|
No Customer Left Behind
© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
========================
As more companies make the jump to cyberspace every week
and billions of dollars flow across the Internet, nobody
can deny that ecommerce plays a significant roll in
business today.
However, as the aisles of your local online shopping site
get more crowded, the tendency for customer service issues
and contact to fall through the cracks increases
dramatically.
The main problem for any site revolves around the fact that
email as a means of communication has become unreliable
over the last couple of years.
Spam (unsolicited commercial email) lies at the heart of
the problem since it clogs the email boxes of both the
company and the customer.
In an attempt to stem the tide of spam, email gets filtered,
lost, or deleted on both sides, often leading to hard
feelings as customers think their emails have been ignored
when actually they've never been received.
As a result, many companies, large and small, have started
using "help desk" software to manage their customer
communication.
Gone are the days of just emailing for support and getting
a simple reply back from a live human being on the other
end.
Spam makes it impossible for a company of any size to
operate with email-only support.
A help desk makes it possible not only to maintain a "chain"
of communication, but also avoids messages disappearing into
cyberspace.
Help desk solutions run the range from free to several
thousands of dollars for a custom program.
Two very workable and reasonably priced solutions are
Kayako.com and Perldesk.com.
(You can also do a search in Google for "free help desk
software" if you don't want to spend any money.)
Both offer the choice of installing the software on your
own server, or paying a monthly fee to get a copy of the
software installed and maintained on the provider's server.
Which option you choose depends on your level of technical
ability, level of customization needed, and how much
support you'll need over time.
I suggest starting out with the hosted version until you
get the hang of the system, then switch over to a version
on your own server to avoid the monthly charges.
An online help desk operates fairly simply.
A customer submits a ticket through a form on your website,
the customer support staff (even if it's a staff of one)
responds to the ticket through the website, and all
communication gets posted on a private web page.
Both Kayako and Perldesk enable customers to search a
"knowledgebase" or collection of articles to try solving
their problems on their own (especially during non-business
hours), thus frequently eliminating the need to get a live
response.
Anyone who does business online should consider installing
a help desk solution from the start rather than putting it
off until the future.
Get your customers conditioned to operating with a ticket
system rather than switching on them in mid-stream once
your business gets too busy to handle support via email.
Here are a couple of other tips to help you.
Designate one person to act as the "sorter" answering the
basic issues, then referring off the ones they can't answer
to other staff members.
Also, post your help desk hours and stick to them.
Answer questions the same day if possible, but no later
than the next business day.
-----------------
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
creator of an amazing course that will teach you step-by-
step and click-by-click how to finally create your own
money-making mini-sites...
|
