Overview
This week, List Perfectly Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Amanda and Clara share their expertise on customer service. Tune in as they share their best customer service advice to help you build and maintain strong clientele relationships to sustain your business. We’ll also have Seller Shoutouts, and the News!
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the #1 resource for the seller community across all platforms and hub for information on growing your business with List Perfectly. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at https://anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com.
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Episode 19 Links
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Transcript
Intro
Liz:
Hey! Doug! Let me come in really quick. I don’t know what’s going on.
Doug:
Oh, that’s very cute. Thank you.
Liz:
You’re welcome. But I have this, it’s supposed to be playing happy birthday and it’s not coming on.
Doug:
So we record ahead of the podcast release date. So today is my birthday, the recording day, but by the time it comes out, it won’t be, but I will still accept your birthday wishes.
Liz:
Yes. So everybody makes sure to go to snoop.dougie on Instagram and wish him, it’s not a happy belated birthday. It’s a happy extended birthday.
Doug:
Yes. Thank you.
Liz:
So go wish Doug a happy, extended birthday.
Doug:
Don’t disappoint me. I have a list and I will check off names
Liz:
For those that can’t see, I am wearing a happy birthday, crown. Just for Doug. And I’m going to wear the entire episode because when you get to be 51, sometimes you forget things. So this is a reminder for your birthday. I’m Liz.
Doug:
And I’m Doug.
Liz:
Welcome to the seller community podcast from List Perfectly. This is episode 19.
Doug:
Very cool.
Liz:
Very cool. So, Doug, what do we have on the show this week?
Doug:
Well, this is a fun episode, Liz. We’ve got Clara and Amanda from List Perfectly, and they’re giving us their take on customer service. So they’ve both been in the business world, kind of different backgrounds, and then came together and worked together on the clothing vault, List Perfectly, and created this tool, which was awesome. And then just their perspective on customer service, customer care, thinking of yourself as a business. We had a really fun chat.
Liz:
We’ll have shout outs and we’ll have the news. The seller community podcast is produced by List Perfectly every week for your enjoyment and show notes are found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast.
Doug:
All right, let’s get started with our featured guests, Clara and Amanda from List Perfectly talking customer service.
Make Customer Service Your Priority
Liz:
So really needing no introduction, we are bringing back the wonderful Clara and Amanda, CO-CEOs of List Perfectly, here today to talk to us about a very important subject: customer service.
Doug:
Welcome ladies. And thanks for coming back. I’m sure you’ll be back many times but thanks for coming back again.
Amanda:
Happy to be here. Thank you so much.
Clara:
Thank you, Doug and Liz, we’re always happy to be here and especially with such a passionate topic. Thank you for, thank you for bringing this up. We’re so happy to be here and we can’t wait to share everything we know about customer service.
Liz:
So yes, it is a very important subject and, you know, we get into our community and we see a lot of different levels of resellers, and especially the new resellers, really trying to find their footing just in selling and, you know, customer service is very often overlooked as part of selling. So when we talk about customer service, what does that mean to the two of you? That’s a loaded question, I know.
Clara:
The customer is always first. Not because we can do it. You should do it now. Is it good for your customer? Do they need it? Do they want it? If you cannot meet those questions…
Amanda:
And for me it means can we meet the customer’s needs to the best of our ability and within what we can offer.
Doug:
Okay. So a lot of people are examples of great customer service. Nordstrom’s was always the model, especially early on. And for you, what are some early examples of companies with great customer service that have stood out to you?
Clara:
Oh, I have to say for me, MailChimp. I have to say incredible company. You send them a message. They reply within 12 hours. It’s a real answer. If it is templated, it’s related to your question. which is very nice. And a smaller one would be…
Amanda:
If we’re talking about a physical store, I think Trader Joe’s is excellent. I also really like Costco. You can tell they’re very customer centric and they really go the extra mile for customers.
Liz:
Yeah. I actually, I was just reading a statement from someone in an online place talking about how above and beyond Trader Joe’s is. I was just reading that yesterday. You’ve already said that the customer is always right. And can you kind of expand on that?
Clara:
Yeah. So, you know, you want to make sure you always listen to your customer, you know, and, and it’s very important that you do active listening. Okay. That’s very, very important, you know, whether you’re communicating with a video or a text, okay. Or audio, you know, it’s very important now, you know, obviously, you know, customer is always right, but make sure they follow terms of service. Sometimes some customers will not follow the terms of service. That’s very different. That’s when you need to take measurements to protect yourself.
Amanda:
The customer is always right is a great mantra to follow as a guideline. I wouldn’t call it the rule. It’s sort of just always have them at the top of your mind. That’s what I think about when I think about the customer’s always right. You know, again, am I going, am I delivering to the best of my ability and what I can offer. Now, there are times that the customer either, you know, maybe asks for something beyond what you could offer, what you promise to offer. And that’s a different story that goes back to Clara’s you know, terms of service example.
Doug:
Yeah. And I think, like you said, if you’ve got that mindset where you’re always thinking about the customer, it kind of just comes naturally. And so you both come from the corporate world, military world, corporate world, but very kind of customer service backgrounds. So how did those backgrounds help you transfer customer service thinking into online selling?
Clara:
Well, for me it fit like a glove. When I came to start helping Amanda, please understand I, by occupation, I studied to become a lawyer. I’m a lawyer. So prior to that, I worked in banking. Okay. I did retention, customer retention in banking for two years. So I’m the step before “I’m going to Sue you.” So this is the customer. “I have my lawyer on the line we’re here, you know, what are you going to do?” So I was customer retention, the one that tried to deescalate. So deescalating issues has been something that I was recognized for in different industries and it was good for me. And then coming with that legal background, when I came as a partner with Amanda, I was able to not only elevate the customer service, but also effectively communicate with buyers that were somehow dissatisfied, maybe with a product. Okay. And they want it, or maybe a partial refund, or sometimes they want to keep the item and a refund, you know, so, you know, so that’s helped me a lot to resolve all those issues effectively. So our business was minimizing returns and losses.
Amanda:
I actually spent time in the corporate world as well. One of my jobs was, first of all, um, I started by renting cars and I was up front at the counter. I really tried to help the customer understand the car that they were getting. And, you know, in that, in that regard, because we were making commissions. So I realized that, wow, by customer service, I deliver really good customer service. I’m going to get more commission so…
Clara:
I like what you told me when I met you. Don’t forget because that’s a tough audience. How are we when we go renting cars? Grumpy!
Amanda:
Plane, train, wherever you came from. And all you want to do is get where you want to go ultimately, and this is like the last stop before getting there. So those customers would not be happy. And especially if something went wrong. So, you know, we would really make sure, I personally would make sure that the customer was…we did the best that we could. I would call around if we didn’t have their vehicle and try to get one transported in just whatever we could do to make that customer’s stay a little better. So, and when you do that, I learned very early, the customer remembers. Somehow you can negate the bad experience, replace it with a good one. And even though it didn’t go according to plan, they’re going to remember that, that experience that you went out of your way for the customer and you delivered above and beyond.
Liz:
For listeners, Amanda and Clara’s story, go back and listen to episode two, if you really want to get deep down into the hole, but you both came from these customer service roles and came together as The Clothing Vault. Well, it was, there was a more before that, but you two ran The Clothing Vault together, online store marketplaces. What were some of your best customer service practices when you ran The Clothing Vault?
Clara:
Wow. Great questions. Okay. Number one, always understand your customer and understand your products. Okay. So once you understand your customer, you can manage expectations. Okay. So I understood my customer that was buying a thousand dollar overcoat wanted a more neat packaging, wanted a more, a better presentation. Someone that buys a hundred dollar new jacket, wanted a better presentation that someone that buys a $200 pre-owned ticket. So I understood. And I asked them when they would leave me four stars. Oh my God. And I would be like, “Hi, this is Clara, the President of The Clothing Vault, and thank you for your feedback.” I would never say that “you left me three, two stars.” One, I would say, “thank you for leaving us feedback.” So, you know, for example, “Hey, I noticed that you mentioned something about shipping. What can I do better?” That’s what I did differently with Amanda always. And we always establish it dialogue, always have a dialogue. Okay. No monologues. You’re not taking an order. The fact that you took an order okay, on your store, that doesn’t mean, you know, that they can, you know, maybe tell you what to do with your product after they deliver. You still have to finish the experience and address and be sure that they’re happy with that product.
