Get Customers to Stop Calling You--12 Easy Ways to Save Money with Online Customer Support

Despite rumors to the contrary, the Web is not dead. More people are using it, they have faster bandwidth, and in many cases Net-time is taking over TV- time. It's no wonder more users are turning to the Net for help, rather than the telephone. So why not take advantage by offering your customers help online after the sale? Given that the average customer care call is $33, it's a great way to please customers that prefer the Web over a phone queue and save money too.

Not that you ever want to drive customers away. After all, keeping a good customer is a whole lot cheaper than acquiring a new one. The idea is to move the majority of calls to self-help and reserve quality time for those customers that need to speak to a real person. If you guide certain customers towards answering questions themselves, make it a good experience, and offer incentives for usage, self-help will be their first choice.

The type of online support required for each customer and for each problem may be different, so it's best to provide a range of self-help options and let customers choose what works for them. Online support comes in many forms, but for now we'll focus on the least expensive FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), Enhanced FAQs, discussion boards, and email. It's better to start with a few options first, and do them well, rather than trying to do everything at once. Offering a good help experience to people who use the Web regularly makes them more likely to turn to the Web for assistance again and again.

1. Determine Your Online Support Strategy Figure out what's going to give you the biggest bang for the buck, then add on. Having a plan will help ensure that each support component works within a cohesive whole. Generic information can be easily handled with FAQs or Enhanced FAQs. More complex or customer-specific information requires advanced technologies. If you don't have the expertise or time to build the functionality yourself, look into Web service providers who can create and host applications for you.

2. Focus and Target Don't try to create online support to cover every subject. Consider customer demographics to determine who will use the service, why they would use it, what they would need, and what would get them to use it. Customers ordinarily will use a combination of both online and offline support options, so build use cases for each target customer segment to gain an understanding of their behavior and how to improve their overall experience.

3. Tell Customers Where to Go Make sure links to the help section are clearly communicated at every touch point, such as on printed material and through IVR systems. Familiarize your sales and phone reps with the site and its benefits, as in, "Did you know that we have a website that shows you how to do that?" Offer customers incentives to encourage first time usage and let them get in the short phone queue if they try self-help before calling.

4. Make Help Easy to Find at Your Site If you don't provide a direct link to help, make it an obvious click away from your home page and other appropriate pages.

5. Give them Options Even if a customer visited the site only in search of contact information, there's no reason why you can't try to resolve their problem while they're there, saving both of you a phone call. Briefly describe what is offered through self-help, how it works, and what they can expect. You don't want customers to waste their time looking for information that isn't there.

6. Should I Give Them My Number? You should always make contact information available, but the extent to which you delay publishing it will depend on your target customers and your support strategy. For example, if you can respond to the majority of visitor questions with generic information and your goal is to maximize self-help use, then delay, driving visitors to use self-help first. On the other hand, if many of your customers require custom treatment and you want the opportunity for personal contact, as with brokerage services, you may want to make phone numbers readily available.

7. Start with Simple FAQs Answer the questions customers ask most often. Don't worry about trying to answer every possible question. Build your list from customer questions received via your customer reps, email, and keywords searched at your site. Organize the information into a standardized format, write clearly, and don't try to sell your customers anything. This is not the place and time. You can always provide navigation links to sales information. If the FAQs are long, add an easy to use index or search function.

8. Give It to Them Straight Make sure the information you provide avoids jargon and terms they would need to search elsewhere to find. Leverage the technologies available with HTML to provide definitions via rollovers to help customers get the information they need faster.

9. More than Just the FAQs Expand on your FAQs by providing images and interactivity. Imagine how much easier it would be to show pictures detailing a car battery installation or a bicycle assembly, rather than explaining it with words alone. Involving the user through interactivity improves learning and results in a more positive experience, which means they'll use self-help again.

10. Get Them Talking Get customers to search and answer questions themselves via a discussion board. Harvest information from the boards for your FAQs.

11. e-Mail with Caution Use e-mail, but be sure you have the resources to respond in a timely and effective manner. If you set up the expectation that it takes too long to get a response, customers are going to lose confidence in the service and not use it again. Be careful about using automated email responders as well. If customers have to wait and still don't get the specific help they need, the best you can hope for is frustrated customers. More likely you'll end up paying for this lapse in customer service in the form of phone support and lost future sales.

