Online Business: Providing Customer Service That Brings Happy Tears

You are living the dream. The online business you’ve always longed to have is quite successful. Who knew so many people wanted a t-shirt that features a cat in a smoking jacket? You did.

With all of its success, your online business is far from perfection. You have an inbox loaded with customer emails, unanswered questions on your social media pages, and no phone for customers to call when they have an issue. It sounds like you could use some help.

Your customers love your t-shirts – that’s true. But providing a great experience for them is the one thing that will ultimately determine your staying power.

No one wants to make their customers cry out of frustration, anger or sadness. We want them to cry tears of joy because the service is beyond exceptional. Here are a few ways your online business can create an an experience that makes them well up from happiness.

Answer Those Emails
We get it – it’s easy to let emails pile up. After all, you have about a zillion other things you need to get done. Sitting down in front of a computer to answer emails is just not going to be productive. Or will it?

Customers often utilize email to reach out to online businesses. Allowing all those communications to pile up will leave you overwhelmed and them less than enthused about your business. Carve out a block of time daily to respond to customer emails. This will help you put out fires as they occur and ensure customers’ issues are being managed as quickly as possible.

Don’t Ignore Your Customers on Social Media
So many businesses create their social media accounts as placeholders; no one engages with the followers and their posts are sporadic at best. What is the use of being on social media if you aren’t going to be, well, social?

If your customers are posting questions, comments, praise and criticism, you are doing them an injustice by not responding. When a business doesn’t take the time to acknowledge its customers on social, it appears as if they don’t care about their customers or what they have to say.

Imagine going to a store and visiting customer service to explain an issue you’re having. The customer service representative stares blankly at you and never says anything. That’s what it’s like when you don’t respond to your customers on social media. It’s a no-brainer. Make time daily to engage with them.

Get a Phone Number
There’s a weird trend happening where online businesses think they don’t need phones because they don’t have a physical address. We understand many people prefer to communicate through email or live chat, but the phone is still gravely important to any customer service strategy. Don’t believe us? Check out these stats:

• 57% of customers have to switch from web to phone customer service to resolve an issue.
• Google surveyed 3,000 smartphone users between the ages of 18 and 74 and found that 59 percent of them chose to use click-to-call because they thought it would be the fastest way to get a response from the business.
• 60% of surveyed respondents in BrightLocal’s poll chose to call a business after looking them up on Google.

Facts are facts and the phone is still the ruler of the customer service kingdom. You do your customers a disservice by not providing a number where they can reach you for some of their tougher issuers. Don’t have time to answer calls? Outsource them! Using a call center creates a seamless customer service experience and frees you up to focus on other things.

Just because your business is online doesn’t mean you can’t create a customer experience that leaves people breathless. One of the simplest ways to create that service is to ensure you’re communicating with them on every channel possible. Ignore them for too long and they’ll be buying their cat in a smoking jacket shirts elsewhere.