Amanda:
When I was selling online, I learned very early that answering the customer’s questions before they ask them is gold in customer service. And when I shifted my mindset, because when you first start out, you don’t really think about your business as a holistic entity. You know, you’re like, okay, let me just list this online and make money. And then could spend money on advertising, getting people in the door, but converting them to an actual buyer is a different process. And so I learned very early on that if I answer the customer’s questions in my listing, before they even ask I’ve closed the sale and that’s good customer service. At the time I was selling, there was a debate on descriptions. At that time, there were people that said you shouldn’t put a big description, be really brief. Nobody reads them anyway. And from my experience, the opposite was true. It was anything, but. People seek out the description. They want their questions answered. They don’t want to go out of their way and message you. And nine times out of 10, if they have to do it, they won’t, they’ll leave and they’ll shop from someone else. I considered the listing as the first step in customer service. And when you think about how is the product I’m using, going to be viewed by the buyer? If it’s a clothing item, am I including the measurements? Am I giving them the opportunity to see if this item will fit them or not? Or am I just going to not provide the measurements? Because it takes too much time, and maybe deal with the return later. Now these are all decisions that you have to make at the very start of when you list something online.
Doug:
So you’re learning and evolving as you go.
Clara:
It’s a dynamic process and we recommend using the listing process. So, if you’re getting too many questions, “does this fit,” “will this fit me,” you know that you need to include measurements. If you’re getting too many questions like, “do you offer expedited shipping?” You need to, maybe a bullet point saying “First Class only, no expedited shipping available.” Use the listing process. To answer, progress proactively instead of being reactive. These customer questions, and you can only do these through this dynamic process of perfectionism, with the listings that you’re creating. That’s what we always recommend templating your listing. So in that way, you can see your evolution.
Amanda:
When you look at Amazon, for example, their listing page. There’s a lot of information on that page. They have questions, answers. They have a full description. They have bullet point entries. The listings are very extensive. If buyers were not reading descriptions, they wouldn’t bother with all this stuff. So clearly it is something that buyers want.
Doug:
So we just talked about learning. So on the opposite end, can you teach customer service?
Clara:
Yes, absolutely. The number one step and easiest way to learn customer service, is empathy, empathy. That’s all you gotta do. Okay. Really, you can’t fake it. You’ve got to make it real. Put yourself in their shoes. Whether it’s, you’re selling $50, pre-owned something, or maybe you’re selling a $500 Ethan Allen at Fernley trailer. Any of those? Okay. I cannot emphasize, I cannot emphasize on that.
Amanda:
Yeah. That, it’s very important because when you start selling online and if you get it, really, if you start getting a barrage of questions, then you’re probably missing something in your process. Either your description needs work or, you know, maybe you need to pay more attention to your listing or something. But if you, if you get into a cycle of having too many questions to answer, now, if you’re selling 50,000 items and you’re going to have a lot of questions, no doubt. But if you have a relatively low number of listings and you’re getting a lot of questions on those, you know, you have to be careful about trying to go too fast because your time is money now at the, you know, meanwhile, you save time on your listing and you’re spending it on the questions. And then you’re probably going to have less empathy. You’re going to try to read through them quickly. And higher rates of returns. So if you take a little bit of time and think about empathy, it’s good. You’re going to start changing the way that you do things in your entire business.
Clara:
And let’s say that you don’t want to apply empathy. So “Clara, no, I don’t want to do empathy. I think it’s overrated.” So instead of doing empathy, do active listening. Okay. So, or active reading of their questions. So if we leave empathy aside. Okay. No need to put any emotions. Okay. So what we’re doing now is actively reading. Okay. So “give me a partial refund of $50 because you know, the color is salmon pink and I wanted Pepto Bismol pink.” I don’t know. You know because you have no idea. I’ve gotten weirdest requests. So this is what I mentioned, you know, when I say to active listening, you know, okay, so color for this person is very important that that’s, this marketplace is this a sale that was done in my, in my website, in the marketplace. Can we get them to send a picture? Okay. So please, could you send the picture? Open them to talk? So as long as you have the dialogue and you ask questions, asking questions in sales is control. You’ve got control. Now, when they are asking you to do things, they’ve got the control. So you need to be always sure that you ask the questions so you can understand, whether you’re using empathy or not truly and in depth, that issue.
Liz:
I get it. I, I see that so much. Yeah. Both of you worked in person, customer service for the most part. Right. How have you seen customer service evolve online?
Clara:
Can I say devolve? I can say devolve. Okay. I’m going to say devolve because unfortunately there is this hope and wish that artificial intelligence will address your concerns and what we’re finding unfortunately, ever since they’re using AI or bots. Unfortunately we’re finding automated responses that are not applicable to the situation and that creates a lot of frustration because AI, the first part of AI is machine learning. What is the machine gonna learn? You know, if you’re having not the best practices. So, we are seeing at least, I’m sorry, let me speak for myself. I’m going to see for myself, it went a little down. Okay. I wish companies would still hire real customer service reps to manage accurately the demands that they’re facing.
Amanda:
Yeah. I think that, I agree with Clara in that customer service has devolved and you know, what’s, what’s interesting to me is that a lot of online customer service has suffered because what you’re finding is massive sales teams in online services and a reduction in the customer service side of things. So it’s, it’s very unbalanced. Like they put a lot of effort into getting customers in the door, but then once they’re in, they just drop the ball and they think, “okay, well we have this bot, this AI bot, where if you type in your question, well, we’ll feed you some articles that we wrote.” Or maybe it’s like a little chat bot, but it’s at the end of the day, a bot. And I have rarely seen where that actually works to answer your question. And some do if you really put a lot of effort and energy into it, some of them do, but they fall short.
Clara:
For basic things. Yes. For basic things. Yes. But then when it gets real, it doesn’t work. So that’s what we saw about currently servicing. Not all companies are like that. I want to, I want to highlight for example, Salesforce. Okay. Incredible. And their sales, incredible. What, an incredible way to grow your company. Marc Benioff, you know, incredible.
Amanda:
I’ll give you an example of something that happened to me. This is real. I have a Zoom account. It’s a paid account. I’m not free. So I had, I had an issue with something, there was a bug, there was a glitch and I tried contacting customer support. I filled out the support form. I think four times I got automated emails back for three months saying due to a large demand in Zoom, we’re trying to get to your inquiry, but we still can’t. And then finally I got one saying, “well, we’ve, we’ve just closed your case. There’s no resolution. Can’t resolve it, sorry.”
Clara:
Something like due to your inactivity, we closed your case. So yeah, those, those, we could think of those examples, but like we said, you know, it’s not everybody. We’ve seen incredible examples of, but unfortunately we don’t see to be the majority. And especially in technology Liz, okay. For us providing a tech service, that’s, what I’m seeing right now, you know, lack of interest to provide an above and beyond customer service in a different method. What they’re doing is different. You know, it’s just, we find it to be very expensive and taxing not only expensive, we find that also that it’s very taxing on the community because you’re always worrying about new customers, new sign-ups instead of retaining what you have. That’s what we do best with Amanda. We retain. Not only we do new signups, but we’re constantly, trying to retain our existing customers very proactively.
Amanda:
When I was in the corporate world, there was this belief that customer service wasn’t revenue generating, they would always throw around that term. It’s not revenue generating and it boggles my mind, it’s not revenue generating. That’s how your customers keep coming back. It makes no sense when I would hear that. So you know, that, that was something that always stuck with me that I want to make sure that we never look at any department as non-revenue generating, if there’s a benefit for the customer.
