US online retail sales this holiday season will reach $44 billion, a 12 percent increase over last year and the slowest growth rate to date, according to Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR). This year’s weakened growth is indicative of the difficult economic environment catching up with formerly resilient Web buyers.

Although US consumers are pessimistic about the health of the economy, they expressed a marked interest in the ability of the Web to save them money. Forty-eight percent of consumers surveyed, compared with 41 percent in 2007, said that they can find the best values and deals online. Additionally, 36 percent of consumers said that they would be more likely to shop online due to high gas prices, compared with 22 percent who expressed the same sentiment last year. Forrester expects that the majority of holiday online sales will be driven by shoppers who have previously purchased online, rather than first time online buyers.

“While eCommerce has traditionally been resistant to negative offline trends, growing concerns about the stability of the economy are finally affecting consumers’ online shopping decisions,” said Forrester Research Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. “This is going to be a very competitive online shopping season, so retailers should take immediate steps to bolster their customer retention strategies in order to ensure repeat purchases.”

More than two-thirds of consumers surveyed said that they are planning to spend more or about the same online as they did last year. Core holiday product categories such as clothing will remain top choices for online buyers, as well as books, DVDs/videos, music, gift certificates, and toys. Respondents also indicated that they will be seeking free shipping offers more often this year than last.

“A main attraction of the online shopping environment is the breadth of information that it offers,” said Patti Freeman Evans, Forrester Research Vice President and Research Director. “Retailers should expand their use of online marketing tactics on search engines and comparison-shopping sites since shoppers are likely to be researching the Web more thoroughly when deciding on this year’s holiday gifts.”

This year’s annual holiday forecast was a collaboration between Forrester Research and JupiterResearch, now a Forrester Research company. Two surveys were conducted to measure the attitudes and expectations of online consumers during the upcoming holiday shopping season, which was defined as the months of November and December. The first survey was fielded in September 2008 and received 2,153 individual responses. The second survey was fielded in early October 2008 and received 1,042 individual responses.

Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. www.forrester.com.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

Since the thing that will ultimately decide the fate of your online business is the level of faith entrusted upon you by your customers, you need to do everything in your capacity to ensure that customer needs and requirements are met in the most rightful manner. One way of doing this is to start and operate a full-fledged customer support center. But, since small online business owners such as you, often do not have the requisite funds to do so, it makes sense to try out other affordable options that might be available.

If you really want to make it big in the world of online business, then the best you can do is opt for a support ticket system software that will automate all your customer support services. Once you install the software, you can allocate your precious time and effort for more productive purposes rather than waste it over mundane tasks, such as reading customer queries and complaints and writing appropriate replies.

You may be concerned about customer satisfaction. But, you need not worry, because your customers will in fact benefit from the software and not the other way round. In just a few clicks, the software will automatically lead customers to the answers that they might be looking for. They will thus be freed from the painstaking job of writing lengthy emails, explaining in detail their queries or problems and not to mention, the waiting period gets completely eliminated once you install the software on your website.

Apart from your customers, you too stand to benefit a lot from installing a support ticket system because it will allow you to streamline your customer support services. For example, with the help of the software, you will easily be able to classify customer queries or complaints into different categories, something that will save your time and effort. Then, you will not be required to write personalized mails to each and every customer query. You just need to create a single generalized mail, which can then be send over as a reply to all the queries in a particular group.

Installing a support ticket system on your website is certainly beneficial, but before you actually do so, you need to consider a few things, obviously because not all support ticket systems available online have the desired functionalities. You might have to spend some additional hours searching for the best available support ticket system, but believe me, your efforts will not go in vain because once you find the right software, you will automatically be on your road to success.

Author Description

by Jezorski Gary. Article source: ContentLog.com. Read the full Profit Lance and Ultimate Wealth Package reviews.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

How many times have you gotten a holiday greeting card in the mail from a business and said (or thought) “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Christmas cards, even when signed by the whole office staff, look more like an obligation than a true wish for happiness.

So what can you do instead? How about a newsletter – even a mini-newsletter. Send them some holiday tips or a great old family recipe. In other words, something personal that you might not send at other times of the year. Even better if it’s something they can keep and use.

If you send a full newsletter, include something just for fun. A short holiday tale, a holiday-themed puzzle, or some holiday trivia. Make it something they’ll keep around for a day or two while they do the puzzle – or something they’ll share with someone because it was interesting.

You should send cards – but only to those customers and clients you feel closest to. And on those cards, add a hand-written, personal note. Say something that shows you know who they are – and care about their lives. For instance “Hope your “human family” and those “monster pups” have a great Christmas!” Or how about “Wishing you a wonderful trip to visit the kids…”

If you really want to do a mass-mailing and can’t find the writing time and courage for a newsletter, try a postcard with a beautiful photo – or a tasteful cartoon. It will still look like a mass mailing, but at least it will catch their attention. They’ll notice who had the good taste or good humor to send it.

