I nearly fell off my chair laughing…
A lovely owner of an online business had reached out to me through a business networking group to ask what electronic short-cuts I had in place for receipting and processing online orders.
She mentioned her financial software and another piece of software I wasn’t familiar with were not synching and it was taking her hours to manually address her orders.
It’s a perfectly valid question and I love that she asked me, as I’m always ready to share whatever I can with other small business owners.
But I told her I was the worst person on the planet to ask!
I hate automation. I hate the impersonal nature of scripted, generic, one-size-fits-all responses. I hate trusting a system.
But I’m not completely crazy…
I know that it’s fairly easy for me to still personalise things, as I’m not pumping out hundreds of orders daily. It’s sometimes overwhelming, but it’s manageable.
And I am inching a little towards some automation. For the first time from this week onwards, my beautiful online customers will be receiving an automated email confirming their online order.
Revolutionary, hey?
Of course, the problem is, it isn’t at all. People expect this.
And just in these past few weeks I’ve had a few new online customers ring me in a panic, because they didn’t receive an immediate confirming email and missed my blurb on the website page to say they wouldn’t be … that they would hear from a real person (me!) very soon to confirm their order.
But hey, sometimes you just have to join the club.
I am clinging on to some things though. While I have sticky labels with Sender details for my parcels (yep, high tech is my middle name!!), I still hand write every address. I hand write a note to every customer. I add a little bag of lollies. And I gift wrap each shoe box.
It makes me happy and it makes my customers happy.
And now they’ll also know within a few seconds that their order has been gratefully accepted and confirmed!
Win win!
Until next time
Carol & CCx
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