Doug:
So one of the big kudos we hear about List Perfectly is the customer service. So let’s talk about List Perfectly for a minute. With List Perfectly, you’re more customer service oriented than ever. How has that approach changed since you’ve started the business? How are things different now?
Clara:
Great question Doug. I think it has changed in a way that we matured and now we go even deeper if there is an issue than before. Okay. If there was an issue, I would be like, “okay, I’m going to try to help you and hey did it work?” Okay. And if I didn’t hear back from you, I would let it go. Now I’m like, my customer service team will go, you know, community will go, you know, we’ll try different channels. We are very proactive in, again, you know, not only getting new customers, but retaining and understanding what our existing customers need.
Amanda:
And I think that now we understand that our customers work at all hours of the night. They’re not just working during normal business hours. So we work really hard to make sure that we can provide them a method to get answers to their questions. When you know, maybe customer support isn’t online. That’s really important that no one should have to wait hours for a response just because it’s in the middle of the night.
Clara:
That is so true. Let’s not forget what you built. What we, what Amanda did, what I love about customer service that we did with List Perfectly, is the way that we have, “or you can resolve the issue yourself.” Okay. Or “skip and go to our team.” Okay. So we always wanted to have the option to resolve the issue. So your business is going and growing at all times.
Liz:
For those listening that may not know whether a new customer or a customer that’s never faced an issue before you can actually go to List Perfectly, go to Contact Us. And you have the option to do like a self-help and it’ll run you through, hey, what are you having a problem with? I’m having a problem with A, okay, have you tried B? And I’m like, “oh no. Oh, well that fixed it.” I don’t even have to go forward. But if I wanted to, I could, I can provide screenshots. I can provide a video recording, which I feel is so important. It’s not just a video recording, but what you have done is that built in recorder. I don’t have to be like, well, let me open, you know, my QuickTime and record it and download it and save it and upload it. I don’t have to do any of that. So you’ve made it super easy. And I’m going to give you a shout out because I’ve seen this happen time and time again, I hear List Perfectly… Okay. This is a Liz rant in the middle of your interview. So I would apologize, but I’m really not sorry for saying, but there is in that Contact Us, there is a Feature Request. I have been customers of many companies. And when they say, “hey, let us know what you think,” I will. There’s different sites that I use. It’s like, “tell us what you think.” And you just, okay, I think this, you have a feature request. You’d be like, “hey, I would love to see this.” I cannot tell you how many times I have logged into List Perfectly and been like, “oh, somebody just asked for that in the Facebook group, like three days ago.” And it’s there, like, how is that for customer service? So anyways, kudos, I think that is absolutely amazing.
Clara:
Thank you. We love doing that weekly, weekly. We make sure we read those and that we take notes, we analyze what’s best for the community. And then we make decisions and implement it.
Amanda:
Yeah. And e-commerce is constantly changing. So we are with it. Can’t tell you how many times platforms add new features. They make changes. And we love that. We love evolving with, along with everyone else. And it’s, it’s quite a journey. It will never end. So please send us your feedback requests.
Doug:
And I think there’s two things going on there. It shows that you are listening to the customers, but Liz and I obviously have a little bit of inside exposure cause we work with you so closely. But a lot of times you already have these features in mind or you’ve been working on them or you anticipate that, you know, that’s the direction that things are going to go. So it’s that balance of listening and then anticipating, like you said earlier.
Liz:
On that anticipation part. Think of it. How many times I’ve logged in and been like, “oh, I don’t even know what this is.” And then a week later I’m like, “how did I ever live without this? How did they know?” How did, like, I didn’t even know that this was a thing. Right? And then I’m like, wait, wow, I really did need this. And I didn’t even know it. So I appreciate it. Clara and Amanda, what influence do you think Amazon and Amazon Prime, I know you mentioned it a little bit ago, have had on the way customer service is done online?
Amanda:
So everything fast, fast, and you know, we don’t want to wait and I’m glad that you talked about this because the speed at which you get the product that you’ve ordered online matters, and that is part of customer service. It really is. I’m shocked at how many sellers there are out there that still use the slower shipping method and the offer. And I think it’s good to give your customers choice, but I don’t know of any customer that’s happy with slow shipping, unless…I have one example in my entire time selling. And it was someone who was out of the country. They, they wanted the item. They specifically did not want it to arrive anytime soon, they asked for the slowest shipping available, but that was one time in 17 years of selling. So I think that for, for me, what it means with Amazon Prime is fast shipping. What about you?
Clara:
That’s what it is. And, I have to say, you know, when you have a customer service concern, you know, it’s nice as a buyer because they issue immediately a refund. Okay. So as a seller, as an Amazon seller, we do not support Amazon, but I know that’s an issue. We do have at List Perfectly many Amazon sellers because they get returns and they cannot resell on Amazon. So they resell it on any of the platforms we offer, so that ease, you know, that’s one thing that I do see, but they do not go deep on the customer service issue.
Doug:
List Perfectly does go deep. And part of that amazing customer service that List Perfectly has is what we refer to as the List Perfectly Community. So what do you think has made the List Perfectly community so successful?
Clara:
A combination of things, it was a combination of things. You can’t say one thing, because it was the magic of the combination of being at the right place at the right time, with the right attitude, with the right product, with the right team. It’s like, you have to have that determination every day to understand that the community needs you daily. And we knew, I knew very early, what kind of community I wanted to foster and I wanted something different. I wanted a community, that understood that I need them. And I’m looking forward for your feedback in your support so I can grow the company. And that was crucial for me. And I think that was very nice of the community to give me all that back.
Amanda:
And I think early on, we realized that what we were going to deliver the product we were going to deliver really required a two-way communication between us and our seller community. not only to help us shape the product, but also the product that List Perfectly is, it runs on individual computers in browsers through, a gambit of internet speeds. And there’s a lot on so many different marketplaces where any one of them could make a change that affects List Perfectly. So we really need that dialogue to continue. We knew that very early on. So that’s something that we were very, very emphatic about supporting is, you know, the two way dialogue and we need it. Even today. We need the everyone to, you know…customer service is a two-way street. I heard of some people who want no customer service, they just want something to work. Well, sometimes it doesn’t work like that. I mean, in the real world, it’s, it just doesn’t work like that. Like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to contact eBay about something or a marketplace as a seller. I know it’s a two way conversation. And so we always wanted to foster that, that sometimes things go wrong, reach out to us, but be willing to work with us. It is a two way street.
Liz:
What do you feel is the future of online customer service?
Clara:
Oh, we have a very clear idea.
Amanda:
We do but as far as the industry, we don’t know if the industry will agree with us, but, for the industry as a whole, I see more AI coming. I see less customer service agents being available. I think that we are going to have to get used to a world where our customers may not be answered in the time that you would expect. And so we might have to turn to the community more and more for answers, but that’s not what Clara and I believe in for List Perfectly. We see things the opposite.
Clara:
Wait to see what we’re going to do in customer service. Oh my God. You have seen nothing. Again, we’re not gonna reinvent the wheel. What we do is with List Perfectly, yes, it’s innovation Okay. But what we do is use the existing ingredients and tools. Okay. We just use it differently. That’s all we do. So I can’t wait. We’re coming up with very, very big projects for customer service to make it even better, faster, intuitive, you name it. Okay. But that’s, yes, that’s where List Perfectly will put, our effort, and money. Customer service is paramount for us because we don’t have a sales team, our customer service, is our sales team.
Liz:
That customer retention that you have.
Amanda:
Yeah. And it’s the same thing with a reseller. We knew as resellers, that it takes a lot of energy to get a buyer, to look at your product, to get them to convert, to buy, is a whole other set of skills. And then to get them to refer your shop to their friends, is an entirely different set of skills and that’s customer service. There is a statistic that a good experience friends will tell seven of their other friends, a bad experience, friends will tell all of their friends…
Clara:
At least 20, at least, at least at least 20 people…
Amanda:
And go on social media.
