The quality of your customer service can have a huge impact on the overall success of your business. When customers feel cared for and valued, they’re much more likely to recommend your business to their friends and associates. They’re also more likely to be repeat customers and give you positive reviews.
On the other hand, when customers receive poor service, you’ll probably lose them. Even worse, they may leave bad reviews online, preventing others from trying you out in the first place.
In this post, we’ll look at several ways to provide great customer service for your online clients.
Use Multiple Channels
How can your customers reach you when they have problems with your products and services? The most successful companies are finding that offering customer through multiple channels can help to satisfy customers and respond to their concerns more quickly.
If your customers only reach you via one channel right now, consider adding another channel. Let’s look at some of the ways companies are providing customer service.
- Email. Depending on your business, email might be a great way to provide customer service. This is especially true for B2B companies.
- Social Media. One of the nice things about social media customer service is that other customers can read what you’ve done to help. This might solve their problems as well. Also, potential customers can see that you respond quickly to customer concerns.
- Live Chat. Some people really don’t like talking on the phone, and live chat supplies a live conversation without having to talk.
- Phone Support. This might be the most traditional channel for customer service. While it’s convenient and great for clarification, people might have to hold for a long time when call volume is high.
- Help Desk. An online Help Desk offers answers to frequently asked questions. If the answer to the customers’ problem isn’t available on the Help Desk, they can submit a ticket, which you respond to as soon as you can.
- Texting. Some companies are now providing customer service via texting, and the results are good. Some people feel most comfortable communicating via text; meet them where they are.
Be Quick About It
We live in a world of instant gratification, and people can get pretty impatient if they have to wait for your customer service. Therefore, do what you can to provide customer service as quickly as possible.
If you decide to use multiple channels for your customer service, make sure you have each channel covered at all times during business hours. Time your customer service responses, and set goals to improve response times if you find that you’re currently slow.
Collect Valuable Information
Keep good records that pertain to your customer service. Not only will this help you with follow-up orders and calls for customers, but it can also help you to make improvements to your products, services, and processes.
By regularly reviewing the information you collect through your customer service efforts, you’ll be able to see patterns and know where to focus your future improvements.
Make Customer Service Easy to Find
Do your customers know how to reach you if they have problems? Make sure that your website design is customer service friendly. Are there links on every page taking your visitors to customer service if they need it? Do you include customer service information on receipts, invoices, and emails?
Don’t let your customers get frustrated before they even reach you on the phone or email or Help Desk. Make it easy for them by providing plenty of information about how they can reach you. This will set the tone for your excellent customer service.
For more information about customer service for your online clients–or to learn about any other content marketing topic–give us a call at Park Slope Softworks, your Brooklyn digital marketing company. Be sure to check out our Free SEO analysis.
