Original Riches

We’ve all heard the term, and we’ve all dealt with them at one point in our lives, probably hundreds of times so just what the heck is customer service? It is everything you do in your business. You are there for one reason and one reason only, to provide goods or services for your customers at a profit. Customer  service is the policies and procedures put in place to ensure customer satisfaction.

That said it also much more than implementing policy and procedure. It’s about creating a positive stress free experience between you and your customer. This is not so easily done when most customers enter into a sale wary from the start. Add to it the faceless sales of online marketing with all its hype and scams and even the most trusting souls read the fine print  twice very carefully.

Today every business offers some form of customer service, so how do we distinguish from the myriad of others out there selling the same products? By taking customer service to the next level. I call it Customer Care.

Here are some tips to help bring your customer service to the next level

Tip #1

Know your product and make the information on it readily available.





Research or test your product very carefully when deciding what to sell. Make sure you know the shortcomings of your product as well as it’s benefits and features. Being informed will eliminate many headaches and surprises down the road.









Create a website for your business people expect it these days. Personally it’s the first place I go to look for information on just about everything. Make it professional looking and as simple to navigate as possible. If your customers have trouble finding what they’re looking for they will give up in frustration and you will probably lose them as a customer.

 





Create a 1FAQ and email it to your customers at the time of purchase. Put the FAQ on your website.

 





Create a detailed help file and place it on your website. Make it easy to find if people have to go hunting for it they often give up in frustration and you may lose them as a customer.

 





When someone does have and inquiry don’t just refer them to your FAQ or help file. Take the time to answer their question and at the end of the email you can add a couple of lines to the effect that a lot of answers to the most common problems can be found in the FAQ or the detailed help on the website and provide a link.

 





Be patient. People will ask questions that the answer is obvious or readily available. Just remember it is a lot easier to fire off an email requesting the information than to search though your website looking for it.

 





Use an autoresponder to send a thank you email stating that you have received their email and will get back to them ASAP. Include the FAQ in the body of the email and a link to the detailed help stating that while they are waiting a solution might be found by reading through the help section of your website.





 1 FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions

A FAQ is a document where the most commonly asked questions and their answers are listed in a file or web page for people to read. Often a solution or an answer can be found within this document.

Tip #2

Perception

Perception is everything so they say and they are right.  In this case people do judge you  by first impression and if they don’t like what they see then they will move on. It’s time to take buff and polish your image to a glossy shine. A thorough check of the website is in order.





If you don’t know how to design a professional looking website then hire someone who can. Complex websites with tons of bells and whistles just annoy people looking for information.

 





Check the spelling of your content nothing looks more unprofessional than spelling mistakes. They stand out like a sore thumb.

 





Make sure all your links work and they lead to the right place. You don’t want your customer looking for Walt Disney to end up on some sex site for extraterrestrials.

 





Use professional email addresses. try to stay away from the free ones like Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc. Ultimately you should be using an email address that matches your domain name. For example if your domain name is www.mydomain.com then your email should be admin@yourdomain.com or richard@yourdomain.com. 

 





Get a professional photographer to take pictures of your product or hire a graphic artist to do the artwork for you if you are not artistically inclined. 

 





Tip #3

Make use of promotional products. It’s the oldest trick in the world and it is still around because it works. People love free stuff. Spend a couple hundred bucks and get some quality pens,  calendars or key chains with your name and website info. Your customers will appreciate it and it’s free advertising for you.

http://www.inforead.com

Bernie Munn

Just a plain ol’ city boy from Hamilton, Ontario. Canada who loves to write and needs an outlet