By helping your customers, you are helping your business too. But that’s only if you are offering quality online store customer service.
Good and helpful customer support is at the front lines of your operation. So making sure that is on point, will help build customer loyalty and credibility. By the way, good customer service is an excellent way to compete with big online retailers. These larger companies are not equipped to offer personalized customer support and do not go above and beyond for their customers. They have an in-and-out mentality. Get the customer in and then get them back out after they buy something.
Small business owners can offer exceptional customer service and that will in turn convince customers to purchase from you. Here are some tips:
Share What You Know
Sharing your knowledge will make your customers more likely to buy something from you either immediately, or down the road. One way to accomplish this is a Newsletter. Not only will you be able to create a list to market to, but if the articles in your Newsletter are compelling enough, it’s also a form of marketing if customers share the information online. Pointing customers to sign up for your Newsletter is easy. You can also get a nice pool of customers simply by giving a one-time discount for your store if they sign up.
Be An Email Expert
Email is the most important tool that you will use for your online business & it’s important to stay on top of it. Using an awesome robust email program, like Microsoft Outlook will help you to keep everything organized. Not only can you answer emails in that, but you can also schedule tasks, flag important items & create drafts so you can write template answers for your FAQ’s.
It’s important to check your email as often as you can, and respond immediately. If you have set hours for your business, then make sure you work during those hours and respond to customers. When you are first starting out, you might not have advertised hours for when you respond to customers. But as your business grows, having set customer support hours will give you some breathing room and the chance to carefully craft your responses.
Practice Your Online Customer Service
It’s daunting the amount of emails that get sent that don’t even have a “Hello” or a name attached to the email. Many NEW online businesses fall short and that’s who mostly contacts us here at WorldwideBrands.com since we offer a service to online retailers. Being rude or incoherent with your questions is not a way to properly communicate.
I have emailed online stores before to ask questions too and depending on the reply and how quickly I get a reply will help me to determine if I want to buy. But if I ask a question like.. “Hi There! I really like the dog bowl with the paw prints on it. Does it come in blue or can you get any in blue?”. If I get a one word response like “NO” or a reply like, “The color options are right there on the page”. In my mind I’m like thanks, but no thanks and will go somewhere else, because they obviously don’t care about their business, so why should I?
Customer support is a vital part of your business and should not be handled poorly. The more you go above and beyond for your customers, the more they are willing to purchase from you.