After I wrote about Practicing Good Online
Business Ethics, then online customer service came to mind.
Do you practice good online customer service?
I don't know about you, but I've joined and bought some things and have
had to wait up to 72 hours before anyone replied. Man I was mad!
Has that ever happened to you?
I thought the internet was supposed to deliver instant products?
I can understand up to 24 hours, but some of these people need to get
with the information highway business! Especially when we buy a download
or access to a members area. We want in Now, not 3 days from now! Right?
And if I have a question, I don't want to wait a week for an answer!
Gosh, what kind of business operates like that in the real world? And if
one does exist, I bet they won't be in business for very long.
And all of these autoresponders. Does anyone reply personally anymore?
I send a question to support and get a reply back that says: We received
your info and we'll get back to you asap.
Why do people do that? We know you received our message, now just reply
with the answer, not an autoresponder saying you received it.
These are very important factors in having a successful online business.
If you don't provide good customer support, how can you expect to keep
your customers? They'll just move on to the next service or product, whatever
it may be.
Always reply to your customers within a reasonable period of time.
How long would you want to wait for your questions to be answered? Think
like a customer when you're running your own business.
It's fine to have an autoresponder, don't get me wrong, I use them too.
But to a certain extent. For instance, when someone subscribes to my ezine,
they'll receive a welcome email instantly with their login info.
That's one way of using an autoresponder in a good way.
A not so good way of using one is like I said above. If you have a support
form on your site for your visitors to leave their comments or questions,
don't use an autoresponder reply in those. All that does is aggravate people.
It only takes a minute to reply to someones question. And when you reply
personally, that makes them feel like they are important and you're ready
to take care of them personally.
As you should be willing to take care of them if they bought your service
or product. If you don't, they will find someone else who will, and take
their business elsewhere.
Treat others as you would like to be treated and you'll do just fine.
Provide the best customer care you can and your customers will be yours
for life. Just remember, the customer is always right.:)
All the best,
Audra
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Audra Gehrke is the owner of Ecommerce Resources:
http://www.ecommerce-resources.org
she's also the
publisher of: Ecommerce Resources Ezine:
http://www.ecommerce-resources.org/e-zine.html & the
Author of: http://www.ecommerce-resources.org/guide.html
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