Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format. With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

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Consumer Impatience Index reveals horrible truth

The proliferation of digital devices and social networks has transformed British consumers' tolerance of waiting times. What KANA calls the "expectation reflex" has truncated, in a generation, responses measured in working days to a matter of minutes.

"Little more than a decade ago, 10 working days was the conventional commitment of businesses and organisations when responding to complaints; and also the span of consumer tolerance. But this no longer applies," said David Moody, head of worldwide product strategy for KANA.

KANA asked a statistically representative sample of UK adults how frequently they checked for communication responses on their devices. Among the survey's most significant findings:

• Men are generally more impatient than women. Men will check a device for responses on average every 22 minutes, 30 seconds. Women will check every 26 minutes, 15 seconds.
• The 65+ age group checks devices more frequently than the 45-64 year old group, reflecting the time they have available and their newly developed digital capabilities. This suggests digitally enabled pensioners will become the prolific and demanding complainants within five years.
• One-fifth of all social media users will check for a response at least once an hour, with one in 20 checking every 10 minutes or more.

The most frequently checked devices across all age groups were as follows:

1. Email on smartphone - every 36 minutes;
2. Checking Twitter for replies - every 39 minutes;
3. Checking phones for texts - every 48 minutes;
4. Checking for mixed calls - every 49.25 minutes;
5. Checking PC or laptop for email - every 54 minutes;
6. Checking Facebook for messages - every 57 minutes;
7. Checking voicemail - every 1 hour, 5 minutes.

Not surprisingly, the frequency with which consumers check for messages or responses on any device or channel varied by age:

• Age 18-24: Every 9 minutes, 50 seconds;
• Age 25-34: Every 9 minutes, 55 seconds;
• Age 35-44: Every 21 minutes;
• Age 45-54: Every 36 minutes;
• Age 55-64: Every 1 hour, 30 minutes.
• Age 65+: Every 47 minutes.

"In the past ten years, organisations have lost the 'time shield' previously offered by postal services. The sense that a letter was on a journey and could be anywhere between the sender and the recipient has been lost," said Moody. "Our impression today as consumers is that as soon as we press the 'Send' button, someone should be reading our complaint and working out how to respond. If we don't hear back quickly, our impatience rises."

Public-facing organisations therefore need to recognise that the adoption of social channels is shortening the customer service process and, with smartphones acting as digital umbilical cords, the modern consumer is always connected. "In other words," Moody concluded, "for customer service desks, 'working days' are an outdated concept."

Have you seen How To SELL Anything?

This incredible sales handbook distils an expert's lifetime of sales and marketing experience and hands it to you on a platter, in a simple, easy-to-follow format.

With existing customers being the most valuable source of income for any business, this book will teach you how to increase your return business and make more profit from your most loyal customers - and even how to reduce the costs of dealing with your least profitable customers.

You'll learn to sell yourself, sell your products, and sell your brand on the internet, writing high-conversion landing pages, social media posts, and more. You'll start attracting customers you didn’t even know existed, and learn the top trade secrets for customer retention.

You'll become a lean, mean selling machine. See how the experts do it and learn to adapt what they've done for your own profit. You'll learn to write strong, powerful, effective sales copy, whether it's for a sales script, sales letter, flyer, insert, advert or just about anything else.

You'll learn how to sell whether you're selling by telephone, by mail, or even meeting prospects face-to-face. You'll find out how to size them up, present yourself, nail down their true needs, close the sale, and learn to tackle the tricky ones.

You'll discover the biggest secrets of successful direct mail sellers, sales letter writers, and how to segment and choose the right prospects for each campaign.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)