I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

Herbert Bayard Swope

When it come to business, a bigger truism has never been spoken. Admittedly, a business relies on satisfied customers and without them - you have no business (or won’t have one for long). No matter what you sell, or how you sell it - some folks will not be happy with something you do. For that matter even if you just give away free stuff - someone will find something to complain about. All you can do as a business person is satisfy the vast majority of customers and potential customers.

You do this by being receptive to customer comments and complaints. Smart businesses actually seek out customer feedback. Although it will sometimes cause you to hear things you don’t want to hear, it is vital to have insight into what your customers are thinking about your business and products. When you run a small craft businesses, this is even more important than it is to a large corporation.

More often than not, an unsatisfied customer will not complain - and most likely will not be a customer any longer. By seeking feedback from every customer you are encouraging them to complain. This not only makes you aware of problems - it allows you the opportunity to make things right - and possibly retain that person as a future customer. Can every customer be satisfied? No - but you have to try. Eventually you encounter chronic complainers or even folks who seem to think they should be able to dictate how you conduct your business - these types will never be satisfied so just take back the product, refund their money, and move on.

One Stop has used several techniques to raise customer satisfaction to extremely high levels (average one complaint per 8,628 orders). They break down into two basic policies - No Surprises and Customer Relations. These will work for you as well:

No Surprises

I don’t think anything annoys me more then misleading ads, product descriptions, or hidden costs and I don’t think I’m the only person that feels this way. We strive to make customers aware of exactly what they are getting and how much it will cost before we ship it. In 99% of all sales, this reduces the complaint and return rate to zero - unfortunately the other 1% is mostly folks who don’t bother to read the descriiptions and shipping policies.

1. Accurate, honest product descriptions.
2. No hidden charges - all costs are explained for anyone who chooses to read it.
3. On products that the site cannot calculate shipping costs, we send a quote for customer approval before shipping it out.

Customer Relations

Our other policy is excellent customer relations. Since we are a small, family run company communications between employees is fast. Every customer is a valued customer and we go to great lengths to treat them as such.

1. Customer followup / feedback sent 10 days after each order. This email is sent by our shopping software, however I read these personally and act on them when required.
2. 100% honesty - we treat each customer the way we would want to be treated. We are not above recommending a cheaper or better way even if it means a lower profit on that order. We never suggest products just to get customers to spend more. We are never hard sell. Customers come to know that when you suggest a product it is because it is the best thing to use.
3. Good Communication - fast response to customer questions, ship out notifications, etc…
4. Full expert tech support for all our products.
5. Liberal return policy - sometimes folks just order the wrong thing or misunderstand the product description. We have a no hassle return policy and don’t even charge a restocking fee.

These methods work for us and will work for your business as well. They instill great customer loyalty as well and are they are the reason we retain many of our original customers. And you can’t put a price on customer loyalty - it is priceless beyond measure.