Archive for January, 2008

Erik Stafford here… and I hate providing customer support.

How terrible! How could he feel this way, you might be asking yourself.

Want to know why I hate it so much?

Well… I remember when I was first building and testing The Faster Webmaster. I had bought a script that I was trying to install and use to manage my members… so that people who purchased my product could access it, but no one else could.

And it was confusing as hell.

I mean, it was terrible. Even with all my webmaster experience, I was just totally stuck trying to install this thing and make it work.

I was frustrated. I was banging my head against the wall.

So I emailed the people who created it and I asked for help. After all, when I bought the script the website assured me that they had a “highly responsive customer support department” to assist me with whatever I might need.

So I finally caved in, and emailed them one night.

And I sat. And I waited. I sat there all night, not working, not relaxing… just sitting there in limbo checking my email every twenty minutes and stewing in my own frustration.

It was not a good place to be.

And you know what? I know for a fact that I have put some of my customers in that exact same spot. I know that some of them have emailed me, asking for help… and they had to sit and wait. Sometimes for several days.

I hate providing customer support because I suck at it. Plain and simple.

People tend to dislike (or even hate) things they are not good at… and I feel like I am not good at providing customer support.

I feel like I am letting people down.

The bottom line is that I just get too many emails to answer them all in a timely manner. I love answering my own emails personally (Frankly, I think it sets me apart from everyone else online) but I am to a point where I just get too many of them to do that anymore.

Not in a timely manner, anyway.

So what do I do? Do I create a ticket system to manage customer support? Maybe hire someone to manage it? Or do I continue to answer all my own emails myself, even if it makes you have to wait longer for an answer?

Let me know your thoughts.

To your success,

Erik

Erik here… and I want to wish you a Happy New Year, and all the best wishes from me to you for a happy and successful 2008!

I would have posted on New Years Eve or New Years Day, but I didn’t want to bother. I was relaxing far, far away from the computer… and I hope you were too!

Anyways, I want to help you start the new year off on the right foot, so instead of waiting until Friday for your usual “Free Gift” I want to give you one today as well…

It’s a fantastic book (turned E-Book) called “Masters of Copywriting” and it contains tons and tons of easy-to-understand, real-world information about how to make your sales copy, website copy, and emails really explode off the page.

It’s my gift to you, and here it is:
http://www.erikstafford.com/gifts/Masters-Of-Copywriting.pdf

Here is to a great year ahead of us!

To your success,

Erik