Good customer support is a must for any business, especially online enterprises. No matter how good your web design is, without quality customer support, you end up with a bad reputation, and in the end, you will definitely lose clients.
There are six things that customers don’t want to hear when seeking for support online:
- Sorry, the line is busy. Please try again later.
- Please wait and I’ll transfer your call. (And wait. And wait. And wait.)
- All our customer service representatives are busy at the moment.
- Sorry, this site is under maintenance.
- The number you have dialed is out of service.
- We are currently closed for business until tomorrow morning.
Unlike engineering or accounting, selling is not a black and white profession. Often, decisions are made on feelings and emotions rather than logic and statistics, and those feelings and emotions can change in a second.
When you put your customer on hold for a long time, confuse them with a bad web design that doesn’t make it easy for them to contact you, or keep them waiting for a reply to their question/s sent via customer support, you risk frustrating them and losing their patronage.
It is understandable that as a small business, you may not have a full-fledged customer support system. In fact, most online businesses are sole proprietorship, companies run and managed by one individual.
Here are some tips for providing good customer support even if you’re a one-person team.
Make your process for customer support as simple as possible
Customer support should be made accessible to everyone. As such, the process should be as simple as possible. One example is for customers to merely fill out a form on a web page and submit it. That’s it.
The easier you make it for your customers to reach you, the better it will be for them (and for you).
Provide all contact information in one go
There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website’s Contact Us page and seeing incomplete information.
To make it easier for your customers to get in touch with you, make sure that you provide the following information:
- Email address
- Telephone number (with a toll-free number, if possible)
- Fax number
- Postal Address
- Location map
With all these information given to them in one page, your customers will feel more confident about buying your products or engaging your services, knowing that you can be easily reached.
Provide several options for customer support
People love having alternative options to get support for the products and services that they had purchased from you, so make sure that you provide different ways that you can be contacted.
Give your email address, of course, but since not everyone wants to deal with an online support system, indicate a phone number or a chat option as well where your customers can talk to someone live.
You can also display your social media profiles prominently, should your customers be more comfortable to reach out to you using any of their social media accounts.
The more options that you provide for customer support, the better it will be for you and your business.
Be professional
When contacting customers, be as professional as possible. That means that customer service officers are courteous, patient, and know the products and services inside out.
The more confident and sincere your customer support team is, the better it will reflect on you and your business.
Respond quickly
Your customers will be happy with you if you can provide them with timely quality assistance on whatever it is that they need help with.
Businesses that offer quality customer service are companies that have the highest ratings and make the most money in the end because they have a loyal customer base.
You can rest assured that if you offer quality support in every area of your business, you’re going to get good reviews from your customers. It has been proven time and time again that offering quality human relations is a must for the success of any online venture no matter the niche.
People love companies that provide quick, timely, and quality customer support. If you want your business to succeed, make sure to extend help to your customers when they need it the most.
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Originally published at www.bookmark.com on April 26, 2016.
