There are many reasons why customer service is important to your success as a company. The main reason is customer service can cost you repeat and future business if it is bad. No matter how niche your business may be, with the whole world online, competition is fierce. It only takes one bad experience, no matter how trivial, for a customer to look elsewhere. Fortunately, there are many preventative measures you can implement online to help your customers resolve issues and improve the level of service you offer.
Level 1 – The Basics
These are the basics, the “gotta haves”, of any website. These won’t make you stand out from your competition, but are the minimum standards that your customers will expect from your site:
- A phone number that is easy to find so they can call you.
- An easy to navigate site, so they can find what they are looking for.
- A customer feedback form for after hours feedback, or for those that prefer online communications.
- An FAQ page or other “help-oriented” pages that answer common questions about your product or service. Other related help-oriented pages may be about Warranty Information, Shipping Rates or Return Policies.
Level 2 – Content as Customer Service
Information is power. When customers have an issue and are on your website, they are likely looking for information that will help them. Give them the ability to be served via your website immediately and it will save employee time that is spent helping them over the phone or email after frustration has already set in. Ideas for helpful and information-packed content include:
- How-to Videos
- Whitepapers
- E-Books
- Online Wiki
- Document Library
- In-Depth FAQ Pages
- Blog
Level 3 – Social Media
People love to talk on Facebook and Twitter about their lives, including good and bad experiences they have with businesses. Being on social media allows you to be where the conversations are happening and have a presence where they can interface with you. Linking to your social media accounts from your website gives customers another option to interface with you. It may be scary to have a public arena where problems can be exposed, but it allows you the opportunity to show how you resolve issues and regain trust. You can also re-purpose and post support content from your website to your social media accounts to build up posts and provide another outlet for your content to be helpful.
Level 4 – Above and Beyond
Those that want to go above and beyond in their online customer service offerings can provide:
- Live Help – This is a good option if you have staff available that can provide real-time support on your website via a chat window.
- Forums – Not recommended for new or smaller companies, but can be very effective for companies with a large customer base. Forums allow customers to post problems in forums and get answers from other customers who have already dealt with the same issue – or from employees that monitor the forums for problems.
- Customer Feedback Surveys – Having customers fill out feedback surveys allows you to find out past issues that customers had that you weren’t even aware of so that you can avoid them in the future.
Need assistant setup up online resources for your website to help support your customers? We can help, contact us today.