Painters were at our house this weekend, doing the trim outside 
and a few rooms inside. My wife provided most of the direction, 
but I asked the head guy (and owner of the company) to pay 
attention to a few details for me. 

The whole experience reminded me of how critically important it 
is to pay attention to customer requests when dealing with eBay 
sales. On the Web (and with email) it’s easy to lose contact with 
customers and forget to address their concerns. 

Make sure you don’t fall into this trap. You may not see the 
results directly, but your customers will become upset and you’ll 
eventually lose business – like my painter has. Not only did he 
lose business, he lost a valuable referral source.

He started to lose me when he failed to record my suggestions 
and concerns. I didn’t get into interior design much, choosing 
between mauve and tope, but I did have some input as far as the 
whole project goes.

I wanted them to make sure they cleaned up the "misses" on the 
outside, where some black trim paint accidentally hit the white 
house paint. I needed them to unstick some of the windows and put 
all the screens back, as well.

When the project started wrapping up, it was obvious that the 
lead was ignoring some of my requests -- namely the screens and 
window unsticking. I loved the work, but I wasn’t so hot on their 
finishing skills. 

From a customer service perspective, the timing couldn’t have 
been worse.  Just when the painters wanted to consider it a job 
well done, I was having second thoughts about their competence. 

That sinking feeling should not have come at the end of the 
project. The lead should have been going out with a celebration 
rather than with some gripes. He should have lead me around, 
showed me how great everything looks, showed me the extra work 
he'd thrown in, and gone down my list of requests one by one, 
demonstrating that he met my needs and respects my wishes.

If he performed these "finalizing" customer service/marketing 
steps, he'd have my 100% recommendation. I'd rave about him 
to friends, pass out his business cards and even write up a 
testimonial for him. I'd offer to help him out with his 
advertising materials, in fact. We'll certainly have more 
painting jobs in the future, and I'd like to stay on good 
terms with him.

On eBay, the same steps need to be followed in order to build 
business and collect loyal customers that rave about you. You 
need to send customers follow-up emails that confirm what they 
bought, what kind of deal you're giving them (on shipping, 
bonuses, etc.), and how you appreciate their business and would 
welcome any questions they may have. You need to offer them 
targeted cross-sell and up-sell items as they bid and shop. And, 
you need to quickly address their concerns as they come up. All 
this attention and service ensures that your customers refer you 
to others, leave positive feedback, and return to do more 
business with you.

Don't be like my painter. Pay attention to detail and your 
business will grow at a healthy pace. 

Phil Dunn, author of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay 
Marketing (McGraw-Hill, July 2005), is a marketing writer 
and strategic consultant. He helps people persuade, 
influence decision making, and close business with the 
written and spoken word. His business, Synapse Services Co. 
(http://www.qualitywriter.com), produces direct mail, brochures, 
scripts, newsletters, white papers and related collateral for 
Fortune 500 companies like Pitney Bowes, Hewlett Packard, IKON 
and Microsoft.