Clara:
I think that’s what’s happening with online. Okay. Communities and so forth right now in the old days, you could disregard customer service, but now with people having a voice, okay. That’s what social media did. Okay. Give a voice to people like us, okay that back in the day was you had to go through the Better Business Bureau. You don’t remember with a lawyer on some floor and you know, some kind of ombudsman or something like that. Right. But now social media, it’s a very effective tool for customers okay, to communicate their needs and their wants, okay, what the companies are working for.
Doug:
Hand in hand with that, what are some special challenges that online sellers face in terms of customer service? Maybe some things they don’t think about, but what are the challenges?
Clara:
I can say for my side of the challenges, I would say it’s fraud. Okay. I would say that’s the number one. Okay. So you need to work proactively to avoid fraud because any kind of change. Okay. Or kind of manipulation okay. Of a factor, your product or anything it’s fraud, that’s it. It’s simple as that. Okay. So I think that’s the biggest challenge in customer service and asking the right questions. Use your passport to try to reduce that fraud. Okay. Ask questions. Marketplaces, all of them–they have a legal and compliance department. They are reading these they’re really, I cannot even tell you. I’ll never forget to, eBay when I brought that up, the person that I was doing, buying constantly with buyer and return, and I knew he was returning different items. So then he would leave me a bad feedback, you know? So I’ll never forget that I sent a message to eBay and I looked at the profile of this person and literally it was all negative feedback left. And I’m like, interesting. So apparently every eBay transaction of this person, okay, it’s a negative experience. Why does he keep coming back and within 48 hours, you know, my negative feedback disappeared. eBay apologized, they couldn’t do anything with regards to a refund. Okay. But they prevented… and I asked them, “hey, can you communicate? You know, that, you know, he could work proactively before leaving a negative feedback with the seller.” Okay. Leaving a negative feedback is the last resort. And that’s what I wanted from marketplaces and in this case eBay. And that’s what I think with all the marketplaces and it works all the time, they are marketplaces that wanna support sellers. And they want to make sure, obviously, if it is one negative feedback, that’s a difficult thing to do, you know? But other than that, I have that very positive experience, you know? And that’s the only thing, protect yourself from fraud. What would you say?
Amanda:
I would say it’s challenging to keep up with the constant questions, and it can get, you can suffer burnout as a seller. If a lot of these questions don’t convert into a sale, but keep in mind that you’re doing with your dialogue is you are selling in that dialogue with your customer. As you communicate with that customer who is asking a lot of questions and maybe they, they might be something that you’ve already presented in your listing. And you know, you’re thinking in the back of your head, well, why didn’t they just read the listing? And it happens, you know, people just miss things, but always assume that the buyer didn’t see something in your listing or answer their question, have empathy, like Clara said, and then you’re selling, you are selling that customer. It will probably have a higher chance of converting.
Liz:
I can think of a hundred different times when somebody has asked that question, what’s the total length of this dress? And you just want to be like, “did you not see the measurement and the picture and listed,” but you know, that’s not the right thing to do. It’s easy to do that and be like, “I already did all the work copy and pasted, hey, here you go. I hope this works out for you.” That is so much less effort.
Clara:
And please let me know if you have any other questions. “We’re happy to help.” Always say that you close it always with another question. Never say “yes,” “no,” and that’s it. Then you ask them another question. “Is there anything else you need?” Always. Okay. That’s important. Yeah. Those are. “Tell me more.” I call them the “tell me more” questions. Are you real? Okay. Even if you are a seller with thousands of sales, okay. If I’m going to buy, I don’t know, a Louis Vuitton, okay, $10,000 coat. Let me send you a question that says, “do you offer free shipping?” I’m going to do that. I’m going to try it. That’s how buyers are. But that’s in you to flip that question into, “can I do something else?”
Liz:
And I don’t really know where the line is because I think it would be unfair to say a new seller versus an experienced seller because I found some new sellers just walk right in and kill it. And then I’ve seen some sellers that have sold longer than me that I’m like, ehhhhhh…So I think it would be unfair to pin new versus old seller. But with that being said, the new seller versus the older seller, sometimes when you’re new, it’s hard to see yourself as a business. You see yourself as Liz in her basement hawking t-shirts right. And not, oh, I am running coloradoreworn, a business, providing customer service listings, advertising all of this stuff. So how important is it for online sellers to think of themselves as businesses and why is this important?
Clara:
Very, very important I would say critical. It’s the most important thing that you’re going to face, okay, when you come to e-commerce. Okay. If you do not see yourself as a business. Okay. And you see yourself just as a, maybe a person doing this for maybe a hobby part-time or something temporary. Okay. That’s okay. But when you’re a business to stay objective, to apply empathy patience, okay. And all of those good traits that you need for customer service, you need to think of yourself, as a business. You’re not Liz right now. You’re coloradoreworn. If you think like Liz, you’re going to get emotions and you want to keep your heart for your family and friends. And then you keep your brains for your business. When you think as a business, okay, you’re going to use, okay, your brain. And you’re not going to get emotional. Even when someone is telling you, “you sold me a knockout,” you know, and you sent me something broken, you know, and come on, we’ll take pride in what we do. Right. So when they tell us your service sucks, your product sucks, okay. It hurts. But when you think as a business, you’re like, wait, red alert. I gotta listen, I got ask questions. Okay. And resolve the issue. That’s how, and that’s, I think is the most important thing of thinking of yourself as a person or a business when you’re in e-commerce.
Amanda:
And to tag along with that, it’s critical to think, even if you’re just selling one pair of shoes out of your house, you have a buyer who’s a stranger on the other side, they’re expecting you to treat it like a business. And so if nothing else think of your buyer, think about the experience that they have opening up the package to be excited to get that pair of shoes that, that you know, is, is from your home to theirs. I always thought about that. I always thought, wow. You know, my buyers are very excited to get their items there. They’re excited to open their package. Let’s make it fun, you know, a great experience for them.
Doug:
So Clara and Amanda, anything to add?
Clara:
Yeah. I would love to add that we think that customer service is so important. Okay. For the growth, for the healthy and steady growth of any business. Okay. And especially if you want to do it without debt or and so forth like that, that we are so proud that we support so much a community that now we announced they Community Reseller Awards. Okay. So it’s something that we’re going to be rewarding people for the community, for the community spirit, there is nothing new they need to do, it’s what they’ve been doing already. You’ve seen our group, you’ve seen our Facebook, our Instagram. So we have a very high level of engagement and we like that it’s organic. So that’s something, that’s a latest project that we have to support the community in to get that dialogue with the community even deeper. So we can exceed our customer service expectations for each customer.
Liz:
I love it. That’s going to be so much fun following all of the content and feedback coming from those awards. That’s gonna be so fun to watch.
Amanda:
Yeah. I mean, our community is amazing and it’s, it’s really, I have to give kudos to Clara. She’s really fostered community. Liz, you’ve been doing an incredible job. Doug, I mean, everything that we’re all doing to, to foster the community is just, it’s really touching. It’s touching to see from, from my perspective, you know, this was Clara and I’s…List Perfectly was just an idea several years ago. And you can see where it is now. It’s just, it’s incredible. And to see how the community is all gathering together to help one another. This wasn’t around when I was selling online, it was a little, but not what it is today at all.
Liz:
It’s been great watching it grow just over the last two years. It’s been almost two years since I found List Perfectly almost. But yeah, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but just the growth in that, when you think about the time and all of the reseller friends that have grown in this community, has been freaking amazing. You know, I’ll talk to somebody and they’re like, “oh yeah, List Perfectly. I heard about them two years ago. I’m going to go sign up because I remember hearing what they said at Open almost two years ago.” And they remember that. So clearly that customer, whatever you did for customer service or customer experience two years ago is still hanging on as of a week ago. So clearly there’s something awesome going on there and it’s continued.
