Get More Clients Online

Does Your Customer Service Stink?

Even if you're a solopreneur, as I am, customer service is a primary concern, just as though I were a big corporation.  In fact, I think it's more important, as your customers expect you to respond more quickly to an issue than a big company.  No one seems to have expectations of superior customer service from large companies any longer, unfortunately.  In fact, most of us are surprised if we get any type of consideration when we have to contact a large company for assistance.

Recently, I experienced very poor customer service from a fellow solopreneur.  After making my first purchase from him, he added me into a coaching program, which I initially thought was a nice gesture.  What I failed to realize is that he added me into a recurring monthly billing program WITHOUT my permission.  I hold others to some pretty high standards when it comes to recurring billing, as I sometimes think that I inform my members to death about the recurring nature of my membership program, as well as point out numerous times how easy it is for them to opt-out.

Imagine my surprise when I checked my email one morning to find another charge from this solopreneur for a program that I had never wanted or used.  It took 3 emails, a phone call, and the passage of 5 days (3 business days) before I finally received a response.  In this case, it was simply an acknowledgment that he had gotten my email and couldn't respond because he was dealing with a family emergency.  I might have accepted this EXCEPT this was the same excuse heard a few weeks prior when I inquired about why I hadn't received my product from him.

Needless to say, my patience was worn pretty thin at this point, as I expect others to respond immediately, as I do, when there's a customer service issue, especially involving usage of a credit card.  In my next email to him I noted that while I could empathize with his situation, it wasn't cool to ignore his customers, for his assistant (and I knew that he had one) could have at least acknowledged my initial emails rather than having me sit in limbo for so long. Rather than acknowledging any reasponsibility for his actions, he told me that he was sorry that I thought I had to wait too long for him to respond, as he felt that 2 business days (it was actually 3) was an adequate response time.  I can't imagine making one of my customers sit around and wait that long for a response from me.

This story gets even better.  I never heard from him on the day he told me that he was to take care of this issue (Friday), so I had to email yet again the following Monday to ask for a status update regarding my refund.  He told me that he had taken care of it over the weekend and had emailed me at that point to notify me and that my failure to receive it must be the work of "email gremlins".  Hmmm, I'm not really believing him at this point, as I seem to have gotten every other email from him except the one notifying me about my refund.  At I write this story, I'm still checking my account to see if or when the transaction refund appears.

By this time I have completely lost all respect for him, lost any trust I had in him as a professional, and canceled my subscription to his lists.  I scrapped plans to invite him to be an expert guest for my members at OnlineBizU.com and for me to be a teleclass guest for his clients.  Adding your customer into something she didn't request, had no way to get out of, and for which she would be charged another fee in 30 days is a VERY poor business practice.  Choosing to follow up in a leisurely fashion only adds fuel to the fire.

Even if something has gone wrong in a transaction, you can salvage your relationship with your customer simply by responding promptly.  I have gotten many, many emails thanking me for my quick response to a customer's issue, many of which noted how quickly I had responded. How does your customer service stand up?

Great customer follow-up from Zappo's

I placed my first order from Zappo's about a year ago for a pair of shoes.  Yesterday, I got an email from them reminding me of that order and telling me that they still carried this shoe and that they had it in my size in stock.  Then, they invited me to order another pair if I really liked this shoe.

I thought that was a brilliant way to follow up with a customer.  I don't happen to wear the pair of shoes I ordered from them often, so they're still in great shape.   However, at other times I have found myself in situations of having worn down a favorite pair of shoes and wishing I'd bought two pairs because I liked the shoes so much. Unfortunately, in most cases, the shoe is no longer sold and I'm out of luck.

Again, Zappo's has demonstrated exemplary customer service.  I didn't feel like the email was pushy or salesly at all.  In fact, had my shoes looked worn, I probably would have ordered another pair, as I do like those shoes.  Maybe I will order a backup pair, just in case...<g>

How can you apply this follow-up strategy to your own business?

3 Ways to Improve Customer Service with Help Desk Software

When you start your online business, you have very few customer service issues.  Those that do emerge can usually be handled fairly easily via email or a phone call, and you'll probably resolve most of these yourself.  However, as your business grows and you begin to develop products and programs, the number of customer service issues increases, as well. You then begin to look for a way to delegate this task, but if you don't have procedures outlined for how you have handled these issues in the past, it becomes difficult to train your team on carrying out these procedures.  And, without a system, it becomes difficult for you as the business owner to ensure that your team is handling these issues in the way you want them handled.

