Offering Pay For Phone Support
A friend asked me this a while back. They wanted to offer phone support for customers who pay a subscription fee. As a small business they of course don’t have the kind of budget for the big expensive solutions.
She wanted to go easy and low tech. Basically, if someone is a paying subscribers, they will receive a phone number for support after they subscribe. Low tech is good. But I pointed out this may not work so well in her case because, if the phone number is a static one, there’s nothing stopping a past subscriber from calling the number after they cancel their subscription. And it becomes so awkward after they call you, you tell them you can’t answer them because they haven’t paid.
Not sure about you, but I personally like to limit as many potential bombs as possible. So, I helped her figure out a better, more cost effective and yet simple way. The suggestion, use a program like aMember to create and manage their membership.
Then, get themselves an account at a company like thinkingVOICE. thinkingVOICE is a click to call service. You place a button or a form on your site, people fill in their information including their phone number and click call me. Their system will call you, when you answer, it will connect the customer and you together. Your phone numbers are not revealed to the customer.
The cost? A queen’s ransom of $6.95 a month + $0.15 per minute. Back to my friend’s case. She would only have to put this form or button inside the membership area so it’s only accessible to active subscribers and eliminate the problem of being able to call after the subscription is canceled.
Lynette Chandler helps entrepreneurs leverage readily available technology and trends for their marketing. Learn how technology affects your business today.
Work at Home Tips from a Desperate Working Momma
Do work at home moms get distracted? You bet they do! Watch this video for a few laughs.
[youtube]QqE25xjAwOw[/youtube]
Setting Up Membership Sites
With residual income all the rage these days, people always ask me how to set one up and what they can use. There are many systems available. Some come complete with the content management system built in, some are 100% hosted meaning you don’t have to worry about software upgrades or keeping the technical parts well oiled and greased, and some simply manages the access to your content.
I’ve managed several membership sites, took a few different system for a spin but ultimately, I still come back to aMember. It’s highly configurable, you can build your member’s area using any system you are most comfortable with including FrontPage or Dreamweaver and it’s got lots of different payment system plugins. It also comes with free setup and the good thing is, it’s been around for a long time so the user community is fairly large, which in turn means it’s easier to find answers if you hit a snag.
Technorati Tags: ecommerce, technology
Lynette Chandler helps entrepreneurs leverage readily available technology and trends for their marketing. Learn how technology affects your business today.
February’s Affiliate Classroom Magazine
This month’s Affiliate Classroom magazine is now available and you can download it for free here.
This month topics include:
Adding Revenue Streams: How to revive a site with less than stellar conversions.
Conversion Fundamentals that are often overlooked during site development.
Merchant Tips: Six application process tips
and much more.
WHAM? Wasn’t that an 80’s band?
The other day I was doing some instant messaging with a man and in our conversation I mentioned that I am a WAHM. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing with his response.
WHAM? Wasn’t that an 80’s band with George Michael?
Why yes it was, but I am not a former member of the band – believe me NO one wants to hear me sing. 
I then had to tell him that WAHM stands for Work At Home Mom.
I learned that not everyone in the world knows what the heck WAHM stands for so from now on I think I’ll just take the time to write it out instead of being confused with an 80’s band.
