Posted on June 16th, 2010It takes much more than the initial set up to be successful with an eCommerce website. In fact, if you are trying to establish a solid online company, then you should know that the battle never really ends, it simply moves into new stages. With each new stage you’re met with new challenges, but there is one constant that needs to be dealt with in all stages – customer support.
Although you own your own business, every one of your customers can be considered your boss, since they are ultimately the ones that pay you. Even having a massive marketing campaign is not as important as having solid support, as marketing does not bring sales, it simply brings prospective sales. Most people that shop online are used to dealing with companies that have 24 hour support available at all times, however you do not have to offer this level of support form the beginning. Instead, you can establish a system that is financially suitable fro you, and as you gather more clients, you can expand your support center.
Different Models of Customer Support
Establishing a solid support center for your online business is absolutely imperative, especially if you plan on becoming an authoritative presence online. When it comes to offering support you have two options – you can spend a great deal of money to hire employees, or you can spend a great deal of time handling the support issues by yourself. There are however various types of support that can be utilized and some are more cost efficient than others. Perhaps the most expensive kind of support is phone support. The cheapest kind of support is email support, which you can actually deal with yourself in your spare time. But for high sales volumes, you’ll need constant support, as people are more likely to buy something from a company that is always available. Thus, live instant messaging support is perhaps the best option.
Auto-Responders
There is a form of instant messaging chat that costs little to no money to setup – auto-responders. You can use auto-responders with both email messaging and instant messaging, to automatically respond to questions that your employees may have. You can create a list of responses that are executed when specific questions are asked. These auto-responders act almost like an automatic frequently asked questions list. You can also set up an actual FAQ for your customers, which will save lot of support time and cost if you do decide to hire human employees. There are distinct advantages that live support teams present over auto-responders.
Live Chat vs. Auto-Responders
The problem with auto-responders is that most people will be able to tell that you are using some sort of machine to answer questions after submitting a few inquiries. This can lead to upset customers, and in some cases you may lose a client due to frustration. The fact is, people love to deal with other people when they have a problem, and if they can find a competitor that offers real human support, then you are most likely going to lose a client.