Clara:
Thank you, Liz.
Doug:
It’s really quite a journey. The guerrilla marketing at eBay Open…
Clara:
Oh my shoulders. Oh my God. I did not have money to get into eBay Open at that time, only Amanda. Okay. So I was doing the guerilla market at the entrance. You know, my shoulders were coming out of their sockets. I was passing so many flyers. Oh my goodness. It was an experience. Then we did some presentations, Amanda did some amazing presentations. It was an incredible experience.
Liz:
So looking back, we just said, List Perfectly has grown so much in the last two years. What do you wish you knew then that you know now?
Clara:
I wish I would have been more proactive. Okay. And more actively pursuing, okay, my customers to understand, okay, in depth, the issues they were experiencing. Now, I got that down. I don’t let go until I get it to them until I cannot reproduce it. Okay. Backwards and forwards. I don’t let go. I don’t, I want to help. I want to help. And I’m going to, I’m going to reach out to you in any post. And that’s what I wish I could have known that. It’s like I was very superficial before when I was doing customer service. So even though I was, you guys say that I was really good and so forth, I feel that I have evolved from being a little more superficial, that to go really in depth. Like literally I have no problem to stop the whole company. I’m like, “wait, we’re going to go for this issue because this issue is affecting everybody.” We’re going to stop any, any new product. And, before I don’t think we had that balance we didn’t know how should we go? Let’s do new signups. Okay. Let’s retain, oh, what should we do? You know? So now we got that balance to the T and it takes a team.
Amanda:
I wish I knew the demand that would be there for the product ahead of time because, oh, man, when we actually launched prior to eBay Open and you know, it was, it was initially, it was pretty, pretty tough going, you know, a lot of people would be like, “uhh, just do this manually, I don’t need any software for that.” Then, you know, but a lot of people like when they got it, they got it. Right. But it wasn’t until eBay Open and the subsequent YouTube interview that it really exploded. I wish I knew how much it would explode so that everybody back then would have had a very smooth and seamless experience. We didn’t know.
Clara:
We didn’t know. I thought I would be twisting your arm, “please. please don’t go.” I never thought I would be…and then the worst part was after eBay Open, not only you guys came to use List Perfectly, you were literally on the first week you guys were using it all day. They, they use it! I was like, “these people don’t sleep.” I don’t know you were having the whole family cross posting, and everybody was like obsessively, so this all of a sudden, we have 1500 new accounts that are excessively using the product and they want more.
Amanda:
Yeah. And so yeah, if I had known back then, you know what, that’s, that’s a good lesson because even in a small reseller business, if you have something that you find out is like, like super high demand and you’re not prepared for it. I mean, that’s a good problem to have obviously, but it’s also a lesson to make sure that you have the foundation that you need, expect that if you put all the fundamentals in place, you have the right product, you have your customer service nailed down. There’s going to be tremendous demand. And you lay that foundation. You’re going to have a successful business.
Clara:
Let me tell you what is the right product? The right product is the one that is described accurately in your listing. That’s it. Or when you disclose it in your website or whatever, that’s the right product. The rest is customer service.
Liz:
So what some people don’t know is in the early days, like Clara said, they were expecting 200, boom. They were hit with 1500 customers. One because they built a product that worked. They got a handful of people to sign up and they believed in what you built. And they told their friends and they told their friends and they told their friends. But the customer service part that some don’t know about is List Perfectly actually had to stop new signups to retain the customers so that their paying customers did not lose service. Now, and I remember in the community, there was a little bit of an uproar like, “what do you mean I can’t sign up? What am I going to do with this If I can’t even sign up?” And that’s when people were like, well, they’re helping, their paying customers to make sure that it doesn’t break. And then as you said, “okay, we can handle this. Then we’ll onboard another handful of people.” And you know what, people waited because people that were using it got a product that was a hundred percent, they got the customer service above and beyond what they expected, for lack of a better term for a startup. Right. Which gets people on the waiting list going “okay, I’ll wait.” So I think that that’s a huge kudos in the early days of List Perfectly to be able to do that, to recognize that right off the bat and implement that customer service.
Amanda:
Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That was critical to us. You know, I know that there’s a lot of companies that don’t think about that experience. You know, when you’re are especially reseller, whatever business you’re running, it is all a holistic process. And, if you focus too much on the sales funnel and you’re letting the other areas suffer, then that’s a recipe for disaster in any business.
Clara:
I found to be unprofitable. And I want to add something. I have a special story to tell you guys that nobody knows, okay. Exclusive for our podcast. Okay. So right after the 1500 signups, okay. Amanda gets a blazing fever. I couldn’t get a word out of her. So for 48 hours I was doing tech support, customer service. I want to remind you because we thought it would be 200 people. So it’s 1500. We put a lock on the new signups. Okay. She goes, sick and I got to take support, customer service. And community. At that time we didn’t have instructions. In two days I slept two hours. And I didn’t even know, the last day I was like when she felt better, what am I, what are these issues, sign up, who are you?
Liz:
You’re pumping her full of medicine, going, “please, I need my business partner back. Please get better soon.”
Clara:
Well, no, I wouldn’t even say I was thinking about it because I knew she she’s already hard on herself. So I was like ” just stay away from me.” I was servicing our 1500, imagine once you have those 1500 customers, I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m not going to let go. I’m just going to do whatever it takes. But yeah, for 48 hours, I slept only two hours. So I could take care of everything. And I will never forget. That was the hardest thing I ever done. Even harder than literally it’s even harder than being an immigrant easier to get a green card. Let me tell you, okay. That’s how hard it was…
Liz:
So there. you have it all 1500 people signed up because of Clara. Amanda we’re glad you could pull through, and then you could be a part of the team one day. I think the two of you have, I mean, not that you need my kudos and not that I speak for the community. I think the community speaks for themselves, but I mean, you’ve just done such a wonderful job. You can see it in, you know, the Facebook group posts you can see on Instagram. You can just see it, the fact that people organically, just because I follow the hashtag List Perfectly on my Instagram. And I find new users that are just like, “oh my gosh, I just found this really cool thing.” Or, “oh my gosh, this is so cool.” So you’ve really built that community. And I think that you’ve been able to do that from the great customer service that you’ve provided. Like you said, with the retention and the growth he came naturally.
Doug:
It’s Really not a List Perfectly community. It’s an online seller community. And it’s like, it’s not just people that come and need help or have questions about List Perfectly. They come to the List Perfectly community when they can’t get help from some of the platforms they’ll come. “I can’t get help with eBay.” “I can’t get help with Facebook marketplace.” They have these questions or they come for help. They come for advice and guidance and that’s, I mean, that’s core to a community and you have developed an amazing community.
Clara:
Thank you. Thank you so much. It means a lot because we have, representatives from all the platforms in our group. So we want to make sure for legal reasons, you know, it’s a safe environment. People can read feedback. And for example, you just did Liz. one about eBay. I love what you did. Okay. That’s a very, very good way to communicate okay to companies, what we need.
Amanda:
And what we really are after is for sellers to be successful. And to be successful, there’s something that I’ve always said that I love hearing this from other people are saying it as long have been saying it, but so I don’t want to say I’m the only one that says it, but I really believe that the internet is big enough for all of us sellers. And when you stop thinking about other sellers as competition and start thinking about all of us as community, we band together, we help each other through challenges. It’s a lonely life. If you’re just selling alone in your home and you don’t have a community to turn to on a bad day, customers can sometimes be very demanding of your resources, your time, your energy. And it’s nice to know that you can come to a community and get support.
Doug:
Well, thank you, Clara and Amanda, for joining us to talk about customer service. This was an awesome talk. We were very excited to have you back on. You’ll be back again many times and we’re thankful for all of the insights and we covered a lot customer service, community learning, evolution.
