Ten Online Customer Service Tips

By- Andrea Wilson

Other than the current buzz words, customer service has
changed very little since commerce first began. If you want
a customer to buy from you again, and to recommend your
product or service to others, complaints or problems must
be handled properly.

"A satisfied customer will tell five people about their
experience, a dissatisified customer will tell twenty-five!"

Customer Service on the Internet

The Internet is an impersonal place to shop. Because of
this, the online customer feels little loyalty to you or your
company. Many online shoppers won't restrain their anger
and upset either. They feel safe behind their anonymous
email address. Therefore, in responding to a complaint,
you must quickly establish rapport with your customer. To
do this, your phone skills and email etiquette must be
exceptional. You won't likely get a second chance to make
the right impression.

Here are some tips to put you on the right track:

1. Don't give stock responses when customers are not
asking stock questions! Take care to answer every
question or concern that a customer poses in an email.
There's nothing worse than getting back an email from a
business owner or their customer service representative
that doesn't address the concerns you stated in your email,
gives canned responses to what you asked, or makes you
feel like a nuisance...or a dummy!

2. End the call or email on a high note for the customer.
They'll remember your last words best. In other words,
don't end the conversation by saying, "And I'm really sorry
you didn't receive your widget when promised." Say,
"Martha, your widget is on my desk right now. I'll be
packaging it right after this call and I will take it to the post
office myself." Now stop talking! Don't be tempted to
apologize again and remind them of the problem. Leave
customers with the good taste of a resolution in their
mouths.

3. In emails, use "exaggerated courtesy." Since the person
can't see your expression or hear your tone of voice, your
words must do everything for you. Read emails at least
three times before hitting the send button.

4. Remove or reword phrases in your email that could be
considered rude, such as, "As I said on the phone,...."
(Ouch, that's a reprimand! We expect the sentence to end
like this, "As I said on the phone, Stupid!")

5. Consider outsourcing your customer service. I was a
customer service professional for fifteen years in the high-
tech industry. As a hiring manager I looked for two
customer service "virtues" in candidates: patience beyond
measure and a genuine liking for people. If you do your
own customer service for your small business, you need to
determine if you have those qualities. If not, you might
want to outsource your customer service to someone who
does!

6. Ask customers what they want! Often their request will
be more reasonable than whatever it was you were going
to do to make it right. And it will be the solution they want,
not the solution you think they want!

7. Acknowledge their pain and make it right! In my
experience, customers rarely demand something more
than what they originally expected. So don't start offering
all kinds of freebies to try and make them feel better. What
they really want is for you to acknowledge their pain and
make it right. Making it right usually means getting what
they expected in the first place. And it doesn't have to be
accompanied by a free gift. Don't substitute "bribing" the
customer for genuinely caring about their pain. You can't
buy their loyalty, but you can earn it.

8. Avoid over compensating for your company's mistake.
Gushing with apologetic words and offering them the sky
because of a small shipping error can leave your customer
doubting your professionalism. And if you've given them
the sky for such a small mistake, what the heck will you do
when you really mess up?

9. If possible, give customers a choice as to the solution to
their problem. They'll view their experience with less pain
that way. If they couldn't download your ebook because of
some technical difficulty, they might want a full refund, they
might want the chance to download the ebook again, or
they might prefer that you email them the ebook.

10. If you do it carefully, you can use some customer
service situations to upsell customers. "Martha, did you
notice on our Web site that you can get a second widget at
half price? If I ship them today, both widgets will arrive in
plenty of time for Christmas. Gift-wrapping is included, by
the way." Now stop talking and let Martha sell herself on
your offer. This is not the time for a hard sales pitch!

How does good customer service increase your revenue?
Every customer service encounter gives you another
chance to:

- improve customer loyalty
- correct problems in your buying cycle
- upsell customers.

By retaining customer loyalty you now have the chance to
sell this customer something else, and you can rest
assured they'll say positive things about your company.
Remember, a satisfied customer will tell five people, but a
dissatisified customer will tell twenty-five people!


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Andrea Wilson is a former customer service professional who now owns Able Webs, an online Web design business. Visit http://www.ablewebs.com and get your free copy of Andrea's ezine, "Web Marketing Today." Learn proven tips and tricks to successfully market your business on the Web.