That's when a system set up using help desk software comes in handy. When you set up this software for use in your business, you are also prompted to document your procedures, your text for email responses, and create a list of common customer service questions and how to answer them.

Here are 3 ways that help desk software can help you improve your customer service:

1. Creates trackable tickets.  Your help desk software should require the customer to create a ticket that is attached to her customer service issue.  Rather than relying on email, at any point your customer can log into the ticket system, track the progress of her ticket, read the response to her ticket, and post a reply if needed. Now you have a documented, trackable record of all of your customer service issues, as your customer service staff's replies are embedded in this system, as well.

2. Lets customers help themselves.  Once you have answered customer service issues over a period of time, you'll notice a number of questions are asked repeatedly.  You can gather these questions and your responses to them and create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) portion of your ticket system so that customers can get the answers to commonly asked questions right away from your FAQ database.

3.  Permits timely response to customer service issues. Your time is valuable. When business really picks up and your time is at a premium, it no longer makes sense for you to be handling your customer service issues. Your overwhelming to-do list may mean this issue slips between the cracks and is unintentionally ignored.  Instead, delegate this task to a team member and provide the appropriate training.  Help desk software permits you to log in and check on the reported customer service issues and ensure that they are being handled appropriately, as both the customer and staff requests and responses should be logged in this system.  In this way, you can easily track any mistakes made and make corrections right away.  Your team member's timely response makes your customers feel heard and supported.

Perhaps help desk software is overkill for you at the moment.  However, as your business grows, you'll come to appreciate it as a valuable asset that helps you better serve your customers.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it:  Internet Marketing Automation Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals create prosperous online businesses that make more profit in less time by teaching them how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise, and get found online.  Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==>
http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com.

Case of Mistaken Identity

I guess you can say I have arrived at last -- to the land of mistaken identity.  I've gotten several calls from irate customers of a company out of Scottsdale, AZ called Online Biz Marketing demanding that I refund their credit cards for charges they didn't authorize.  The first email that I got kinda blew me out of the water, as it was pretty hostile, but the follow up voicemail that he left was much kinder. 

After speaking with him and clarifying that it wasn't my company that he was seeking, I did a bit of research online and discovered a host of other people with the same problem who were documenting their stories on a site called RipOffReport.com.

The third call I received about this issue led to my getting the offending business' phone number, and at that point I decided to place some info on my contact page to ward off future calls.  I decided to add my mailing address to my contact page, as well, as the first piece of documentation that I don't operate out of Scottsdale.

It must be working...I've had no other irate calls or emails now for over a week!

The Secret of Customer Appreciation

Typically during the months of November, December, and January, online business owners feel the urge to say "thank you" -- to their blog/ezine readers, to their clients and customers, and to their business colleagues.  In recent years, this often means sending a mass email card to an email mailing list, which, if you're on the receiving end of such a missive, feels about as personal as junk mail addressed to "Occupant."  Snail mail cards are not much better because the majority of those cards contain an imprinted greeting along with a business name and nothing else.

Using this strategy to recognize and thank your contacts can completely backfire, if you're not careful.  Rather than feeling recognized, your recipient may simply become jaded and wonder why you bothered, especially if they haven't heard from you in awhile, or if you didn't take the time to jot a personal note.

What should your rule of thumb be when saying thanks or giving recognition to your customers and contacts?  If you don't know someone well enough to pick up the phone and call them or to drop a letter in the mail to her, don't bother sending a thank you at all.  I realize that this flies in the face of common marketing strategy, which encourages small businesses owners to use the holiday season as an excuse to "reach out and touch" their contact database.  However, you must realize that if your business is doing this, so are 10 other businesses also used by your contact.

How can you make your business "thank you" stand out in the crowd?  Make it personal -- and unique.

I recently received a very unique postcard and enclosure from newsletter coach and designer Jessica Albon of TheWriteExposure.com.  What made this holiday greeting noteworthy?  It...