Clara and Amanda:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Liz:
I just want to say thank you so much, Amanda Clara for giving us your insight on both, you know, upfront customer service, outside of reselling the reselling customer service and a business customer service, kind of like just did this huge scope and really what I learned is customer service is customer service. Do right, do right. Retain your customers. And so for that, thank you so much.
Clara and Amanda:
Thank you guys. Thank you so much for having us. It was a pleasure to be here with you. Yeah. Thank you.
Seller Shout Outs
Doug:
So Liz, seller shout outs, but you came up with this idea last week that we launched and a few people hopped on it, but we want to keep it going. So what is it you’ve decided to call it?
Liz:
I think I called it a challenge, but it’s not necessarily a challenge. Really what we want to do is get you motivated for social media posts. So social media motivation. Especially for those that are new to social media, especially Instagram that have no idea what to post about, or for those that are experienced and just come up with mental roadblocks of what should I be posting. So this week, or this past week, we came up with a hashtag to use and post about every day of the week. And we had a couple of people follow along.
Doug:
And like you said, too, it’s always a challenge to come up with what to post. Pros me back to my friends to dog’s digs a couple of years ago at this social media panel, they came up and super cool guys, such personality, such great stories. And they’re like, “we don’t know what to post. What do we do?” Be yourselves, and tell your story. And they’ve been doing that for two or three years now. And they’ve got a huge YouTube channel that are awesome on Instagram. But it’s like you and I were saying, social media is part of what we do and we’re always on there. But even for us, it’s a challenge to come up with stuff and tie it into a hashtag, tie it into some ideas and just some guidance, I guess, to get you content. So obviously Liz was, you know, the overachiever every morning, first thing she would have her post up. So she had a couple of great posts this week. My favorite was the Air Force post, right before you went in. Cool picture. The outfit, the hair, awesome. And then obviously service to your country, which is very respectful. Thank you for that. But the outfit and the hair very, very fashionable at the time. Actually, that might be back en vogue now. The mom jeans.
Liz:
I’m pretty sure that outfit would sell for $300 on Depop today.
Doug:
Don’t you wish you still had it.
Liz:
I wish I still had it and I would have sold it in a heartbeat. Cause Lord knows that wouldn’t fly with me now. But that’s, what’s really fun about social media. You’re giving people like your posts, a picture of you and your dad from way back when. You know, you’re kind of giving your customer a sense of who they’re buying from. And I think that that ties really well into what Clara and Amanda was just saying also with customer service, you know, part of customer service is personal. So when people, when you post personal stuff like that, you know, it’s giving your buyers a sense of, “Hey, I’m a real person!”
Doug:
Exactly. The face behind the business and, you know, building your personal brand too. And it’s fun. It just ties it together.
Liz:
It really does. We had some great, well just the entire week was full of great participation and great posts. I, learned some things and learned a little bit more about our community,
Doug:
You know, who had an awesome post and tip? No surprise, Teresa with the taking the picture on the scale. Yeah. I hadn’t even, I’d have never thought of that one.
Liz:
And she learned it from seller team thrifts. She’s on Instagram. A high schooler selling from home.
Doug:
Wow.
Liz:
Well, she just graduated this past year or the year before, but she had just graduated high school. And she’s running a business and Teresa posted a tip, “Hey, take a picture of your item on the scale. So that way you can put it away. And when you go to list it, you know how much it weighs.” And she learned that from teen thrifts, the community, helping the community.
Doug:
It’s a great tip too, because that’s something that you taught me is like, you got to think about little things that can cut steps out and save you time and have this here. They have this. They’re like your photo station, your shipping station. Don’t have it in another room of the house where you’ve got to run upstairs, have it all right there. And what was cool about that is that shows me that Teresa and sellers like you, you’re both still learning and still open to learning, which is great.
Liz:
As sellers, even experienced sellers that have 18, 19, 25 plus years selling, there’s always something to learn. There are always improvements in our processes due to technology due to growth. So experienced sellers, don’t quit learning and don’t dismiss new sellers or young sellers. That’s what we’re here for. We’re all learning from each other.
Doug:
You and I participated, Teresa club, red 97, participated Mertini.Mercantile participated, a new player in our little game.
Liz:
Yes, I love it.
Doug:
And we talked about this. We want to keep this going. So we want to see more participation. So let’s talk about what do we want to do next week?
Liz:
Next week post with the hashtag seller community podcast, tag me @coloradoreworn, Doug @snoop.dougie and @lisperfectly on Instagram, if you wish. Extra credit, if you post on Facebook and extra, extra, extra credit, if you post in the List Perfectly group
Doug:
And then today. So let’s go through some of these and give, maybe give some quick examples. And then there’s a fun other list that we got from Tracy Lee Davis of Zing Pop Social Media. But so today, Wednesday let’s do Wellness Wednesday. Not too much guidance, but so what’s your interpretation of Wellness Wednesday, Liz? What would you put?
Liz:
Oh, my goodness! Wellness can mean so much to so many people. It could be, you know, maybe our older community taking their daily vitamins to stay healthy. You out on a walk, working out, doing some self-care, whatever wellness means to you. I know what mine would be. It would be me out walking my dog, which is like every fifth post on Instagram.
Doug:
That’s right. And that’s what you do weekly. And you’re like the mail lady, rain, sleet, snow, sun, Colorado. You’ll walk the dog. We’ve seen all the pictures, but that’s fun and when you listen to your podcasts, we know that. What about, so Thankful Thursday, what are you thankful for?
Liz:
I’m thankful for a lot. You’ll have to follow me on Instagram to see. So yeah, Friday reads Catterday or Doggerday or Dougerday
Speaker 1:
Sorry, Mer! Mer can post a Dougerday instead of Doggerday.
Doug:
Then another extra Dougerday. If you are so inclined. I know some Catterday, you know, we don’t want to discriminate against the dogs. Some people are dog people. So, if you want to share a photo of your pet, Catterday or Doggerday.
Liz:
Or any other animal that you may have a picture of in your phone,
Doug:
Fishday?
Liz:
Fishday. Sunday Fun-day, Marketing Monday and Travel Tuesday.
Doug:
So we all know there’s a day for everything. And there are multiple things on the same days. If you don’t want to go to the hashtags, you could also go June 23rd with Let it Go Day, the 24th Upcycling day, the 25th is for you. You do this every day. Take your dog to work day, Pineapple day, Ceviche day, and this is one that I like, Waffle Iron day.
Liz:
Nice!
Doug:
Yeah, but, this is great. So use those hashtags use those days, if you like. And then thanks again to Tracy Lee Davis of Zing Pop Social for these cool content ideas with this is a fun thing. Let’s try and keep it going and keep it growing.
Liz:
Yes. It’s been a fun week!
Doug:
Do you have your post planned for today? You probably already have it up.
Liz:
I’m slacking today, Doug.
Doug:
Well you’ve had a busy week, Liz.
Liz:
Yeah. It’s been a busy week, but I already know what it’s going to be and I will be posting it shortly. And I’ve got the rest of the week planned out, thanks to Tracy.
Doug:
So you know, Liz that listeners can leave a review for us at apple podcasts, if that’s where you choose to listen. And we’ve got a bunch of great reviews and the reviews are helpful because that tells us what you like, what you don’t like. And we’ve had a lot of positive reviews. So I thought maybe we could share some with our listeners.
Liz:
I think that sounds great. I actually really like reading these reviews. It lets me know, Hey, people are listening and responding and I really appreciate the feedback.
Doug:
All right, Liz, let’s read some reviews.
Liz:
Listener Howdy Ho Neighbor Oh, says “This is gold. Informative and really entertaining. Hosts get into a great flow. First guest was awesome, too. Excited I found this when I was just getting started.” So thanks so much for that. It’s always great to hear. Thank you.
Doug:
Here’s Cool gal 20, 20, 20, “Informative and fun. It’s rare to get both information and entertainment when it comes to reselling. It’s usually one or the other. This has both. Liz and Doug are incredible hosts with such chemistry. So excited for what’s to come with this.” That’s a nice one.
