Improving Customer Confidence With A Privacy Policy

Improving Your Online Customer Service

By Staff Writer

When was the last time you experienced superb customer service? How about reprehensible service? More than likely, it's much easier to remember the latter. When a waiter is rude, spills your drink, and brings you room-temperature food, you take note. And, if you're like most people, you'll tell your friends. If the service is pleasant or even excellent, you'll be aware of it, but you probably won't tell as many people. That's because customers expect adequate service, and a bad experience can be far more memorable than a good one.

Now think about your online business. By providing strong customer service, you subtly cement a relationship by giving people what they expect, anticipating their needs and responding to their concerns. By going above and beyond what is already expected, you will set yourself even further apart from your competition.

The Internet offers you a whole new arena for impressing people with your service.

Although the fundamentals of customer service—courtesy, respect, kindness, availability—remain true regardless of your medium, the Internet offers you a whole new arena for impressing people with your service. When operating online, you have broader channels for relationship building and more opportunities to leverage your business with superior service.

Email Support
Forrester Research reports that email remains the customer service tool of choice for the vast majority of ecommerce sites. In order to make email work in your favor, however, there are a few key points to consider:

Speed of response

The ideal response time for email customer support is less than 24 hours; the standard is less than 48.

The drawback of email, compared to phone support, is the delay between the query and the answer. Don’t risk losing customers by increasing that gap. The ideal response time for email customer support is less than 24 hours; the standard is less than 48. Whether you use an online form or an email link, make it absolutely clear how soon your customers can expect an email back from you. Even a line as simple as “All questions receive a response within 48 hours” will do the trick—provided you stick to it.

Personalization
If you frequently receive the same emailed questions, it can be very tempting to use a response template—and many, many companies do. It gets questions answered quickly, and without a great deal of energy. If you go this route, beware of sounding impersonal. Nothing turns off a customer faster than a cold, canned response. Keep your tone friendly, not robotic, and always add an element of personalization. Address the customer by name, and sign each email with your name.

Accessibility

If you aren’t able to take calls all day, make sure your voicemail message makes it clear when you will be available, and when you will be returning the call.

Make yourself accessible to your site visitors. Include your contact information on every page. This means your email address, your phone number, and mailing address. If you do offer telephone support, be sure to let customers know when it is available. If you aren’t able to take calls all day, make sure your voicemail message makes it clear when you will be available, and when you will be returning the call.

Pre-emptive Service: FAQs

One of the best ways to drive down customer service costs is to answer questions before customers pose them.

One of the best ways to drive down customer service costs is to answer questions before customers pose them. Making a page of Frequently Asked Questions can be a crucial part of your overall support plan. By including comprehensive answers to the most commonly asked questions, you not only save yourself money and time in answering emails and phone calls; you also save your customer the time it takes to contact you.

Be careful: Don’t just slap together some questions and answers, put time into your FAQs. It’s a mistake many site owners make, and their customer service suffers for it. Your FAQs are just as important as your other pages in terms of the impression you give to your site visitors. Keep this page easy to read, user-friendly and tone-consistent with the rest of your Web site. Remember to check it often to make sure that your questions remain relevant to your site and that your responses are up-to-date.

Provide Details
To avoid missed sales and annoyed customers, keep in mind that your FAQs should not be the only source for customers to find answers to their questions. Some information needs to be posted elsewhere on your site. Examples include: shipping options and costs, credit card security information, warranties and return policies. Making this information known up front will save you from angry feedback later on.

Human Touch
One of the added niceties of brick-and-mortar stores is the personal touch customers receive—even from something as small as a smile when they walk in the door. They interact with individuals and hear "thank you" with their transaction. When you bring this kind of personalization to your site, you make the overall customer experience more pleasant. Ways to increase site personalization include:

Using cookies to greet visitors when they return to your site and to auto-fill fields when they order.

Posting photos of individual employees to add a face and name to your business.

Confirming every order (and don’t forget the “thank you”).

Offering order tracking.

Soliciting Feedback

From sending out periodic surveys to offering a field on your site for comments, feedback is an invaluable tool in improving your relationship to your customers.

From sending out periodic surveys to offering a field on your site for comments, feedback is an invaluable tool in improving your relationship to your customers. Show them you care about what they think and that you’re striving to serve them better—they’ll appreciate your effort and may give you suggestions that will greatly improve your business.

The Customer is Always Right
No matter how many ways you improve your online customer service through technology and attention to detail, nothing can outweigh the value of the fundamentals. Be sure that all your employees are well trained in how to respond to customers with courtesy and patience and remember that each customer interaction is a chance to build a lasting, loyal relationship. It’s marketing on a one-on-one basis, where you are demonstrating your integrity, trustworthiness and commitment.

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