1.  was addressed to me in a unique, eye-catching font.
2.  had a rubber stamp image on the back of the envelope.
3.  made references to her dog, Izzy.
4.  provided me with a doggie treat recipe and a people recipe, as well.
5.  had a doggie treat enclosure in a hand-made envelope.
6.  contained a personal, handwritten message from Jessica that contained my name.

Amazingly enough, there was no mention of her business.  Why?  Because I know Jessica well enough that no reminder of what she does is necessary.  This was a brilliant marketing strategy on Jessica's part (even if she didn't plan it that way) because I felt noticed and special as the recipient of this mailing.  I never thought about whether she sent this to 20 people or 120 people -- it was unique and personalized enough that I felt I was the only recipient.

It's amazing the effect you can have when you personalize your appreciation. When I was living in Adams, MA, I was a regular subscriber to the local daily newspaper. The delivery service had always been iffy, at best, sometimes arriving early, sometimes late, sometimes not at all, and sometimes in places where I didn't find the paper until several days later. However, that all changed one month, and the service became impeccable. The paper was always placed on the arms of my mailbox where I could find it, was bagged if it were inclement weather so it wouldn't get wet, and was always promptly delivered.

I know that most of the time the paper hired junior high students to do the route, as the job was a good first job for them to have to give them a little income. Sometimes people who were a little down and out would take the job to help them make ends meet until they again found gainful employment. I really didn't know who was delivering my paper, but I decided that I wanted to thank the person for doing such a great job.

I called the newspaper office and asked for my carrier's name and contact info and then proceeded to call my carrier. When he picked up the phone, I told him who I was. He immediately wanted to know what problem there had been with my paper delivery. I told him that I didn't have a problem, but was simply calling him to thank him for doing such an awesome job and that my delivery was the best it had ever been in the entire time I'd subscribed to this newspaper.

There was a very long pause, as though he were at a loss for words. "Oh," he said, "I thought you were calling about a problem with me. That's why people usually call." Then he uttered a "thank you" and we ended the call.

Now, I don't know if I made his day or put him into shock. I hope I did a little of both. My newspaper service continued to be outstanding until he left the position to do something else. I felt really wonderful the rest of that day, because I chose to think I'd made a small difference in his life that day by just telling him "thanks for doing such a great job."

Never underestimate the power of a personal "thank you."  Spending your time to convey your personal thanks and appreciation in a personal fashion will pay off for you more in the long run than spending the same amount of time in conveying your thanks with some impersonal, automated gesture.

7 Golden Rules of Online Customer Service

How do you treat the people with whom you do business?  Many times what we forget in this online world where so much of our customer service is automated is that, in the end, we're still doing business with other people.  Do your customer service procedures create raving fans or send people away into the Internet black hole, never to be heard from again, except when you're bashed on some blog or disparaged in a discussion forum post?

What's the real price you pay as an online business owner for your customer service?  Usually, the "real price" boils down to one thing -- word-of-mouth-marketing.  If your customer likes the way you handle a situation, he will probably tell tell 3-5 others.  However, if he feels he was treated poorly or unfairly,  he'll tell 50 of his closest friends about the bad experience. Sad to say, we human beings love to complain much more than to praise. Why burn bridges with your customer when you don't have to?

Online business owners often create customer service rules that are based on fear -- fear of being taken advantage of, fear of someone getting the best of you, fear of someone not paying you for your time  What happens if the entire basis of your customer service standards is fear?  Well, then fear-based outcomes is what you'll get, because you tend to get what you choose to focus on.  So,  if you perceive that everyone in the world is out to get you and take advantage of you, then you're right..:)

Is there a good middle ground to choose that protects both your interests and gives your customer a great experience?  There is, and you'll find it in my simple, 10-second philosophy of customer service.  Ready?  Here it goes.....treat your customer how you want to be treated. That's it -- nothing high tech here. 

To help you evaluate your online customer service for my Golden Rule philosophy, here are 7 standards you should consider:

1.  Don't hide behind the legalese.  Don't expect your customer to page through a multi-page, small print document and read and understand all of your stipulations, especially if they're written in legalese rather than simpler English. If you put unfavorable or difficult terms in your Terms of Service agreement and your customer signs it, sure, you have legal protection to back up whatever terms they stipulated to with their signature.  But, will the wrangling over those terms be worth it in the end?  If you have terms that your customer might not find favorable at a later date, be sure and point those out to him in the beginning.  Don't expect him to figure it out on his own, and don't hide behind the cowardly excuse, "Well, you should have read the Terms of Service thoroughly  There's nothing I can do." 

