Treating Readers Like Valued Customers

By: Sara Urquhart. Photography by: The Light Fantastic

We’ve all experienced the joy of a great customer experience and the frustration of a lousy one. When you’re selling goods, offering a product, or have a brick-and-mortar store, paying attention to customer service is obvious.

But the fundamentals of customer service also apply to blogging, where your readers become “customers” whose loyalty and happiness directly affect your success, so here are 5 tips for treating your customers right:

1. Show appreciation for readers by doing your best to respond to their comments and emails. For email overwhelm, consider the five.sentenc.es email approach, introduced to us at Alt by Erin Loechner ofDesign for Mankind.

2. Create new posts consistently. Whether that’s daily or three times a week is up to you, but readers will come to expect regular updates. Offer them the service of consistency, and let them know when you’ll be away.

3. Offer authenticity. Remember you are your site’s best asset, and readers come for your curated perspective, your great DIYs, or your point of view on any given topic. Being true to yourself is a gift to readers.

4. Use your readers’ trust wisely. At Alt, Jenny Komenda of Little Green Notebook shared her concept of “blogger capital,” which is basically your value and credibility to your readers. You create “capital” when you post original ideas and content. Treat your readers well by balancing your original content, or capital, with sponsored posts that feel authentic to your brand and blog purpose.

5. Make visiting your blog a pleasant experience with good design, lovely images, and user-friendly functionality.

Comments

[Kimberly {Manifest Yourself}]

I have never heard of the 5 sentence technique! That is really such a great idea.

[Meghan Silva]

Loved this post , definitely learned something new, thank you.

Meghan Silva's Blog

[catherine gacad]

Blogger capital. Dead on. Thank you for sharing and reminding.