Better Online Communication
Makes Business Sense
by Mark
Ramirez
How you communicate with your online customers will make or break
your company. What are you doing to improve your customer relations?
Many companies are now doing the majority or even all their business
online and foregoing the "Brick and Mortar" storefront. It is easy to
see why that trend has happened. For one thing, the cost of setting up
such a business is relatively inexpensive and easy. There is no need to
pay for the overhead of a physical building. Also, the cost of
maintaining a Web site is minimal. Moreover, the Internet provides a
convenient and efficient way of marketing products. As more and more
people are spending time on the Internet, the market of online customers
continues to grow.
But when businesses shift from face-to-face customers to anonymous
online customers, there is a loss of personal connection and trust. All
the online spamming and scamming hasn't helped the matter at all. That
has eroded the trust in E-commerce and the credibility of many
companies. How are you gaining and maintaining customer trust? What are
you doing as an online vendor to communicate to your customers?
In an online world, business just doesn't stop after hours and on
weekends. What are you doing to answer your customer's questions? Here
are a few things that you can do to improve communication with your
customers:
1. Offer a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and online
product support information. This is an excellent way of answering
basic questions that may otherwise flood your support email. For
example, our voice-changing product, MorphVOX, has a FAQ on the common
issues that customers may come across. We also have provided detailed
online documentation on topics that users may want to explore more. This
takes care of roughly 95% of the questions people may have.
2. Add a support email link on your Web site for issues that can't
be resolved by the Web support. At Screaming Bee, we try to answer
our customer questions within one business day. More often, we'll answer
questions within an hour of receiving the email. I believe that we have
gained many loyal customers because of our aggressive efforts to meet
needs in a timely manner.
3. Provide a message board or forum for customers to voice their
opinions, add comments, and interact with each other. Remember that
people are social creatures and like to be heard. This also helps to
build up a community of users that are empowered and have a say in the
products and services that you provide.
4. Write a personal email to each customer. Have you followed
up on your customers after they have made a purchase of your products or
services? This is essential, not only from the perspective of getting
feedback on how to improve your offerings, but more importantly,
maintaining the trusting, long-term relationship with your customer.
Send them an email within 3-4 weeks of the first purchase. In this way
their experience with your products and services is fresh in their mind.
Remember, a customer who is ignored is a customer who is lost.
Spending time and effort on better communication with your customers
will pay off. Your company will rise and fall not on the customers you
gain, but on the customers that you don't lose. Loyal customers will be
the ones that give you the best testimonials. They also provide you with
the richest, organic, word-of-mouth marketing. Remember that every happy
customer is a testament of your company's success.
|
Want to link to this
article? Copy the text below and paste it into your web page:
|
Mark Ramirez is CEO and co-founder of Screaming Bee
LLC, a leading provider of voice software and solutions for online games
and messenger applications. For more information visit:
http://www.screamingbee.com.
|