2. Walk a mile in your customer's shoes.  Would you want to be treated the way you're treating them?  If what you're doing to your customers makes you queasy and uneasy, that's your instinct telling you that what you're doing isn't just and proper.  Moreover, how would you feel if you were treated in this fashion?

3.  Make it simple to do business with you.  Don't make your customer have to hire an attorney to understand your contract or to do business with you.  I'm not advocating that you completely ignore legal help and advice.  However, an attorney's job is to protect you from ALL liability, even those things that have a very small likelihood of actually occurring.  Consequently, this usually translates into a very long document that's very difficult to read and comprehend.  Work with your attorney to transform any contracts or Terms of Service agreements that you have into ones that are easily read and understood by the average person.

4.  Don't do customer support via email.  When you're first starting out, using email to answer service problems is ok, but as it becomes more and more difficult to send and receive legitimate business email, you'll find that you start to lose inquiries as your business grows larger and as your number of inquiries increase.  At that point, think about installing a virtual support desk. This is a website that contains common FAQs and answers, as well as offers your customers the ability to open a ticket to report a problem.  All correspondence occurs within the site, so you lessen the possibility of lost email.  One of the more popular programs is Kayako, www.kayako.com. 

5.  Make it easy to contact you.  Nothing is more irritating than wanting to speak to a real, live person for help and all you find is a contact form or an email address.  Don't leave your customers out in the cold. Offer several options for contacting you, whether that's by email, phone, instant messaging system, live chat on your website, or a help desk/trouble ticket system.

6.  Make it easy to stop doing business with you. I learned a valuable lesson from the Director of Admissions when I worked as a student affairs administrator at a small college and was trying to change a student's mind about dropping out of school.  He told me, "Once they're already decided to leave, their minds are made up and there's no turning back.  Just let them go." This applies to your customers as well.  There may be a small percentage that you can salvage as a customer in this process, but the overwhelming majority have already made their final decision. Don't make them jump through hoops to cancel their business with you -- make it as easy and painless as possible.  However, do follow up with a phone call or email or survey to determine the reason for their departure, but don't force them to go through this process to exit.  Remember the AOL service cancellation call that was recorded and posted online that became a huge embarrassment for AOL?  Don't let your cancellation policy become the next big Internet joke.

7.  If in doubt, ask your customer what to do.  If you and your customer can't come to a resolution that feels equitable to both parties, ask your customer what he believes is the fair thing to do. I believe that generally people are good and fair and that most will treat you humanely if they've been humanely treated by you.  The final decision may not be everything that you want, but it's probably not everything that your customer wants, either.  You can use this strategy to end on a positive note, and while the customer may not return to you, he probably also won't tell everyone he meets that you're an ogre, either.

Figure out how you can implement this Golden Rule philosophy in your online business.  You'll find it to be a business asset that's priceless.

Dealing with Less Than Positive Feedback

So, what happens when you get a message that's not very positive?  It's a great blow to the ego, for sure, and sometimes takes me out of the game for a bit.  Alas, I do suffer from Oprah's "disease to please" syndrome from time to time.

As you may know, I offer a free gift on my website and blog in return for signing up for my email list.  Once someone requests that, I have a series of autoresponders that go out to keep in touch with each prospect.

Here's an email I received today in response to one of the autoresponders:

Hello,

I found the product to be informative and a valuable resource for the first half, but I must say I found many of the links from page 32 onwards to be useless. Rather than being an index of resources, a direction for where to go next, it seemed to be promoting a lot of businesses that were forced into relevance. My humble opinion is that it destroyed the trust I had placed in you as an independent advisor, I now feel that whatever information of yours I might read would be tainted by whomever's product/service you were promoting rather than unbiassed advice.

I hope you don't find this harsh, I thought you might appreciate some honest feedback. And please note, the first part of the document is pure gold!

It wasn't all negative, to be sure, but I have to admit that feedback like this still kicks me a bit in the gut to this day.  How should you react to something like this?  Ignore it?  Send a flaming email in response and tell them that they're crazy for thinking like they do?  Kindly thank them for their input and dismiss the comment?  Realize that there might be a grain of truth to the comment?