Liz:
Okay. So this is one I really love too. This is what I think Doug and I really liked to hear and what really motivates us to come up with great content for the community comes from Michelle joy26 “Love how our community is using all the tools in our toolbox to support each other.”
Doug:
That’s why we do it.
Liz:
Yeah! So please leave us a review.
Doug:
If there’s something you don’t like, let us know something. You want to see more of, less of let us know. We love honest reviews.
Seller News
Liz:
Doug, what do we have for the news this week?
Doug:
Well, there’s some interesting stuff, Liz. Some of it’s surprising, some of it’s not. I think one we’re going to work into, we don’t want to turn it into a debate, but we can also work it into a little teaser of what’s to come that I think everybody’s going to be excited about.
Liz:
Yes.
Doug:
So first of all, and I don’t know why I want to see what you think. I don’t know why this surprised me. It kind of did, but kind of didn’t. Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the world’s largest retailer.
Liz:
That’s crazy.
Doug:
That is crazy. It’s crazy too, because Walmart has so many brick and mortar locations and is in every city everywhere. So did this surprise you Liz, or what do you think?
Liz:
You know, when you look at retailers as a whole, when you look at brick and mortar, along with online, Walmart has such a large brick and mortar and online presence to where Amazon has a huge online presence. Even though Walmart allows third party sellers, just like Amazon, but Amazon’s taking it over. You know, I want to say It doesn’t surprise me because of all of the tools Amazon owns or all of the products that Amazon owns, like the echo, like the streaming services. So really that kind of doesn’t surprise me. I can’t tell you the last time I stepped foot in a Walmart and I have never shopped on the walmart.com site.
Doug:
Whether we like it or not, Amazon really dictates the market. And a lot of that is due to Amazon Prime. It really changed the way we do things online. They’ve really beefed up that membership, they own whole foods. So that’s kind of an offline and online presence. You know, they really leaned into grocery delivery last year. So Amazon made 10 billion in profits, mostly fueled by their cloud computing business. I think that’s their highest money generator to tell the truth. And up from 3 billion the year before.
Liz:
Wow! Yeah. Sometimes we forget about that, that Amazon does that cloud service, it’s just not something that we see when we log into the site and make our daily household purchases.
Doug:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it’s Amazon, Walmart, and then you know who number three is? Guess
Liz:
Who’s number three.
Doug:
Alibaba
Liz:
Okay. That doesn’t surprise me.
Doug:
Home Depot did well. Lowe’s has done well. TJ Maxx and Ross doing well. A couple of those I bet are based around reseller traffic!
Liz:
Poshmark sellers, rejoice! They are rolling out bulk share, bulk price reducer in increaser and bulk offers to likers.
Doug:
That’s cool.
Liz:
So, it’s on a roll-out basis. Take your app, make sure that it stays up to date. I just got it this morning. I just checked my updated posh app and it showed up this morning and I was able to bulk share. Now we say bulk, and there’s been some debates in the selling community. Like, is this as great as it’s not great, take it for what it is. I won’t say it’s great or not great. But when you go into your store, all you have to do is push the little tool button, go to share to followers and you click all the items that you want to share. You can break it down into categories and you push the share to followers button and it’s share, share, share, share, share, share, share, and it’s done for you instead of clicking in it, share, share to followers backing back out and going back in. So it does save time. You can also like, so of course we’ve said today’s Wednesday. This is prerecorded today is ‘closet clear out’. So my plan for today is after we’re done with this is I’m going to go in and by category, reduce prices.
Doug:
Nice, good idea.
Liz:
And what that will do is that will send a special shipping offer along with that, where Poshmark picks up the tab. When I’m done, say tomorrow, and I don’t want to keep those items at a reduced price. I can go right back in and bulk increase the prices by the same amount. I can also do that for, I can bulk send offers to likers. This is going to save Poshmark sellers a lot of time. It’s also going to be like, for me, I would never reduce prices and bring them back up for closet clear out. So, I think what that’s going to do is that’s going to increase a lot of traffic! Sellers like me that just don’t take the time to do it. I know I should. I know I should Poshers everywhere, cringing. But for people like me now, that’s going to save me time. I’m going to be, I’ll probably participate in a lot more of them. So there you have it. There are the three bulk features that Poshmark has released and is continuing to release. So check your phone. There’s a little tool icon that you can click on and scroll to the bottom and there will be your bulk feature.
Doug:
I’m just going to touch on this real quick, because it’s not anything new. But I read a really interesting article this week from HubSpot and it talked about Facebook and Instagram shopping features. And obviously we know about Facebook shops and some of the other stuff they talked about has been around, but I kind of learned a little bit more this week. The article also talked about Instagram checkout. So that’s when you want to sell a few products on Instagram or you don’t have the time to create a Facebook business page on a shop. Instagram now offers an in-app checkout experience that links to Instagram shoppable posts. So I thought that was interesting. That’s kind of a new blip on the radar. Obviously Instagram wants to keep users on the platform. So give them the checkout from there. They don’t want you to have to go somewhere else to make the purchase. And that’s the beauty of social commerce kind of cutting down the steps.
Liz:
And I see on their Instagram and Facebook live shopping while the features above integrate with Instagram and Facebook to allow audiences to buy products from posts or pre-published stories. Facebook has unveiled live shopping features for both of the platforms.
Doug:
And that’s super cool. If you’re a content creator or this is encouraging them to start creating content is you can put your content out. You can do your videos and people can actually buy from within the video. Instead of again, you know, what we just talked about is having to click go somewhere, like go off to eBay or go off to Poshmark and buy there because the more steps in that journey, the more likely you are to lose that sale. So if they can just click seamlessly, that just is more encouragement for you to make content.
Liz:
You know, even though you do this live shopping, you can get a couple sales, but it can also drive traffic to your shops and your stores. Not only could it be a selling experience, but it also a marketing experience for all of your other platforms,
Doug:
Think about content strategy, pick the right features for your company. Not all the stuff is going to work for you. Pick what works for you. We always talk about that. And this is what I think a lot of sellers need to lean in more look at those metrics. So you want to see what the metrics will tell you what’s working and what’s not. So you want to look at that stuff, look at your traffic, look at your times. You know, when that’ll tell you when to post, when to go live, what type of stuff is working, what type of stuff is not. And the whole thing about metrics is you want to always focus on your actionable metrics. So the information you get that you can put into use again, what’s working, what’s not that’s at the highest level. Liz, you were telling me about this a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Instagram posts and you had posted a photo of Kenai, your dog that got a lot of engagement and you made the joke. You’re like, “Hey Doug, dog pictures, get a lot of engagement.” And then there was the coffee picture that got a lot of engagement, but it’s just, you know, different types of things is you’d be surprised what works and what doesn’t.
Liz:
So what I learned is people in my reselling circle, love dogs and coffee.
Doug:
That’s right.
Liz:
Just like me!
Doug:
Yes. Just like you!
Liz:
They’re my people. I found my people on Instagram.
Doug:
All right, Liz, again, we don’t want to start up too much controversy. But this, so the here’s the teaser, this was shared by our friend, Dave Schneider, who we’ve heard people want us to have him back on the show, go ahead and tell our listeners, Liz make the big announcement.
Liz:
Okay. So I’ll start off. I’ll follow up with what Doug said. And I do follow Dave Schneider on list rank sell on LinkedIn. He made a post a couple of days ago. It was deep and I have not seen this anywhere else. And I was like, Doug, we need to have Dave back on to talk about this and so much more. So we’ll see where that goes, Doug.
Doug:
Yes. Yeah.
