at a web site and you're really interested in a particular product. You've read their sales copy… you've read their FAQ page… you've literally surfed through every page of their site… yet there is still some nagging question that's making you hesitate. Will this product or service suit your particular situation?

Sometimes we are so interested, we e-mail our question to the site's sales staff. And then we wait. And wait. And wait some more. So by the time we receive our answer 4 days later (an industry average for e-mail turn around), we've often lost interest and forgotten what had us so excited about that particular product or service in the first place. It's too late and the sale has been lost.

If you read the last edition of the Marketing Tips newsletter, you already know that online spending has increased by a whopping 580% over the last two years (Forrester Research), and that it's expected to increase by another 57% over the next year (eMarketer).

However, this doesn't mean you should just sit back and relax. Small and home-based business owners need to be on their toes, prepared to deal with the rapidly changing face of e-commerce.

Your relationship with your customers will be of paramount importance in the days ahead, and this means that you need to ask yourself this one critical question: Do you even have a relationship with your customers?

How do you contact them? How do they contact you? What happens if they have questions? Are you ready with answers right on the spot? Do they wait days and days for a reply to simple a question?

The biggest stumbling block in web sales has been the lack of personal interaction. In the offline business world, a customer can stroll around your brick-and-mortar store, pick up merchandise of interest to examine it more closely, and then turn to the nearest salesperson for quick answers to any questions…

"How does this work?"
"How long will it last?"
"Why is this better?"
"What can it do for me?"
"Will it solve this particular problem?"

The salesperson can then take the excitement and interest that has built as the customer has been examining the product, answer their questions on the spot, and then use this momentum to close the sale right then and there.

Until recently, it has been more difficult to provide online shoppers with this same experience… and a lot of sales have been lost as a result. For example, according to research done by The Boston Consulting Group and Harris Interactive, online retailers failed to capture more than 16 million consumers who attempted to buy a gift online this past holiday season… and estimate that those 16 million shoppers represent 1.5 billion dollars in lost sales!

They're at your site. They want to buy. But they have a question. How do you deal with this? There are a few steps you can take…

1) Examine your sales copy for gaps and holes.

Approach friends and colleagues and ask them to read your sales copy. When they're done, ask them if they have any questions. Would they buy? Or do they have remaining doubts? Ask them to be brutally honest.

Once you've spoken with enough people, you'll begin to notice holes in your sales copy -- questions that need to be answered. Use this critical information to make the necessary changes to your copy and ensure that you answer as many questions as you possibly can.

Your goal is to capture their interest and attention with sales copy that has been carefully designed to…

• Build excitement
• Establish your credibility
• Develop a relationship with the visitor
• Answer questions and remove doubts
• Create a sense of urgency

… and then close the sale with a Bang!

However, even the most well written sales copy cannot anticipate the needs and situations of every individual visitor to your web site. And this is why you must be prepared to…

2) Respond to e-mail in a timely manner.

If a potential customer e-mails you a question, you need to act fast! The fact that they've taken the time to e-mail you their question indicates a strong interest in your product or service; however, the longer you wait to respond, the more this interest will diminish.

As I mentioned earlier, the industry average for e-mail turnaround is 4 days. This is completely unacceptable if you're planning to capture a potential customer's sale. Your goal should be to answer each and every e-mail you receive within 24 to 48 hours; the sooner the better. The faster you respond, the more likely it is that you'll capture their sale.

Of course, as I'm sure you're probably aware, e-mail has its limitations -- chiefly that when your potential customer receives your reply, they will have already left your web site. So not only do you need to answer their questions, you need to convince them that it's worth their time to come back to your site and place the order.

And that's why I would highly recommend eliminating this problem entirely by…

3) Answering their questions in Real Time by including *Live Chat* at your web site.

For those of you who aren't familiar with live chat, let me explain how it works…

A visitor arrives at your web site, reads your sales copy, and is really interested in making a purchase. However, they have one quick question they need answered. They notice a button titled "Click here now to chat with us!" So they click on the button and a window pops open.

In the window, they are asked for their first name, their last name, and their e-mail address. Once they enter this information, they hit the "Chat now" button, and the chat session begins.

Visitors type their questions or comments, click "Send" … and you can respond instantly! This is extremely powerful!

By adding live chat to your web site, you suddenly have the power to…

a) Answer their questions on the spot, before the sales momentum is lost! Why make your visitors wait days for answers to simple questions when you can give them the exact information they need, exactly when they need it! You'll look professional, increase your credibility, and remove any objections to buy… so closing the sale is a breeze! You'll dramatically decrease the number of people who leave your web site in the middle of a purchase.

b) Push relevant web pages and content onto the visitor's desktop! Answer their questions by recommending relevant web pages and resources… and putting them right on your visitor's desktop. It's easy for anyone to do now that chat technology has advanced.

c) Up-sell or cross-sell by recommending other relevant products or services! When you are having a personal conversation with a visitor, it's easy to up-sell and cross-sell because you can recommend specific products and services by pointing out how they would solve their individual problem or fit their individual circumstances. Plus, visitors see your recommendations as "helpful" -- not a grab for extra cash -- because your conversation is one-on-one personal.

d) Develop personal relationships that strengthen customer loyalty! With live chat, your web site becomes interactive and you gain the advantages of the brick-and-mortar sales environment. Potential customers can have personal conversations with you, and will no longer see your business as "just a web site." It's a very powerful way to create a bond that will keep them coming back for more!

e) Capture the names and e-mail addresses of potential customers for future contact! Different chat software and solution providers offer different options; however, there are a few that will give you the power to capture names and e-mail addresses so that you can contact these visitors again in the future. You can e-mail them to ask if their chat session was helpful and ask if there is anything else you can do for them. Again, this will help to strengthen your relationship!

… and these are just a few of the benefits. The truth is, with live chat you can start turning way more visitors into customers! Seriously!

Now don't panic. I can just hear many of you saying to yourselves right now, "Live Chat?? I can't implement live chat on my web site! That would cost a small fortune! And the technology is probably far beyond my small operation… "

Well, as much to my surprise as anyone's, adding live chat to your web site can be done in less than a few hours… and if you're already running a small or home based e-business, chances are you don't need any new equipment to get it set up.

Plus, the cost can be really minimal if you're prepared to look around for a good deal. Here at IMC, we've managed to implement it on our site for less than $1.50 a day -- pocket change when you consider the power it has given us to communicate, one-on-one, with visitors at our web site.

Let me give you the bare bones truth…

Human beings want to do business with human beings

So as consumers turn more and more frequently to the Internet to make their purchases, the race is on to "humanize" web sites and personalize a visitor's experience in order to capture a larger share of the dollars they're spending.

It has been estimated that e-businesses could have rescued $6.1 billion in revenue last year if they had offered visitors live customer service at their sites (Datamonitor). How much of this was meant to be yours?

Internet consumers are becoming more and more comfortable with the new technology that's being offered, and they're starting to expect sophisticated customer service before they'll consider making their purchase. So be sure that your sales copy is well written and thorough, be sure that your e-mail has been automated and that your response time is less than 48 hours, and consider looking into the new *Live Chat* technology that is starting to pop up all over the web.

Because after all, if you don't service your customers, who will?

IMPORTANT NOTE:

We did it! When this article was first released, we were still in the process of negotiating a special deal with the same live chat solution provider that we use so that you too can start using live chat on your web site for literally pocket change! Since then, however, everything has been finalized so that you can now implement this fantastic service on your site for EVEN LESS than we had originally thought! Less than $1.50 a day… no joke. Click here now to discover how you can be among the select few who profit from this never-before-seen offer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/892189

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