Retaining Your Online Customers

If the telephone is the front line of business-to-business, customer-to-business, and business-to-customer interaction, then email might be described as the rearguard action.

There’s no point in winning the battle if you’re then clobbered from behind. Yet that’s just what many businesses are allowing to happen through their email dealings.

They’ve got face-to-face customer service down pat. They’ve trained their team members in customer-friendly telephone techniques. They’ve got a great product with wonderful after sales service – and atrocious email response times.

With the growth of mobile internet and wireless services, more people are sending emails and expecting replies in email, and their number is likely to grow exponentially within the next few years.

Yet many business owners still seem to treat the Internet and email as a kind of ‘exotic add-on’ to their business rather than as a vital part of everyday communication with customers.

Where a telephone response is usually immediate or at least forthcoming the same day, a response by email invariably takes well over 24 hours.

Having a website and email address means you’ve got to be ready to respond to customers and potential customers who contact your company through them. Belatedly responding to an emailed request for information or an emailed complaint, several days or weeks down the track, means a customer frustrated and possibly lost forever.

Net Happenings, a weekly newsletter for internet marketing professionals, declares that any business which hosts online email feedback “should be aware that customer emails deserve the same level of respect as incoming customer phone calls.”

They should receive a response within 24 hours, and not just an automated response.
Other tips for responding to emails include:

• Make sure you understand the customer’s problem or query, and be specific in your reply.
• Train your team members to respond to emails and create an environment where each team member takes responsibility for customers.
• If a customer is expressing frustration or anger, respond in an empathetic, not confrontational, manner. As with telephone calls, let people know you will do your best to help.
• If dealing with a problem, follow up by email or phone to make sure the customer’s concerns have been satisfactorily addressed.

Improving online response times needn’t be a big deal. It simply means seeing email as a vital part of everyday customer communication instead of an exotic add-on.

For more information visit: www.unitymanagement.com.au/e-commerce-strategy-development.html OR call +(612) 9011 5220.