Providing good customer support
When you sell a product or service it is essential that you have good customer service. This is true whether you are an offline or online business. However I do believe that as an offline business it causes slightly different issues.
The main issue with providing customer service with an online business is people expect quicker responses. Not only this but people will not take into account different time zones. They expect you to work in their time zone!
Remember people think about themselves therefore if I have a problem I want it sorted out now. Not during your working hours but now.
What many online businesses fail to do is the following:
- No help desk system in place
- No operating hours displayed
- If operating hours are displayed they don’t say in what time zone they are in.
- Poor levels of support
Let’s take each one and discuss it.
No help desk system in place
A helpdesk is a system that you can implement that will allow users to create tickets and then be able to track them. Many product developers simply have an email that you can send your issues to. This means that there is a high likelihood that your email will go missing and the developer won’t see your email or worst still will forget to respond to it.
For the product developer this is also very handy as they can keep track of tickets, resolve them and then see if there’s any common issues appearing that they can add into their FAQ. This leads to a more efficient business and thus happier customers.
No operating hours displayed
Another issue I have found is that if the product developer does have a helpdesk they don’t display the operating hours, or let you know how long it will be for a reply.
This bugs me! In my eyes replies should be given within a matter of hours during working hours. This sets up the expectation for your customer and also puts you under a small bit of pressure to make sure that you actually reply on time!
At a very minimum set up an automatic response that says we will deal with you query within X hours (remember the key point here is to under promise and over deliver!)
If operating hours are displayed they don’t say in what time zone they are in.
The internet is global so don’t expect that people will know where you are in the world. So don’t put up operating hours 9am to 6pm, as I will expect that those hours are for my time zone. Be very clear as to what time zone you are in. To help people further you might want to put in the operating hours in different time zones.
If you are going to be busy, consider hiring people in different time zones so that your helpdesk can be operated 24 hours a day
Poor levels of support
Sometimes business owners or product developers will hire cheaper workers and not train them properly. This means that the people answering the questions don’t actually know the answer to the questions your customers are asking.
Always ensure that your helpdesk staff can read and write English perfectly. Train them in the ins and outs of your product. Ensure one or two of them are techy enough to solve problems if needed.
The worst thing for me is sending a support ticket only to get what is called “canned” or automated or pre-scripted responses. It really bugs me when that happens.
Conclusion
No matter where you are in your business I suggest if you business may benefit from it, install a support desk. Once you get to a level in your business where you can’t do the support yourself hire a worker in another country to provide the support. Train them well and then allow them to deal with your support issues.