If I'm honest, I know that there's a grain of truth in this comment -- and that is that I need to update the resources section of the ebook, as well as give a clearer direction as to the next step someone should take.

Here's how I responded:

Thanks for your honesty for the latter portion of the doc.  I'll be the first to admit that section needs to be updated, as I have found some new resources that better serve my needs. That revision task is part of the marketing plan for a new website that is currently under development.

When the new doc is available, I'll email you and let you know how to download the updated copy.

In terms of my recommendations of resources, I stand behind those 100%.  These are all tools and resources I have used in my business.  I seldom make a recommendation for something with which I have no experience.  Since I get so many questions asking me how to do something or what I use, I created the list as a quick reference point for those kinds of questions.  So, yes, the list is biased -- by my experience..

I'm sorry that you've lost all trust in my advice and recommendations, but I do wish you well in your endeavor.

Warmly,

Donna

How did I do?  Would you have done something differently?   How do you handle this kind of feedback?  Inquiring minds want to know..;->

10 Steps to Researching Your Competition Online

Regardless of what business you're in, you have competition, or other businesses who are clamoring for the same consumer dollars as you.  The competition may or may not be in the same industry, e.g. if you own a movie theatre, your competition will be all venues providing entertainment, such as bowling alleys, theme parks, skating rinks, miniature golf courses, in addition to other movie theatres. Take a moment to determine what business you're in and determine if your type of business might also attract consumers from other industries.

As an online business owner, your competition may not be as easy to gauge, especially if you don't have a retail location for your business, or if you have a global virtual company where you can work with clients regardless of location, as many coaches, consultants, virtual assistants, graphic designers, speakers, and website designers do.  How do you begin to assess your competition when your business has no geographic limits?  It's very similar to the steps that a traditional business might take, but it's all done online.

Here are the ten steps I use to research my competition online:

1.  Brainstorm all known competitors.  If you've been in business for any length of time, you probably already have a good sense of which other companies offer what you offer.  Look up their websites and make a note of the website addresses.  You'll be using this information later.

2.  Compile a list of keywords your customer would use to find a business like yours online. How would your target market find you online?  Create a list of all keywords that they might use. If you have a business that serves a particular geographic region, you'll want to create a geographic keyword listing as well, like "cleaning business" + "Beaumont, Texas" or "cleaning business" + "Southeast Texas".

3.  Conduct a keyword search on the major search engines.  The major players in the search engine game today seem to be Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  It is the results from these search engine queries that will be the ones most commonly found by your target market. You should try your search with and without quotation marks, like "cleaning business" and cleaning business and conduct a search by location, as well, if that applies to your business.  Make a note of the top 10 listings from each search engine query and those will comprise your top competition, along with other local competitors that you know about.

4  Visit your competitors' websites and analyze their offerings. Create a summary of each competitor's services and/or products. Determine the strength and weaknesses of your competition from the perspective of your target market.  Assess how your offerings are better/worse/different from that of the competition. Are your prices higher or lower than theirs?  Why?  What makes you unique?  How can you capitalize on that uniqueness and set yourself apart from the competition? By following these steps, you'll discover your competitive advantage, or the reason(s) your target market does business with you instead of your competition. 

5.  Create a spreadsheet to track your results.  You'll want to track your research over time, so create a spreadsheet in which you keep track of all the information you discover about your competition.  Compare how both your company and the companies of your closest competition evolve throughout a year.

6.  See how your competition stacks up.  Determine how popular your competition is.  Download the Google Toolbar and determine their Google Page Rank and visit Alexa.com and determine your competitor's Alexa Traffic Ranking.  A higher Google Page Rank (on a scale of 1-10), indicates more relevance and higher traffic. In Alexa, the lower your ranking (under 500,000 means your site is fairly well visited; under 100,000 means your site is a big contender in your industry), the more relevant your site is deemed. In addition, with Alexa, you can see the other websites owned by this company, see related sites visited from this website, as well as other sites with inbound links to this site.  You can use this latter information to create a list for potential link exchanges or future strategic alliances. A tool you can use to get both rankings simultaneously is Rank Alert.

7.  Complete an analysis of their websites.  What meta tags are being used on your competitor's websites?  How are their websites optimized for keywords or keyword phrases?  How many inbound links do your competitors have?  From what other sites are the inbound links coming?  Two tools you can use to scope out this information on your competition are Keyword Density Analyzer and Link Popularity Checker.

