The dot-com shakeout has made it clear that those who did not approach the web prudently learned the hard lesson that online selling is still selling. And that what creates success on the web is what creates success in the traditional business world. Nowhere is that truer than in the small-business world, where it’s still important that everyone do every job.
“Retailers should never have assumed that the web was going to be the end-all,” says Peter Coomaraswamy, president of Austin, TX-based Complete Books and Media, which sells business and technical manuals to the government and corporations. “Your employees and your customer service are going to be what carry you through.”
Coomaraswamy says all of his nine employees are trained to handle customer calls. They know how to access the orders and they know how to help customers. In the end, it’s still a sales-based business and customer service is the key to success, he says. The web has grown from providing 50% of Complete Books and Media’s revenue to more than 65% since it first went online nearly four years ago.
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