Over the next couple of days, I will be doing a series of posts on customer service. Come back daily for the updates!

True story…

Last week I took out my credit card while sitting on a well-known vacation site that allowed you to book hotel and air packages to popular destinations.  And even though I was literally seconds away from purchasing, I didn’t.  I gave my business to someone else.

Why?

Here was the problem: I was booking this vacation for someone else.  Some vacation sites require the person booking the vacation to also be one of the travelers – and indeed some hotels require the guests to show the exact credit card they used to reserve the room.

I scoured this site and read every FAQ, every term of service, and even started through the buying process to see if this particular site allowed a third party to purchase the travel package. 

No dice. 

I couldn’t find a word about it one way or the other.  Most sites let you know up-front whether third parties can book travel, so that alone was surprising that it wasn’t in writing.  But at this point omitting the information certainly it wasn’t a deal-breaker to me.

The solution for me was quick and easy – write to them to inquire about their policy.  They did have a phone number (bonus points for them!), but for such a simple question I didn’t want to jump through phone menus and spend who-knows-how-long on hold.

So I wrote to them…  And then I waited.  And waited.

Four business days later I hadn’t heard anything from them, and the special offer I was prepared to book through them was about to expire.  So I went to another site who had a similar offer, found the terms of service met my requirements, and purchased.

So what happened?

Who knows.  Maybe my email got lost or their reply got lost (I don’t have filters on this account).  Maybe they’re running slow and didn’t get around to it yet (it’s been a week now as of this writing).  Maybe George Bush intercepted the email or it’s reply.

Now while I understand that things can and do happen to emails, I still didn’t purchase the package from them.  They lost my business because of this incident.

“But it’s not necessarily their fault,” you might say.  “Emails get lost and such, right?”

Sure, but this site could have allowed me the convenience of sending an email while ensuring they received it and I got the reply.  How?  By installing a help desk where not only are emails sent, but the exchange is listed in its entirety online too.

There has been a lot written about SEO for WordPress, and there are quite a few free plug-ins available as well for WordPress which helps you make WP even more SEO friendly.

I have read all of the stuff written about SEO for WP, as well as installed and ran all the plug-ins.

They all work really great, and do add a lot of SEO value to your blogs.

I always thought what I had was enough, until I came across a product by pure accident which just blows everything else out there out of the water.

Now, let me pre-empt this by saying that the plugin I am about to tell you about, is NOT free! It costs money, BUT, in my honest opinion, is worth every single cent!

The author even has a version available in the wings which will work with WordPress 2.5 when it is released!

So, what am I talking about then? The plugin is called WP SEO Sniper. Now I can write PAGES on how fantastic this plugin is, but, I will rather SHOW you!

The author has put an amazing video up that shows you all the features, as well as how quick and EASY this thing is!

It’s ALLREADY running on THIS blog!

Check out the video here!

We all have heard the infamous saying: "The money is in the list"

If you have been doing Internet Marketing for a while, you know that this is very true. The bigger your list, the bigger your income, provided you USE the list, and you provide value to your subscribers.

Now, there are many ways to build your list, but, by far the quickest and easiest way, is giving away free stuff, or, low priced stuff.

So, you give away a free e-book, audio, video, or even software, or, you sell it using the very popular $7 script. Your list grows at an amazing rate, and you are sure you are on your way to the big time.

Well, I don’t want to burst any bubbles, but, I feel it my duty to give you some of my stats. Just because I get these results, don’t mean you will though!

So, I have built a fair size list giving away free products, and low priced ones. I also have some people on there that have bought some high priced products from me. The highest priced was my one on one mentoring at $997.

So, what do my stats look like when I mail this big list, comprised of many sub lists of course?

Of the free and low priced people on the list, only around 2.5% actually click on any link in any email I send them. Of that 2.5%, less than 1% ever buys anything I recommend, or any new product I bring out.

This SAME free/low priced list, will on the other hand have a click rate of around 70% when I send them something free, and make sure I mention it is free in the title of the email.

Now, on the flip side, the people that have bought $97 or higher products from me. THOSE people have an average click rate of around 15% on ANY email I send them, and of that 15%, around an average of 2.5% will buy products I recommend, or new products I produce.

Why then am I wasting time, money and energy building my lists with free or very low priced products? GOOD question, and the only answer I have right now is, habbit.

Well, enough allready! I am looking at how I can revamp my list building efforts away from cheap, and focus on the people who trust me, and my company enough to buy what we recommend or produce, provided of course it is something they need.

How does your free/low cost lists respond to your marketing?