When you find yourself in a business where everybody has the same thing to sell, you have to find ways to make yourself stand out from the rest of the crowd.  One way of accomplishing this goal is to sell the service, as well as the product.  The idea is that you could get the mysterious product X from anybody out there, but you should get it from this place because of this, that or the other.

Selling a service, rather than a product, does take a little ‘bit of thinking outside the box.  Rather than trying to say how great your product is, you want to sell people on the experience of getting the product through you.

How Do You Sell the Service?

Now selling the service might vary from business to business, so I will try to make my suggestions here fit the most situations as possible.  You must paint a vivid picture of why your service is better.  Give details about how you treat your customers, guarantees for the services you provide and all the details you can about your company.  People like to know who they are doing business with – so the more details you give, the better chances you will have that they will be able to relate with you more.  

Customer testimonials are excellent for selling the service because it lets people see real customers giving their feedback and experiences on what they really enjoyed, when it comes to doing business with you. If your existing satisfied customers don’t offer testimonials on their own – feel free to ask them.  If they are really happy, they will often be delighted that you asked.

Best Example of Selling a Service

Here is an example situation.  I often order things online through Amazon.  Now sure, I could get the latest video games or techie devices through any online retailer out there, but Amazon has won me over with their Amazon Prime service.  With it, I can get next day deliveries at a really cheap price, or two day deliveries for free.  As you can see, they are not bringing me back by making their products better.  They are bringing me back to do business with them, because the experience is better.

I hope that helps some with your own marketing plans when it comes to selling your service.  Just remember that people are not just looking for the best products, they are also looking for the best place to get the products.

The nice lady on the phone told me that it had not yet been shipped, and it might still take 4 to 5 more days.  “Ok, fair enough” I thought to myself.  At least now I know when to expect it.  Well, about an hour later, I finally get a response to one of my week old e-mails.  They tell me my order is out for delivery right now.  So now I was left with, it’ll be here in another week or in a few hours.  I am happy to say it was the “few hours” on which was correct.

Back the the chair though, the SumoSac has to be the most comfortable one I have ever sat in.  Instead of beads, it is filled with foam.  If it gets too dented up, all you have to do is fluff it like a huge pillow and then plop back down onto it.  It’ll be interesting to see how long it stays fluffy – into the next few years.  As for right now though, I am really happy with the purchase. I just wish their customer service department would get an overhaul.

Back on June 4th I setup the order and they said they would be here to set it up on the 13th.  Oh goodie I said, can’t wait to get it up and running.  Well, about 9:00 AM on the 13th they said they wouldn’t be here cause they didn’t have enough techs working.  Fair enough, it was Friday the 13th afterall.

Next they were suppose to show up Monday, the 16th.  I got excited again because I thought I’d get to watch WWE RAW on my new TV in high definition.  Oh goodie I thought again.  Well, Monday about 1:00pm (an hour after their deadline for being here) I contact DirecTV to see where they were at.  The first person I talk to doesn’t have a clue but she gives me a local number.  Call the local number and I’m told they still don’t have enough techs to work in the area, and they move my install date again… to today.

So here we are.  Will they show up?  Will I have to call them to see why they haven’t shown up?  Should know sometime this afternoon.  Overall though, I have to say I am pretty disapointed with DirecTV’s customer service in a whole.  What if I was a new customer?  Heck – Dish Network is looking kind of nice by now.  Wonder how good their tech support is?

Update: Still nobody, and they got 20 minutes left to get here to meet their “promise” of behing here from 8AM – Noon.  Posted about it on their user forums too.

Looks like DirecTV deleted my thread without reason?  Wasn’t anything bad there – just going over what had happened thus far.  Once again, DirecTV ends up with two thumbs down as far as customer service goes.

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