To win the hearts and minds of a customer is a long process which begins the moment they see an advert, banner, link, business card or any mention of your website address. The customer’s journey and relationship with you begins on that first click and you’ve got to impress from then on. Is your homepage or landing page delivering on what the advert or link promised? How straightforward is it for customers to order the product they want from you, or to contact you about your services?
The fly-by-night nature of the web is both an advantage and a disadvantage when you’re launching your own online business. On the positive side, as you’ve learnt, you can quickly create a web presence which gives the impression of a large established organisation; done right, customer will flock to your virtual doors. On the flip side, because it is so easy to create a website and there exists a plethora of beautifully created but essentially fraudulent websites out there, canny customers will always proceed with caution.
Gaining respectability starts with your homepage, and how well that is received, but your entire website and proposition must stand up to the same scrutiny, not to mention the order pipeline, your email/phone interaction with the customer and off course your delivery – be it a product or a service. Then there’s your after-sales care or follow up and your email marketing campaigns, PR and what folks are saying about you through social media sites… Respectability on the web is hard won and fast lost.
Customer Services does not just mean offering a phone number or an email address on the site and hoping for the best.
To manage your expectations, if you’re operating an e-commerce operation, you’ll be very lucky indeed if your customer contact rate is less than 5-10%. This means for every 100 orders you ship, at least 5-10 people will contact you before, during or after their order. Of those same contacts about 50% will contact you again with a follow up inquiry. You must allow for this in your daily operations and have suitable staff allocation in place.
At first you will be able to handle the calls and the emails yourself, but for all the time you are answering a customer, or finding out what happened with their order, either internally or with the carrier, you’re not doing the other twenty tasks that need to be done.
For service providers, customer services also covers sales inquiries and client care, both pre- and post-sale. These inquiries won’t be so numerous, but without doubt each inquiry will be unique and will require a detailed and well researched response. Again, you will be able to handle this yourself initially, but eventually it will require its own resource.
Your tone with customers (or potential customers) must at all times be professional and courteous – it could be that one initial email that leads to a huge order or turns out to be from a journalist writing a piece on your particular market. It could be that this same customer becomes one of your most loyal and constant clients recommending you far and wide. Your customers are your lifeblood and customer service is therefore a very necessary arm of your business, not something you can try and ‘deal with’ whilst eating your lunch.
· Clearly display a phone number on your website, especially during the order pipeline pages
· Provide email addresses or contact forms for customers to contact you
· Consider livechat functionality for customers who require an immediate response
· Give customers a guide to when they can expect a reply – if it’s 24 hours, make sure you reply within this timeframe
· Fix the customer’s problem as quickly and efficiently as you can
· Take any criticism seriously and investigate what you can do to stop the same thing happening to other customers
Without doubt many of your customer’s inquiries will have similarities and therefore it’s well worth creating templates or blurbs which can be utilised for the most common types of contact. Don’t send the template out un-edited, as no single email can cover so many bases.
· Personalise the email with the customers name, order number/reference, delivery address
· If the contact is related to a credit or debit card number, be sure that neither you nor the customer quotes the card number via email – this must be done via an http webpage or via telephone/fax
· Quote the expected or revised delivery date if applicable
· Sign off with a real name, so that the customer can follow up with the customer service representative in the future
· Thank the customer for their query/order/comment
Going above and beyond
You’re a new business and you have to impress potential and returning customers – giving away something for free may seem counter-productive but it can be super effective at ensuring future custom and causing a word-of-mouth stir. This is true for both product and service providers.
For product providers:
* give away something novel i.e. a free packet of sweets/candy bar with every order
* upgrade random customer’s delivery options – under promise over deliver
* include a voucher or code for a discount of future purchases.
* offer a reward for introducing a friend to your service
For service providers:
* A pdf guide or white paper on a topic of interest to potential clients available for download - if it’s branded, you’ll get the call… see http://www.aedgency.com/resources/guides/
*An invitation to all your clients to join you on a night out
* offer a reward for introducing another company to your service
* Run a fantasy football or similar league for your clients with an attractive prize for the winner
* create an award – i.e. if you are an accountant launch a competition via your website or create a micro-site for the best business plan – you’ll have a great chance to get media coverage, traffic and all those new businesses will need accounting services…
You can use one or all of these techniques at different times of the year – your aim always is to delight your customers.
Newsletters
Newsletters are very specific mailings and should not be confused or grouped together with email marketing campaigns. The easiest way to differentiate the two is to remember that a newsletter cannot include a sales-related call to action. Here are some examples
· Hired new staff – include a bio and contact details and outline the area/s of business the new staff member will be looking after
· New offices – great for kudos but essential to let clients know your new contact details
· Recruitment drive – let your client list know that you’re hiring – you know they like your product and service; it shows that you’re growing and it’s a great way to ‘sell’ your business
· New white paper / free information available – you’re giving it away for free, and it’s of interest to your client base
The frequency of newsletters should be few and far between – we’re all busy people and just because I’ve bought a book from you once or you fitted my new kitchen doesn’t mean I want to get a weekly update of every single corporate decision you make forever. Remember – are your customer’s really interested in this? Will it help them?
Most importantly customers must opt-in to receive newsletters. Ask the question when they register on your website and if they opt out, respect their decision.