12. Survey Says Let customers tell you what they need. It's the best way to make improvements to your online customer support. Ask a few simple follow-up questions through an online survey, but keep it short and simple. Respect your customers' time.

Robbin Block is President of PictureSez, Inc., which gives companies an easy way to enrich their websites with picture-based, online customer support. Whether for how-to instructions or FAQ's, our browser-based authoring tool allows you to 'show' your customers what to do-- without any programming. Visit http://www.picturesez.com or mailto:rblock@picturesez.com.

The ABC's of Online Customer Support

Want to provide great online customer support? Want to provide the kind of customer support that will grow your business, by building customer loyalty and satisfaction? It’s not as hard as it sounds! Just remember your ABC’s.

A-Add value

Don’t just do the bare minimum when it comes to providing customer support on your website. Go above and beyond to provide the customer with an exceptional experience. Remember, there are probably several sites out there right now trying to sell the same products or services that you are. Differentiate yourself by the high level of customer service you provide. Don’t simply answer questions. Provide solutions. Don’t just give a suggestion. Be an expert! If your customers or potential customers come to your site with a question or problem, help them as if you’re the foremost expert in your field. For example, let’s assume you run a website that sells bird houses. A potential customer visits your site and has a question about a specific model. How do you help them? First and foremost, I hope that you answer their question. But you have a great opportunity to go above and beyond. Ask the potential customer what types of birds she’s hoping to attract, where she is going to be putting the bird house, and where she’s located. With this information, as the world’s foremost expert in bird houses, you can recommend the right model in size, style, and material for her desired result. Now, you’re more than just a bird house salesman to this customer, you’re a bird house expert! You’ve added value through your online customer support.

B-Be There

A customer is on your site looking at your information and they have a big question. Where are you? The idea of ‘being there’ is twofold. First, it means making customer support channels easily accessible via your website. Regardless of what channels you use, you want them to be easily accessible from any page on your site. Either put your customer support channels on each page, or provide a clear and easy-to-find link to your support page from every page. As soon as your customer has a question, you don’t want them to have to look far to find a way to get in touch with you. Second, ‘being there’ means being available when your customers contact you. Be ready to answer the phone when they call, respond to all emails within a couple hours, or be prepared to handle incoming chats or support tickets. What good is customer support when a customer finds no one on the other end to assist them immediately? ‘Be there’ for your customers and you will be rewarded with better relationships and stronger loyalty.

C-Count the Cost

Let’s face it, your time and money are valuable. So, how do you provide great customer support on a budget? Come up with a plan. Determine what options are available to you, weigh the advantages vs. the costs, and implement your decisions. Here are some considerations regarding different online customer support options:

Phone support: Convenient for your customers, but potentially costly and time consuming for you. If you have an 800#, that is a large expense, and you can only talk to one person at a time.

Email support: Less effective for the customer than phone support. It is quick and easy to send their questions to you, but uncertainty over the length of time for responses is a concern. For you, email is one of the cheapest and easiest forms of support. You probably already have email, and you can respond to inquiries on your time.

Live chat software: Most effective channel of online customer support for the customer. Their questions can be answered immediately on the website by a real person. For you, the key is finding quality and affordable live chat software, and it is available. Also, live chat requires that you, or an employee, are available to handle incoming chat requests as much as possible.

Knowledge Database/FAQ/Self-Help: This can be a quick and easy way to get answers for your more savvy customers. However, it can also be burdensome for customers if they aren’t quickly and easily able to find answers to their questions. This is probably the easiest channel of customer support for you. After the initial time investment required to dump all of your information to the site, it is there and available for customers from then on.

These are just 4 of the channels for online customer support. You may also consider support tickets, forums, and others. As you can see, each channel has its advantages and disadvantages, both for you as the business owner, and for your customers. The best websites for online customer support usually offer a blend of several of these channels.

Providing great customer support on your website is not difficult, and it will have tremendous advantages for you. To provide excellent support for both you and your customers, simply remember the ABC’s of online customer support: Add value, Be there, and Count the cost.

Dan Cavanaugh is an online customer support expert with the Customer Support Network, an organization committed to the improvement of online customer service. To learn more about online customer support and the role it plays in e-commerce, click here: http://www.customersupportnetwork.com