Effective Ways to Offer Customer Support for Your Website
Reading Time: 3 minutes As the owner of an e-commerce website, you know quite well that there are all sorts of customers. While some are low maintenance from start to finish and are adept at completing their orders on their own, other customers have a number of questions about anything from your products and services to shipping times, credit card inquiries and more.
In addition to having a myriad of questions, customers also like to contact your company in different ways. Some prefer a live chat experience, while others like the personal connection they get when speaking with one of your customer service representatives on the phone.
In order to help as many customers in the ways that they want, it is important to streamline customer support as much as you can while still offering a number of options. With that in mind, check out the following ways to provide help to your valued customers:
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Automated Telephone Directory
In order to get your customers the help that they need as quickly and easily as possible, you may want to set up an automated telephone directory. Using this system, your customers will answer a few questions using the keypad on their touch-tone phones to help connect them to the correct department. For example, when customers call the Sprint toll free number for help, they hear a welcome message and then are given the option to Press 1 for new wireless service, to Press 8 for business accounts, and for everyone else to stay on the line. Additional options are available, including technical support, billing questions, to pay a bill and to upgrade a phone.
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Connect via Social Media
Social media now plays a vital role in communicating with customers. While you still want to offer phone and other types of support for the clients who prefer it, using a Facebook or Instagram account is a popular way to answer customer questions. In order to do this effectively, business owners should set up a variety of social media pages on the major sites including Twitter and then respond to customer questions as quickly as possible. Activate the feature that will alert you when a post comes in on your social media accounts, and check them as soon as you can; you may want to ask a social media savvy employee to handle this work, or you can tackle it yourself.
Offer Live Chat
Live chat is another effective option that can help provide outstanding customer support. With this feature, customers will be able to quickly get answers to questions about your products and services and/or solve any issues with shipments or billing — all while feeling that your company is always there when they need you. Live chat operators also typically have access to any previous chats a customer has had with your company; the agent can access these previous interactions to quickly learn about any existing issues. Live chat can also be set up to run 24/7; this way, if a night owl customer has a question about something she wants to order at 2 a.m., she can get help right away instead of having to wait until regular business hours.
Providing outstanding customer service is sort of like ordering pizza for a large group. You want to offer as many topping choices as possible so everyone gets something that they like. So, instead of figuratively offering only pepperoni pizza in the form of an automated telephone directory, branch out and offer your valued clients lots of other customer services “toppings” like social media and live chat. This way, your customers can contact you in the way that they feel most comfortable, and they will remain happy clients.
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