Step By Step Guide to Leaving Feedback on eBay

 Leaving feedback for the seller after your item arrives is an important end to every eBay transaction. Your leaving feedback lets the community (and the seller) how happy you were to do business with this person.
There are several ways to leave feedback for a seller:

• If you’re on the transaction page, click the Leave Feedback link; the Leave Feedback page appears.
• In the Purchase History area of your My eBay page, click the Leave Feedback link next to the transaction.
• In the Feedback Forum, click the Leave Feedback link to see a list of all your completed auctions from the last 60 days for which you haven’t left feedback.
• On your My eBay page, scroll down and on the left side you will see your purchase history. Click there to find the item that's just arrived. Under Actions to the right of the item, you will see a Leave Feedback link, which will take you to the Feedback page.
• Click the Community-->Announcements link, in the main navigation bar, and then click eBay Feedback Forum. On the next page that appears, click the Leave Feedback link.

To leave feedback for a seller, follow these steps:

1. Enter the required information.
   Note that your item number is usually filled in, but if you’re placing feedback from the user’s feedback page, you need to have the number at hand.
2. Choose whether you want your feedback to be positive, negative, or neutral.
3. Type your feedback comment.
4. Fill in your star ratings by clicking the stars next to the questions (see further on, "Giving Detailed Star Ratings Properly ").
   If you decide that the seller’s description was inaccurate, you will have to explain why by clicking next to the explanations that appear
5. Click the Leave Feedback button

In addition to a feedback comment and rating (positive, negative, or neutral), buyers should leave detailed seller ratings, too. After the buyer types a comment, he or she is prompted to rate the seller with one to five stars on four different factors of the transaction. The table below shows the specific rating factors, and a translation of what the stars mean.

To see the rest of the tips (and my personal take on the eBay Star ratings) please click visit the article on my website.

Personalize Mood and Activities to Facebook Updates and Comments

Believe it or not, emoticons (or Smileys) have been in use since the 19th century to punctuate written words with graphics simulated by characters. An historical newspaper specialist found what appears to be a sideways winking smiley face embedded in The New York Times copy of an Abraham Lincoln speech written in 1862  "(applause and laughter ;)";. There is some debate as to whether it is a typo, a legitimate punctuation construct, or an emoticon.

Facebook gives you options to adding your mood (or activity) – to your own posts – or to comments you write on your friend’s content. Below are keystrokes you can use to form emoji, and further on I show you how to use Facebook's new mood and activities emoticons within your own posts

When you’re commenting, or in chat, you can type in these characters to add punch to your words:

 

For a quick tutorial on the rest of Facebook's emoticons and how to add moods to your own posts, click to see the full story on my website: Add Mood and Activities to Facebook Updates with Emoticons

Opps! How to Re-Open that Browser Tab & 40 more Shortcuts For Web Browsers

I’m all about using keystrokes instead of clicking! I also love the controls available on my mouse. The tables below give you a list of documented shortcuts. You’ll see that whether you use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Apple Safari that they have many of these shortcuts in common.

Each browser has some of their own specific shortcuts, but learning the ones they have in common will serve you well as you switch between browsers and computers. I have listed them by browser (as I know these work) and have bolded some of my favorites. Test  these shortcuts in the browser you are currently using and see if they work. Hopefully these tips help cut down your desk time.

Firefox Shortcuts

Press This	Firefox Will
Backspace	Go to the previous page you’ve viewed
Ctrl + O	Open files from your computer in the browser
F5	Refresh current page
Ctrl + B	View or search your bookmarks in sidebar
Ctrl + T	New Tab
Ctrl + N	New Window
Ctrl + Shift + T	Undo Previously Closed Tab (oops command)
Ctrln + H	View or search your History in a sidebar
Ctrl + U	View Page source (to study HTML)
F11	Display full-screen, reducing the amount of icons and stuff displayed
Esc	Stop loading the current page
Ctrl + P	Print the page
Ctrl + S	Save the current page to a file on your computer
Ctrl + F	Find an occurrence of a word on a webpage
Ctrl and + or Ctrl and -	Enlarge or reduce the text on the screen (Zoom)
Ctrl + 0	Return to default browser text size

View more in the full post at Cool eBay Tools

I'm Moving > Posterous Shutters Tuesday 4/30

Posterous, was acquired by Twitter a while ago and Twitter decided to shut Posterous down as of April 30.

Everyone with a blog on Posterous has to move it to another platform. I imagine most people with a Posterous blog moved their stuff to another platform a while ago, but I'm one of those "last minute" kind of people.