8.  Track your competition with alerts.  The easiest way to stay on top of what your competition is doing is to track them with Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts.  In my alerts notifications, I track both keywords relevant to my business, as well as the names and website names of my closest competition.  Google has recently added a feature to their alerts system to notify you of blog postings as well, in addition to website updates and news alerts.

9.  Shop your competition.  Become your competitor's customer.  Buy the products of your top 5 competitors and familiarize yourself with their sales process.  By doing so, you'll be able to sell your own product or service more effectively since you'll have a better understanding of what your competition offers. Becoming their customer also lets you discover their weaknesses, as well as your own.  In addition, you'll want to join their mailing list or email broadcast list to keep up-to-date on what they're doing.

10.  Regularly visit your competition.  Visit the websites of your top 5 competitors at least once a month to see what's new.  In this way you can spot trends in your industry, as well as determine what seems to be working well for them and determine how you can apply this information and knowledge in your own business.

Creating your competitive intelligence helps you stay one step ahead of your competitors. It's essential to have an up-to-date picture of your closest competitors and what they are doing so that your company is remaining competitive and a major player in your industry.

When is a Gift Not a Gift?

This morning I received an email from a coach whose email list I'm on.  In it, she requested that I participate in a quick survey, and that my "reward" would be a gift worth $20.  Since I'm a fan of her work, I assumed the gift would be a special report or ebook or audio program.

I completed the survey (it was only 7 questions or so), and discovered my "gift" was a $20 coupon off the regular price of one of her marketing programs. I have to tell you that I had a brief feeling of being ripped off. Granted, the survey was short, as she promised, but I don't consider it a "gift" to save $20 off something I still have to pay $77 to receive.  As I wrote to her, a $20 discount is a discount, not a gift, and it resembles a bait and switch when you promise one thing and deliver another.  In some circles this strategy might be considered smart Internet marketing, but I think the practice reeks of poor online relationship management.

It's just as important in the online world as it is in traditional marketing to deliver what you promise, with no strings attached. As an online business owner, you are developing relationships and a reputation online in everything that you do.  Don't let a brief lapse in judgment cause your online presence to be tarnished.

Birthday Celebrations

I was born into a family full of September birthdays.  My dad's birthday is Sept. 11, my mom's is Sept. 12, my sister's is Sept. 20, and my ex-husband's is Sept. 13, so at one time I was inundated with birthday celebrations this month.  And the fact that at one point three of them were three days in a row was an amazing coincidence..LOL.

With the passage of time, some of these birthdays have slipped off the radar.  My dad died in 1986, and I divorced my ex in 1999, so that leaves my mom's and sister's birthdays to celebrate.  Eric and I took my mom out for an early birthday celebration last Saturday.  One of my mom's favorite towns is Woodville, TX, so we went out for lunch at The Pickett House, part of the Heritage Village complex, a replica of an East Texas town's main street from the 1800's.

The cool thing about the Picket House is that it serves good ole' southern comfort food like fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, black-eyed peas, watermelon rind pickles, etc., family boarding house style.  What that means is that everyone is seated at a big table and they bring big bowls of food out to be passed around the table for an all-you-can-eat affair.  And, just like the boarding houses of 100 years ago, you bus your own table by taking all of your plates, bowls, and utensils to a deposit window at the kitchen.  Actually, that reminds me more of my college dining hall days than anything else..<g>.

We did a little shopping in downtown Woodville at Sullivan's Hardware, which has all kinds of cool stuff in addition to the hardware (I've never actually bought any hardware-related items here -- only the cool "non-hardware" stuff <g>).  Eric liked a unique wooden sculpture of a dogwood flower and butterfly that we found at the Tyler County Art League Gallery across the street, so I bought it for him for a birthday gift (his birthday is just around the corner in October).

Because downtown business is scarce in small East Texas towns these days, the shop owners/clerks killed us with kindness and were extraordinarily helpful in hopes of getting us to buy from them.  Eric said he's never been given as much attention as we had when we visited the shops around the Courthouse Square in Woodville. Salespeople who can help and want to help will definitely aid those stores in standing out among all the Wal-Mart's that dot the rural Texas landscape.  When's the last time you were offered assistance in a big box store??