What about your best or most recent customers and clients? How about buying a few mini trees, poinsettias, or wreaths and personally delivering them? THAT would be impressive, and it would show them you care!

I know there are concerns that Christmas will offend someone. I can’t confidently advise you on how to handle that, because I live in an area where lack of Christmas would offend everyone! You know your area, and know what you should do.

I personally feel honored any time anyone wishes me a happy day of any kind. If they’re sharing their special celebration with me, that’s as good as if they’re sharing mine. But I realize not everyone shares that opinion.

Perhaps you shouldn’t send anything in early December. Depending on your locale, you do run the risk of offending someone. Some will be offended if you say “Merry Christmas” and some might even boycott you if you do not!

In addition, some people are so busy trying to juggle work, family, and holiday responsibilities that they don’t have much time to peruse their mail. Your good wishes could be lost in the shuffle.

With that in mind, consider mailing during the last week of the month instead – and send a Happy New Year greeting.

Everyone has a new year – no matter what religion they follow. So if you live in an area where that’s a concern, it might even be a safer choice.

For your new year greeting you can include a small “gift.” How about a one page report on the ten most overlooked tax deductions. Perhaps you could send a reminder about a new deduction available just this year. Or maybe a checklist of expenditures to record over the coming year would be most helpful. Everyone loves a gift, and tax tips are always useful.

My bottom line advice is this: Sending gold-foil, imprinted Holiday cards could well be a waste of time and money. Be a little creative, spend less money, and show your customers and clients that you’re a real person – a person who cares about them.

Marte Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter and former real estate broker who specializes in writing for real estate and related industries. Marte’s e-book, Getting Clients, is a step by step guide to creating a marketing niche and developing it into a satisfying career. While written for real estate, the principles will work just as well for other sales careers. Learn more about Getting Clients at http://www.marte-cliff.com/career.html.
Her second e-book, The Land Buyer’s Survival Guide, is a resource for both land buyers and beginning real estate sales people – offering a guide to the questions that must be answered before it’s safe to close on a land purchase. Learn more about the Guide at http://www.marte-cliff.com/Survival.html

Marte offers a weekly ezine for real estate professionals and others with an interest in marketing. Subscribe when you visit her at http://www.marte-cliff.com

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

To build a strong brand with a loyal customer base, your business must create a complete chain of customer experiences with outcomes that your customers value and adore.

Repeat business is the most profitable business, and so all business should aspire to build customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is based on customer service experiences. These experiences are not merely at the point-of-sale or the exchange desk. Instead, they encompass the compete chain of customer experiences.

They start with the time when, where and how your customers hear about your brand, their first contact with your brand – which may be your website -. They extend all the way to a time that they receive a notification that their warranty is about to expire and that extended warranty is available to them. And beyond this, of course.

Strong branding is the result of this consistent delivery of customer experiences, through distribution and media channels. In these customer experiences, what is important is how your customer feels when they are in your brand presence. How do you manage this? What kind of service is needed?

There is my 4-part approach for loyalty- & brand-building by managing the complete customer experience:

1. Manage Brand Loyalty and Customer Experiences From The Top.
Senior management should be responsible, not a service rep nor middle management. By putting the management of customer experiences in the hands of top management, a bird’s eye view can be applied encompassing the complete set of customer experiences. Furthermore, it gives a clear message to all that your business takes satisfying customer experiences seriously.

2. Complete Measurements Go Beyond Metrics.
Management is to set explicit brand value propositions plus guidelines for employees and channels to bring these value propositions alive. Monitoring click-through rates, conversion ratios or phone-time-on-hold metrics should be complemented with complete customer interaction review.

3. Detail Key Customer Scenarios through Research. Market segmentation can help in pinpointing what customers consider important outcomes of key scenarios. After all, not all customers have the same needs and wants. Detailed market research reveals what customers consider to be key-scenarios and what factors to get right in each scenario. You will find that this kind of market research will give your business an edge over competition that is not necessarily transparent to your customers.

4. Put Complete Customer Experience Management Protocols In Place. When performance metrics and evaluation results are not reflecting your intended brand value proposition, a process should be in place for prompt corrective action.

In Conclusion

Once you and your company have established both the leadership for and the appropriate means of managing and evaluating your Complete Customer Service Experience, you’re ready to actually tune the experience and so create customer loyalty. Loyalty results when customers feel understood and cared for. A strong brand shows business choices that foster loyalty. This article offers a path to successfully strengthening your brand.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.