How to Turn Customer Service into Sales – Audimute Case Study $1,000 Sale | Ep. #30 Business Podcast
Summary
We often look at Customer Service as a cost center, but I’d offer you that it can actually be a sales channel. And recently I had an amazing experience with Audimute that shows exactly how it’s done.
The whole experience led to me buying a $1,000 worth of their product. Listen in and hear how they do it and how you can copy their method to turn your customer service into a sales channel.
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Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of Build a Business Success Secrets. I am your host, Brandon C. White. And today I’m going to share with you an experience where customer service turned into a $1000 sale and how you can use customer service to make that happen for your business.
Actually did an article, I was looking in the Build a Business Success Secrets print newsletter- Shameless plug- that you could get at bsuccesssecrets.com, and it was the June issue. I did a whole article on turning amazing customer service into a major revenue source, and I recently had this experience with Audimute.
And if you’re not familiar with audio things, Audimute makes products that help insulate sound for recording. Or if you have a room, maybe you play drums. Maybe you play an instrument. You want to insulate it so other people can’t hear.
They have all sorts of things panels and tarps and ceiling coverings just about for anything, And I had heard about them on- Well, you know what? Let’s get right to the show, and I’ll tell you all about it.
Okay, so here’s the story. I started podcasting back in early 2000s even 1999 or 1998. We didn’t even call podcasting. All I thought was was that I could put Fishing reports on the Internet and people could listen to them.
And if you don’t know my story quickly, I ran the largest social networking site for sport fishermen on the Internet. It was the first company that I built and ultimately sold, and I had podcasted it for many years and then gotten out of it when I had started one of my companies.
And I really wanted to get back into it after that company was sold and I took a Pat Flynn podcast course, and he really got me energized to get back into it. And he brought me up to date on all the modern things back in those days. I was recording files and putting them up in flat file HTML pages.
And then ultimately, Apple podcast came out, and I was able to get a plug in for WordPress, and I sort of made it work and had a feed that would go to Apple podcast with an RSS feed that I actually hosted on my own server.
It was really hard, but Pat got me up to speed. So I started getting back into podcasting and this podcast to Build A Business Success Secrets is actually the second generation.
I did a test podcast last year with a different name to really sort of get my feel and understand the equipment and really get my voice back because it’s just practice. If you’re gonna do any sort of radio or you’re going to do videos, where you going to do anything like that? You really got to do repetitions regularly.
I did 30 days on Facebook live on our build a business page one month, really just to get, like I said, to get back into this practice and voice and letting it flow because in the beginning, sort of slow feel uncomfortable and you just don’t have it.
So actually, this podcast, I don’t know what episode will be in our twenties or thirties when this comes out, and I’m starting to get my flow back. And I did I think, 20 episodes on my first version as well, anyway.
Occasionally, I tuned back into Pat Flynn’s smart passive income, and he’s got stuff all over the place. Anyway, I’m watching a video that he had and he was talking about how he got Audimute panels and he actually tested them with homemade stuff. I was like, you know what? I’ll check this out. I went to Audimute, and they had a whole section on the different products.
And the one feature that was really cool was They said, if you take a picture of your room with measurements will get back to you with a customized list of suggestions.
And I was thinking, you know, you know, when you go to these websites and they’re like, Oh, fill out all this stuff and we’ll give you X Y Z and they promise you the world, then nothing happens.
You like and whatever. I’ll figure it out. I’ll do the research. So I filled it out. It was on a Saturday. I remember doing it. I was sitting around before I got on my bike and I felt that I was like, Okay, well, let’s see what happens Monday morning, Rick from Audimute calls me and he says, Hey, I got your picture and I’d love to talk to you because I have some suggestions.
This is Monday morning now I’m on Pacific time, and I think they’re either on Central time. I’m pretty sure, or Eastern time I forget, but nonetheless, it was early in the morning, like first thing.
I was like, Oh my God, I’m going to have somebody who’s going to help me because there really are a lot of products. And there’s all these ratings and panels do different things and tarps, and some tarps don’t do things.
I’m calling them tarps. They’re really sheets that you can hang.
And then do you need ceiling panels? And when I was watching Pat’s video, that really is a difference. And I know that from a sound booth that there’s just it. Just when you walk into a sound booth, your voice really doesn’t echo.
And I used to do a radio show as a co host in Baltimore on a sports station where we did really early morning on Saturday mornings. Fishing reports and stuff, and it’s just a really good experience. Your voice sounds better.
Hopefully, this sounds better. I just got my last panel. I still have to do my ceiling.
Anyway, I call him back and I said, Is this Hey, thank you so much. I was so grateful to actually talk to a human. He said, Hey, look, I got your picture. Here’s what I’m suggesting.
And I was like, Okay, I can make this work he said. I’ll put together an email and send you suggestions. Sure enough, like 10 minutes later, after we got off probably a 20 minute, 25 minute phone call, he sends me a list.
I go there, and I actually bought almost everything he sent. Now he sent me three different types of panels, so I picked one type of panels, panel or panels, and I figured I would make a mural out of it like they had on there.
