CUSTOMER SERVICE:4 SURE WAYS

We are all too familiar with the importance of customer service with the traditional brick and mortar businesses. However, when it comes to online businesses, this principle seems to be very much overlooked and ignored. Perhaps it is due to the fact that online businesses do not actually have to face their customers that the idea of customer service is easily neglected.



In this 9th part of our ‘Online Entrepreneur Guide‘ series, I will be looking at some of the important principles of customer service based on personal experience to attract and to keep customers coming back for more. But also more importantly, an excellent customer service will encourage word-of-mouth reviews to be published on the web, which can be a huge boost to your online business:


Respond to emails yesterday.

The very nature of the Web is to allow rapid access to information and customers or potential customers will also be looking for the same when communicating with you. Based on my experience, customers or potential customers who take the time to write an email to you are genuinely interested in your product and what you have to offer. As such, replying to their emails in a timely fashion cannot be over-emphasized. If you can respond quickly and accurately (actually answering the question they have instead of beating around the bush), it creates several powerful impressions of your business and product:

Customers are important
Fast efficient customer support can be expected
Serious interest in selling the product
Professionalism
There was an occasion when a potential customer emailed a serious query on one of my services and I was able to respond within 5 minute of their email. The information requested was actually on my website, but I took the time to cut and paste the information from the website in my response to his email. He responded very shortly after that he was very pleasantly surprised with the quick reply he got and appreciated it as he was actually looking for a quick solution to his problem and price was secondary. I received a sale 2 minutes later. Of course this is a very specific example, but I’ve also noticed that visitors generally developed a good impression of my site when they receive a response to their email fast. Thus, while it maybe tedious and often easily taken for granted, don’t fall into the trap of neglecting your emails. It’s one of the very few ways to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other similar websites.


Answer their questions before they ask.

Just like any sales assistant, your website needs to fulfill the role of answering the questions of ‘walk-in’ customers. The beauty of an online business is the ability to present all the important information upfront for the customer to help themselves. Thus part of an effective customer service for your online business, is to ensure that all the obvious questions should already by answered even before your customers need to ask them. Imagine that you walk into a store and a product catches your eye. You try searching for the price, but it’s not there. You search for an assistant who says, ‘I will need to call my headquarters to get the price for you’. Immediately you will think, ‘What kind of store is this? That they don’t even have the basic information of prices of their products!’

In the same way, part of good customer service for online businesses is to ensure that all the obvious information desired by customers should be presented clearly and in a way that is easily found. Just imagine that your website needs to play the role of a sales assistant with the added benefit that it works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What kind of knowledge and service would you want your sales staff to have? Then make sure that your website has all that.


Keep customers in the loop.

Another common mistake by online businesses is the failure to keep customers updated on the status of their purchase. This is especially relevant when there is a lag between the time the customer registers or pays for a product and the actual time they receive their product. Naturally, when you pay for something, you will want to know that the company has received your payment and is processing your order and when you can expect to hear from them again. Unfortunately, many businesses stop short at the sales pitch and when a customer registers or pays, they seem to just brush their hands and forget that the customer is still anxiously wondering what’s happening. This is worst if they do not even get a clear message that the orders have gone through. There were more than once that I purchased a product and after making payment, I get automatically redirected to the homepage. Immediately, I will wonder, ’so what happened? Have they taken my money? What is supposed to happen next?’ These questions create unnecessary anxiety with your customers and reduce the amount of trust your customers have your site.

Therefore, take the time to ensure that the entire process from sales pitch until the final result of the customer receiving his product is accounted for and that the customer has a very clear idea of what is happening to their order so that they are assured that their requests have been properly processed. This can usually be done through emails sent upon the completion of various processes like a confirmation email upon registration, and another upon payment made and when to expect a reply. If there is any form of delay beyond what was previously stated, an update email should be sent to reassure the customer that things are still in the process and not forgotten. Of course there is a need to find a right balance and the idea is not to flood the customer’s mailbox with an email every hour. This principle will of course apply to requests for support as well.


Personalize Service that Goes Beyond Expectations.

Part of establishing a business, is the need to have a good understanding of your customers and the situations that they are in. I recently concluded a deal with a server company to move all my dedicated servers over to this new firm. Uptime is essentially life-and-death to online businesses and one of my main concerns was the possibility of my websites going down due to errors in the move. What impressed me was the sensitivity of the sales support staff to my concerns and apart from his company’s instant messaging account, he also voluntarily gave me his personal IM account so that I can reach him in the event that it was after office hours. More than that, he proposed to dedicate himself for a couple of hours when I was moving my sites to allow him to immediately jump in to solve any problems or errors I may face in the process. Isn’t that something?

Needless to say, I was much more confident in agreeing to the deal. Thus, we arranged for a mutually convenient time (despite time differences) where I will start the shifting of servers and he would be tracking it every step of the way, while we communicated through IM. Not surprisingly, he needed to quickly assist me on several occasions during the process to solve some problems that I had and thay allowed me to keep the downtime of all my sites to a bare minimum. Thus, it is necessary at times to customize your customer support and service based on individual needs of your customers in order to gain their trust and business. Don’t let the additional effort required hinder you as in my case, this company has probably gained several more orders based on my personal recommendations to my business partners and associates on the excellent customer service provided by this company. The rewards will be well-worth the small investment in time and effort.


Thus, the bottom line is, exceed your customer’s expectations and your business should do well. Customer service in online businesses is just as important if not more than those of traditional businesses. There is a need to ‘compensate’ for the lack of the human touch in online sales compared with the interaction with a friendly and patient sales staff. Thus, online businesses must capitalize on other avenues to demonstrate their warmth and support of their customers. Build a strong and effective customer service and you will create fans of your existing customers and establish a sustainable advertising model for your online business for the long run.

Source http://www.lifesperspective.com