Posts Tagged customer service issues

No Customer Left Behind

As more companies make the jump to cyberspace every week and billions of dollars flow across the Internet, nobody can deny that ecommerce plays a significant roll in business today.

However, as the aisles of your local online shopping site get more crowded, the tendency for customer service issues and contact to fall through the cracks increases dramatically.

The main problem for any site revolves around the fact that email as a means of communication has become unreliable over the last couple of years.

Spam (unsolicited commercial email) lies at the heart of the problem since it clogs the email boxes of both the company and the customer.

In an attempt to stem the tide of spam, email gets filtered, lost, or deleted on both sides, often leading to hard feelings as customers think their emails have been ignored when actually they’ve never been received.

As a result, many companies, large and small, have started using “help desk” software to manage their customer communication.

Gone are the days of just emailing for support and getting a simple reply back from a live human being on the other end.

Spam makes it impossible for a company of any size to operate with email-only support.

A help desk makes it possible not only to maintain a “chain” of communication, but also avoids messages disappearing into cyberspace.

Help desk solutions run the range from free to several thousands of dollars for a custom program.

Two very workable and reasonably priced solutions are Kayako.com and Perldesk.com.

(You can also do a search in Google for “free help desk software” if you don’t want to spend any money.)

Both offer the choice of installing the software on your own server, or paying a monthly fee to get a copy of the software installed and maintained on the provider’s server.

Which option you choose depends on your level of technical ability, level of customization needed, and how much support you’ll need over time.

I suggest starting out with the hosted version until you get the hang of the system, then switch over to a version on your own server to avoid the monthly charges.

An online help desk operates fairly simply.

A customer submits a ticket through a form on your website, the customer support staff (even if it’s a staff of one) responds to the ticket through the website, and all communication gets posted on a private web page.

Both Kayako and Perldesk enable customers to search a “knowledgebase” or collection of articles to try solving their problems on their own (especially during non-business hours), thus frequently eliminating the need to get a live response.

Anyone who does business online should consider installing a help desk solution from the start rather than putting it off until the future.

Get your customers conditioned to operating with a ticket system rather than switching on them in mid-stream once your business gets too busy to handle support via email.

Here are a couple of other tips to help you.

Designate one person to act as the “sorter” answering the basic issues, then referring off the ones they can’t answer to other staff members.

Also, post your help desk hours and stick to them.

How to Make Money Online With Ease

Many people are lured by the idea of working from home where they will be able to make money online, set their own hours, and create their own schedule. For many this will be an extremely attractive way of living. The typical online business requires setting up and maintaining a business website, knowledge of web design, creating or purchasing a product to offer for sale, shipping of products and dealing with customer service issues and procedures.

An easier way to create a home based business is through affiliate marketing. It is fairly easy to set up a website for affiliate marketing. A search on the Internet for site building software will produce a very large quantity of step by step programs that will allow you to create a business website in fast order.

Your next step would be to enroll as an affiliate with major websites like Amazon, Commission Junction and ClickBank to name a few. As an affiliate you will be provided with an affiliate link (a URL with your specific id embedded in it).These affiliate links can be placed on your business website together with other affiliate tools(such as banners and opt-in boxes). Through these tools, customers to your website will be taken to the sales pages for the products you are promoting. You will receive a commission if customers purchase through you affiliate links and tools. Affiliate commissions vary any where from 15%-85% of the product purchase price.

In order to create true value to customers to your website, you must provide more than just affiliate links. If customers should find your web site following a Google search and they only see affiliate links, they will quite likely feel frustrated and leave promptly. To really make money online with your website you should provide valuable content about the product you are promoting and then link from your site to the product website.

If you cannot create your own original website content, there are many companies online that will provide content at reasonable prices. The combination of good website design, good valuable content and interesting affiliate links you will receive a large number of visitors to your website and as that traffic increase so will the possibility of making commission as visitors purchase products.

A recent and exciting advance in Affiliate Marketing is the concept of the Business in A Box combined with the concept of the Membership Site. What is interesting about this business model is that you are as much a reseller as you are an affiliate. The website provides an incredible quantity of resources for someone new to Internet Marketing to obtain a complete education on the tools and concepts involved.

It is a complete system that will easily allow anyone to go on to develop additional income streams of income. This new concept charges a very small initial fee that is recouped on the very first sale, and after that you are in pure profit mode forever.

- You can begin with a 2-week FREE trial – Your commission will be 100% – You recoup you initial investment with the very first sale/commission – You will be paid instantly to your PayPal account – Content is constantly updated for you – You will not have to interact with members – You will not be responsible for updating the site – You will not be required to make any uploads – You will not have to create sales pages – You will not have to pay hosting fees – You will not have to install any scripts.