Is the Bottom Price the Bottom Line when it comes to gaining sales?

With the increased awareness and availability of shopping online, consumers who used to shop strictly at brick and mortar neighborhood stores are now just a search and a click away from a plethora of alternative choices.

Your company brand is unfortunately left in the often sad state of being just one of those often unappealing yet lower priced choices.

How are you going to make an impression that not only brings in customers but keeps them coming back?

Having the lowest price among your competitors might help, but there needs to be quality behind your offer to make the experience of shopping with you worth your customer’s while.

How many times have you been bombarded with sales calls only to learn by posing a few questions that the representatives behind this aggressively pitched product or service really possess little to no knowledge about what they are selling?

Or worse, how frustrating is it when a brand provides you with faulty service and fails to correct it or even take responsibility?

A key element of customer service is presenting not only a comprehensive knowledge of, but a dedication to what you do and offer.

If erroneous information gets communicated or lackluster service gets delivered, own up to it and make it better. Your customer service lays the groundwork of the trust your customers retain for your brand.

I'll share one really ridiculously sad story that just happened this week on my magazine subscription service at www.magmall.com where we offer magazines to businesses and to consumers (who find us online). Now we took a phone order from someone who went through a two minute call (we are fast) to order a magazine when she didn't want to place the order on the Internet. And she paid like $19.00.

the next day we get an email cancelling the order because she found a cheaper price. so not only did she not even give us a chance to match the lower price she spent more time after placing the order still looking for a better deal to save a few dollars. there's no chance that she saved more than a few dollars. was it worth all her time?

Probably not but she feels pretty good about herself now.

Any thoughts how we could have rescued that sale?