Posted on November 20th, 2009Any online company owners knows just how important customer support is to the longevity of their business. They also understand how difficult it can be to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction. An efficient support system requires a lot of careful planning, especially if you want to ensure that the customers are taken care of without spending too much money. Here are some innovative features that will help you accomplish both goals:
Support Tickets
The ticketing system has become one of the most commonly used support features on today’s market. This is mainly because they tend to be very affordable. With a ticketing system, your customers can open up a case where they submit their questions or concerns to the support department who in turn, handles the issue. With reliable employees, a few individuals can take care of the communications without incurring too many problems. Support ticket systems are easy to use and generally simple to integrate into an existing e-commerce site.
Live Chat
Live chat is a customer support feature that has become incredibly popular over the last couple of years. Now from a cost perspective, it can prove to be a disadvantage compared to the support ticket system as it requires more human resources and usually a more advanced site design. On the bright side, support via live chat has turned out to be a useful feature that customers absolutely love. This is mainly because they are able to obtain immediate responses in real-time and receive near-instant feedback on their queries. As a store owner, having this luxury also means that purchasing decisions can be made noticeably faster. And since the average visitor usually only wants to pose one or two questions, the time your support agents spend occupied on the chat line is often no more than a few minutes.
Automatic Response
Similar to many areas of online business, the most affordable way to do almost anything involves automating the process and eliminating a huge portion of the costs associated with it. Such automation features have recently become available for customer support, providing excellent opportunities for driving down costs without leaving the customer feeling as if they are being ignored. Keep in mind that this often requires more advanced site development as well as tedious programming to create an application that is capable of accurately analyzing queries and promptly distributing an automated response. However, this feature can make for a support system that enables your business to enjoy the best of both worlds. For example, the customer is able to get a response almost instantly, while your company saves money on expenses in the support department.
Many online businesses find that the best way to approach these features is to integrate all three into their support system. Because this can end up being a costly endeavor, you need to weigh your options to determine if integration is the right move for your needs. Most importantly, you must remember that the customers enable your business to exist, and should always be given the attention that makes them feel as so.