![\"Advice](\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3556\/3600458529_e42e3f4077_n.jpg\")
<\/a>Set up your own Advice Shop for customers.<\/p><\/div>\n
That makes it your<\/em> job to make it easier for them to ask, or to help themselves. Here are a few ways to do that.<\/p>\n 1. Provide self-service help<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t make them ask at all. Just let them help themselves.<\/p>\n 2. Make it easier to ask<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if you think you’re easy to approach with questions, you can make it more user-friendly.<\/p>\n 3. Help customers to help each other<\/strong><\/p>\n Your customers are the real experts. They come up with ides you’ll never think of. By helping them to connect, you’ll benefit with more smart ideas.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that customers have the same worries and feeling as you and me. They hate to admit they don’t know something. They don’t like to look ignorant. Just changing a few words in your approach can make it much easier for them. We found at our store that if we asked,\u00a0“What can I help you find?” people would deflect that question. But when we say, “What can I help you locate?” customers seem to respond better. It feels less threatening. It’s not that you can’t find it, just that you can’t locate it right now.<\/p>\n If I simple word change like that can help in our store, what words can you change to help your customers?<\/p>\n Thanks to Susan T. Blake,\u00a0@susantblake<\/a>, for her tweet that inspired this post:<\/em> New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the\u00a0Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s hard to ask for help, isn’t it? We hate to admit we need help. It hurts our pride. We hate to let go of our independence and control. All of that is scary. If it’s hard for you to ask for help, imagine how hard it is for your customers. That makes it your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3821"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6884,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions\/6884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\n “And if it’s hard for us to ask for help, think how hard it is for our customers.”<\/em><\/p>\n