Unfortunately I won't be able to take my current subscriber list with me, so if you want to stay in the loop and continue to get interesting content about how to maximize your online endeavors, please consider subscribing to my main blog, Marsha Collier's Musings, online since 2004. It will incorporate the Posterous posts, as well as future ...um ...musings.

In a few weeks, the blog will be incorporated into the latest iteration of Cool eBay Tools. A site a I founded in 1999, which now includes articles tools and tip that encompass eCommerce, Social Media, Customer Service ...and of course, succeeding on eBay.

Thank you all for tuning into my Posterous blog over the last two years.  See you on the other, brand spanking new side!

Image credit: andresr / 123RF Stock Photo

Roger Ebert’s 8 Twitter Rules, Social Media For Brands, Social Multitasking - AllTwitter

Need a little weekend reading? We’ve compiled our top ten Twitter stories of the week, which includes the late Roger Ebert’s 8 rules for using Twitter, 5 ways that social media content is evolving for brands, news that men are far more likely that women to use social media whilst on the toilet (or drunk), how small business are using social media (and what they might be doing wrong) and a look at the many hats of a community manager. 

 Here are our top 10 Twitter stories of the week. 

1. Roger Ebert’s 8 Rules For Using Twitter
Much-loved film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday after a long battle with thyroid cancer. Surgery in 2006 had left him unable to speak, but he continued to be a prominent user of social media, and Twitter was a particular favourite. Indeed, after some initial resistance, with Ebert proclaiming that he would “never become a Twit” and that Twitter represented “the end of civilisation”, he would go on to write more than 30,000 tweets before his death.
2. 5 Ways Social Media Content is Rapidly Evolving For Brands
Anyone working in social media marketing appreciates the unique challenges of attempting to budget and plan for the upcoming year’s social media strategy. How can we know the type and level of resources we’ll need to be successful when the mix of social content is evolving so quickly? And when most social marketers have only recently secured budgets commensurate with the amount of time and resources required to succeed in social media marketing, how do we stay ahead of emerging trends in 2013? Did we know we’d need a Pinterest budget a year ago? Probably. Do we need a Vine budget today? Probably not.
Read More on MediaBistro
(Twitter image via Shutterstock.)

via mediabistro.com

My SXSW Experience - Real Talk: The Online Customer Service Shift Panel

Friends had suggested I go to SXSW many times, but I never really saw the value. Then in mid 2012, I hear from +Kip Wetzel (whom I admire for his work in taking the reins of the @ComcastCares account in 2011). He told me he had a plan for a panel and when he was through with his convincing pitch, I knew this was a disruptive topic for the customer service industry. My book on the subject came out in 2011; this panel could be groundbreaking. It was time the philosophy of reaching the customer where they want to be reached become the norm.

Kip craftily assembled a group of folks with the backgrounds to handle the topic: 

• +Carla Saavedra Kochalski "Manager of Social Media & Digital Content for Samsung Mobile USA's Customer Care Team" - but in reality a very talented young woman who truly "gets' the customer and can apply balance to social media custiomer service. She's been a driving force in enterprise-level social media strategy since 2010.
• +Bianca Buckridee "Social Media Operations Manager @ChaseSupport" American Banker Magazine said: "She has a thousand-watt smail that never seems to sitch off and a sunny personality that has surely servived her well on the front lines of customer service." She grasped the value of customer social media comments as early as 2009, and has been on a mission to perfect the outreach ever since.
• +Brooks Thomas "Southwest Air: Emerging Media. A journalist who's defined "emerging media for his brand. He personalizes the airline's blog with words like, "I know how your morning went down. Your synchronized yawn-and-stretch routine happened as it always does. You almost tripped on a Tonka truck on your way to the bathroom. You groggily stumbled down..." Customers can related to a brand through his words.

Three incredibly intuitive and smart people. It was my job to keep the peace and help steer the conversation. I didn't have to do much steering. To a packed room of 500, we not only got our points across, but engaged the audience ... below is the Powerpoint, and a portion of the panel on video. I hope to see everyone next year and see how the #custserv philosophy has advanced.


Our Powerpoint - thanks to +Bianca Buckridee ...

SXSW Real Talk: The Online Customer Service Shift

Real Talk: The Online Customer Service Shift - SXSW Twitter

Our panel: Bianca Buckridee (JP Morgan Chase), Brooks E Thomas (Southwest Air), Carla Saavedra (Samsung Mobile US) and I at addressed 500 social media, brands and customer service enthusiasts.

The crowd responded with a ton of Tweets including comments, quotes and links that carried actionable insights. Before I post the deck online, I thought I'd share this valuable collection

SXSW Panel "Real Talk: The Online Customer Service Shift" Tweetstream from Marsha Collier

The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide: How to Connect with Your Customers to Sell More (Google Affiliate Ad)