Website Customer Service
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David
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February 20th, 2012
Website customer support is a part of starting a website that many people overlook. It's a time consuming part of making a website that takes serious consideration. Having a good customer service policy in place can make or break a website.
Once you have visitors to your website you'll inevitably have questions about products, questions about tracking or you'll simply have people that don't feel comfortable placing orders online. If you neglect those calls or emails you're losing money and that defeats the purpose of having a website.
Options For Website Customer Service
This will really depend on your commitment to customer service. You'll find that many websites offer email, phone support and live chat. Those are the types of websites that don't want to lose on any sort of opportunities.
Many of our sponsors to the right of this page offer great customer service options. It's in your best interest to view the available options and make your decision from there.
The most accepted support option is phone support. Users want to be able to call in and speak with a live person. Offering phone support has become extremely affordable with the introduction of Vonage, the nice thing is that you can affordably get a toll-free number from them as well.
Another viable option if answering the phone is out of the question is live chat. This will allow you to chat with visitors and if you're not available it'll simply send you an email to work at a later time.
Lastly is email, this is a must but it doesn't really provide great customer service. Visitors, especially those in the United States want instant gratification. This is saying that when they want something, whether it be service or a product, they want it now.
Offering email may cause you to lose out on impulse purchases as well. If you give your customers a chance to think about a purchase it's possible that they will simply re-think it and decide not to complete the purchase.
Build Trust Through Various Organizations
Many people are skeptical about ordering online. They want to know that your website is trust worthy and you are who you say you are.
Adding the Better Business Bureau is a great way to build confidence in your website. The BBB has requirements such as being in business for a year, no open disputes and they charge a monthly fee. With that said, it's important to take care of customer disputes with the BBB immediately, even if you don't intend on using them anytime soon you'll regret not handling those disputes if you should ever decide to get accredited with the BBB.
Another way to build trust is by using TrustGuard, it's a service that will look for vulnerabilities on your website for hackers. It's become a very recognized internet seal and let's those people know that their information is safe.
TrustGuard will crawl your website once a day and will only display the seal on your website once it's determined that there aren't any vulnerabilities. The actually have statistics that show that when the TrustGuard seal is displayed that your conversion ratio will improve.
Webmaster Forum
I invite you to visit my webmaster forum, it's a great place to discuss websites and ask questions to fellow webmasters regarding topics that you may still have questions on.