And then I wanted something to hang over the mirror that I have, because Rick had suggested that that’s probably bouncing a lot of sound and then my door to my home office.
We have built in kennels for our dogs, and sometimes they whine, and sometimes you can just hear noise. Our house is pretty well built. We have solid wood doors, but I said, Well, I’ll get something, hang on the door and then ultimately I wanna put some on the ceiling because I think it will help.
I have carpet in the office, which really helps a lot. Anything I could do a little bit better.
Anyway, I order all this stuff and here’s the thing. I didn’t price shop and I didn’t even compare products. Now arguably Audimute is one of the best in the business.
And by the way, I have no financial interest. There is no affiliate program for them. Nothing.
I just found that this experience was so incredible because they actually turned. Now, in many ways, what they have is, maybe what they have is a lean back magnet. If we want to break this down.
Hey, you know, we’ll give you a free phone call, but normally that just doesn’t happen. And people I value I think maybe you do, too. Phone calls with a real human where you can have an interactive experience is really valuable, especially today where that just doesn’t happen.
So the fact that he called me then he follows up with an email and I had had some questions subsequently in he’d email me back pretty quick and I didn’t price shop. I didn’t compare products.
And I would say in general that’s not like me simply because I know that sometimes you can get things cheaper. But in this case, it was so compelling that I was willing to pay for that service regardless.
And to this day, I have not gone and even looked to know if I overpaid, underpaid if it’s a good deal, bad deal. But here’s what I know they’re one of the best in the business. And when I need help, Rick emails me back very quickly and or he’ll take my phone call and I had some other questions.
We got a bunch of stuff and I wanted to add something in the ceiling area. But I just wanted to see what would happen when I had all this set up and I again he’s like, Hey, here’s three options for you. I think you want probably a panel that sits against the ceiling for you.
You don’t need the whole ceiling. If you could do that, great. But understand that your home office, maybe if you just did this section and now I’m gonna order more, and now we’re over $1000 that that’s a pretty big sale for no customer acquisition cost now.
This was word of mouth, and I think what it really goes to show you is if you have a good product with great customer service, it sells itself and that that’s what I wrote about in some of the things I wrote about in the Build a Business Success Secrets print newsletter. Shameless plug for it, about how turning customer service can turn into revenue.
Now, In the article, I went over some other, a bunch of other ideas, but this is just unexamined where I don’t know how much Audimute makes. My guess is they’re very successful company.
Their products are really solid made. They had directions. It was easy. I scan the QR code and boom. So really, I think this is an example that you can copy or emulate or model after and in today’s day and age.
We do things with customer service because we want to get the cheapest customer service we can tow, optimize our profits. But I think that if you invest in these just solid quality foundations of business that it pays dividends because I’m gonna make another order and I’m probably down the line, gonna order more stuff from them, and I’m certainly gonna trust him.
So in many ways, they have a customer for life, so their average revenue per user are with me is super high, and I imagine the experiences is similar with other people.
So take this as an example, invest in your customer service and see what happens and sometimes don’t even outsource it. I still do customer service, and I think we should all do that.
When I worked at America Online in marketing, analysis and premium services, we could call into the customer service line and listen to those calls so that we could hear what customers were saying.
And really, at the end of the day, the only reason that we all have a business it’s because of our customers.
Not like the money grows unless somebody else has another model. Um, I don’t have a money tree out back. I got to produce a good product at a good price. That solves a problem for the customer and provide a really good experience around that.
And you were on Lee gonna learn what customers are saying by getting in touch with them. And I know that as an entrepreneur, the dream is to have the corner office or not even the corner office. Maybe not have to have any office it at all and work remotely and travel the world or do whatever you want to do.
But the idea is that you can automate everything, but in order to get to that level, you’re gonna have to stay in touch with your customers. And you’re gonna want to stay in touch with your customers so that you know exactly what’s happening.
If you rely on a virtual assistant or a virtual assistant who’s managed by another manager, it just you’re never gonna get that pure customer feedback. It’s gonna get watered down.
It’s not a that someone’s trying to do that in a bad way. It just happens.
So use this example of Audimute and see how you can apply this type of framework, which is really in many ways a lead magnet to get someone on the phone to talk to him but provide them so much value that they don’t even see it as sales.
They just want the product, and that’s what Rick did I didn’t see it. He didn’t sell me. He wasn’t selling me. He was legitimately helping me understand what I could do in my room and what their products could do.
And in many cases, I had suggested some more expensive things. He said, I don’t think you need that. So use this example is really great on.
I wanted to talk about it because I think they deserve credit. And I think we can all take this model and apply it to our business in some way. That allows customer service to be this revenue generating division, if you will, of our business that normally people don’t look at as a sales mechanism.
So with that right back to me, if you put any of this into practice or you have some good ideas of your own, I’d love to hear them. In fact, I’d love to have you on the podcast if you have some HPT’s high percentage tips that we can drop for the audience.
So drop me a line and see what you can do with your customer service. All right. Pretty cool, right.
Shout out to Pat Flynn and Rick at Audimute for turning me on to these products and helping this podcast have a better experience for you.
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