Liz:
So here’s what I read. This is straight from list rank sell, two days ago, Alex Kazeem, an eBay presenter gave a brief, but packed session at the eBay connect 2021 announcing the beta version of promoted listings advanced. So eBay’s new advertising model offers keyword control at the top and the top spot in Cassini search results. So the full version of promoted listings advanced will be available by September. It was also announced the coming advertising model called promoted listings express, which will be perfect for the auction format. And it goes on to talk about this new promoted listings tool. So basically what it boils down to is eBay will either be adding or transferring to a pay-per-click promoted listings model. So currently if I run a promoted listings campaign at say 3% in my whole store and Doug comes in and buys an item, but didn’t get it on promoted listings, even though it was promoted, but you didn’t click on the promoted ad. I don’t pay that fee.
Doug:
Let’s say fancy boots just for fun.
Liz:
Okay. I’ll click. So let’s say Doug comes into my store and purchases these fancy, sparkly boots.
Doug:
Yes.
Liz:
And I have it promoted, but he didn’t click on a promoted listings ad to get it. He went straight to my store and bought them because he knows where to get his sparkly boots from. So he follows me, clicks the link, not through a promoted listing ad. I do not pay that 3% promoted listing fee because you didn’t click on the ad. But let’s say Bobby Joe Billy Bob came in and purchased the blue sparkly boots and found it on a promoted listings ad and clicked on the promoted listing campaign to purchase it. Then I would pay the 3% as the seller. So only if you click on the ad at the end of the sale, am I charged that promoted listings fee pay-per-click. So, and again, it’s remained to be seen if this is I haven’t, we haven’t gotten clear. So this is not a sky is falling thing. This is a ‘Hey heads up sellers.’ So I’m not sure if this is replacing the current promoted listings or if it will come into play and you will get a choice. My gut is telling me it’s going to replace it, but I don’t like to speculate. I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see, but now going to a pay-per-click model. So if Doug comes into my store and sees some purple, shiny boots, and he clicks on it through the promoted listings and he’s like, “Hmm, they were purple. I thought they were blue because Liz’s picture sucked” and he backs out. I have to pay for that click.
Doug:
Yeah. And they’ve been talking about this for a while. It’s kind of controversial. It’s hard to say this goes back to the eBays of business. They need to do things that make them money too, like stuff, promoted listings, make them a lot of money. Brand ads make them a lot of money. There’s always that controversy of like eBay is a super high traffic website. So other companies will want to put ads on there because they get the traffic. But technically that does send traffic off of eBay and could send traffic out of your listings. Kind of an unspoken thing it seems, a lot of the time.
Liz:
Yeah. and I totally get it. Like I said, I mean, there’s so many different ways to look at this. I really don’t know yet until eBay comes out with the full gamut. I’m sure that this is going to catch fire in the reselling community over the next week. So we’ll see what happens. So what I really liked, so make sure that you go to Twitter or LinkedIn and follow lists, rank sell to see, because I’m sure that Dave is going to be keeping up to date on what this mean., But what he had to say at the end of this post on LinkedIn was truthfully, we’re taking a wait and see approach to eBay’s foray into the PPC or the pay-per-click. If this new model moves beyond the current placement strategy of the top spot, its efficiency will absolutely plummet. For example, two thirds of a seller’s visibility should represent far more than a third of overall sales. So again, follow Dave kind of just to keep track. And of course, we’re going to bring you more information. Maybe we’ll have Dave back to talk about this.
Doug:
Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. We may have Dave on right now though. Liz it’s a mystery.
Liz:
Hmmm.
Doug:
Hmmm.
Liz:
So again, not to seem doom gloom, take it for what it’s worth. Let’s just stay up to date. We’ll roll with the punches and figure it out. But there’s some great news, Doug.
Doug:
Yes. Some great news. What is it? It’s exciting news.
Liz:
It really is. So I feel like List Perfectly just gave away a laptop and a Ring light. So I figure, you know, that that was oh my goodness. The feedback on that giveaway was amazing. I think that they just gave it away this month. And List Perfectly said, that’s not good enough.
Doug:
We did announce it though. We announced the winner. I think we got the exclusive, but this is a cool one. I need one of these.
Liz:
So List Perfectly said a laptop and a Ring light is not enough. This time around, we’re going to give away a laptop and a Dymo label printer. So a thermal printer to grow your business with List Perfectly. (drum beat)
Doug:
Are you pausing for the drum?
Liz:
Yes! (laughing).
Doug:
All right, I’m ready.
Liz:
And your List Perfectly swag is also included. (drum beat)
Doug:
Nice. That’s cool. And those printers are sweet. Liz has one. I’m still old school, you print it off, cut it with the scissors, tape it on with the packing tape.
Liz:
Hey, whatever works. But I will tell you that my thermal, I feel like I sound like Griff on the eBay for business podcast. Because he, this has been like his tagline for a while. Just tend to agree with him. I was selling for a long time doing the cut and tape. And then I moved on to the double label sheets going through an ink jet. And I had been saying, oh, I’ll invest later. I’ll invest later. And at the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t find ink. So I was like, well, there’s my sign. And I was kicking myself for not getting a thermal printer earlier. It is such a time saver. I love it so much.
Doug:
I am jealous. It really looks like it saves a ton of time.
Liz:
It does. I love it. I love it. So List Perfectly is all about saving time. So they decided instead of a Ring light to go along with the laptop, let’s just give out a thermal printer because who doesn’t like to save time in their business? To be eligible, to win this package. You need to follow List Perfectly on Instagram, tag your friends in the comments. Each friend equals one entry to win. That’s it!
Doug:
That’s cool. That’s a cool giveaway. I like it.
Liz:
So, they also have bonus entries. Doug, you like bonus entries.
Doug:
I do. But wait, there’s more!
Liz:
Do you want to introduce the bonus entries?
Doug:
So for bonus entries, you can share the post on Instagram or your Instagram story, tag at List Perfectly so they see it. And then for an optional plus five bonus entries, you can be an existing LP customer or sign up with code ‘IG30’ for 30% off your first month. This will all be in the show notes. But that’s another great giveaway. I like it.
Liz:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know. Like I feel like they just gave away a laptop like last week.
Doug:
It’s true. I’m going to tell you a secret. I think when we move into the new house and we get that back up, because like all my selling stuff is paused. Mer’s selling stuff is paused, but when we get back in and get set back up, and she sells a lot more than I do, I think I’m going to push for a Dymo printer. It’s very exciting.
Liz:
I have the Rollo. They’re all good. So there is always conversation in all of the selling community. I see a post every week, which printers better? Which thermal printer should I get? And my answer is always, I recommend Rollo because it’s the only one I’ve ever used. However, a thermal printer is a thermal printer and you can’t go wrong with the top three.
Doug:
Yeah. You’d think. Yeah.
Liz:
I mean, you really can’t sellers have had success using the top three. So there you go. So that is a super exciting giveaway from List Perfectly!
Doug:
And I’m sure there’ll be more to come.
Liz:
How’s that for customer service!
Doug:
I know that is good.
Liz:
These constant giveaways to their customers
Doug:
And stuff that you need. Laptops, ring lights, thermal printers, LP swag.
Liz:
Yes.
Outro
Liz:
And Doug, I think that that is all we have for this week. Thank you for joining us this week on the seller community podcast from List Perfectly. This week we talked to Clara and Amanda and we got their perspective on customer service.
Doug:
We had seller shout-outs and we had the news.
Liz:
You can find us at Listperfectly.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. Or you can email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/listperfectly. Use the hashtag seller community podcast or Doug and mention me or Doug.
Doug:
And where can you listen to us? You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Be sure and subscribe so you get the updates and tell your friends, spread the word. And again, we’d love for you to leave us a review at apple podcasts. And then also please follow us on Instagram. Liz is @coloradoreworn I’m @snoop.dougie. And then of course follow @List Perfectly.
Liz:
That’s a wrap, Doug.
Doug:
That’s a wrap Liz
Liz and Doug:
See you next week! (laughing)
Doug:
I try to harmonize with you every week.
Liz:
Happy birthday!
Doug:
Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And thank you for wearing your little happy birthday crown.
Liz:
Yes, you’re welcome.
Doug:
All right. See ya.
Liz:
Bye!