The Internet is a fantastic way to have an international business with
minimal investment. Many companies spend a lot of money to automate the
entire customer interaction process. As your products become more
specialized, the larger your requirements will be for providing the
opportunity for your customers to conveniently interact with you. The
more convenient the interaction is, the stronger your relationship with
the customer will become. This convenience is not limited to the
purchasing process. You need to have specialized technical services,
order tracking and customer service that exceed what your competitors
are offering, or else your business life on the Internet will be very
short and unsuccessful. Before you learn how to offer these services,
you need to ask yourself if you are willing to offer them? Start by
asking yourself these two questions.
Are you in business to conduct transaction based relationships?
or
Are you in business to build relationship based transactions?
If your answer was yes to the first question, we recommend that you
invest your money somewhere other than the Internet. Everyone cannot
offer the lowest prices. The lower your prices are, the higher your
volume has to be. Eventually all of your competitors will be offering
products below cost with free shipping and so will you! Ultimately,
there will only be a few survivors in your category and most if not all
of those companies won't be making a profit.
If your answer was yes to the second question, congratulations! You
already have an idea how create a foundation for building long term
business relationships. If you build the relationship first, the
transactions will follow, not just one transaction but many
transactions!
How can you build relationships with people or customers you never talk
to? Here are the steps we recommend you implement.
1. Make your web site easy to use.
Nothing is more annoying to a customer than a web site that is difficult
to place an order on. If your customers cannot complete their order in 4
- 5 screens or pages, then your shopping cart system is too difficult to
use. Make sure the customer receives a copy of their order automatically
once the order is placed.
2. Provide your customers with a confirmation message that the order has
been received.
3. Provide your customers with a shipping confirmation message and a
tracking number. (If you are using a shipping process that allows you to
track the shipping status of orders).
4. Make your phone number highly visible on your web site.
Many Internet businesses think that they do not have to talk to
customers because they have a web site and they do not a physical store.
If you think talking to customers, solving their problems and addressing
their concerns is not worth your time, you are wrong! Making it easy for
customers to conduct business with you, is what building a relationship
is all about.
5. Provide details of your customer service policy and response time.
Show your customers that you care about them. Post your customer service
policies. "We return all e-mail inquiries within 24 hours". If this is
your policy, then make sure you do it. Most consumers on the Internet
are surprised if a company responds to inquires within 24 hours. If you
can do it faster, you can start building relationships faster.
6. Have a process for handling large problems with customer orders.
Make sure your order form requires the customers telephone number. If
you have a big problem filling a customer's order, have your customer
service person call them on the telephone. That's right, call them on
the telephone! If you think it exceeds a customers expectations by
responding to their e-mail request within 24 hours, imagine the kind of
relationship you can build if you call them, instead of waiting 24 hours
for them to respond to your e-mail.
7. Technical F.A.Q.'s
Make sure your web site has complete and current technical information.
If you want your customer service people off of the phone, make it easy
for your customers to solve their own technical problems. You can do
this by offering easy to read and easy to follow technical advice on
your web site. Don't forget to let customers know how quickly you will
respond to their technical questions too! Our advice is, the faster you
can respond the better your relationship will be.
Implement these seven easy steps and you will be on your way to building
relationship based transactions, that will last a lifetime!
About the Author
Daryl Clark is President and CEO of EMarketingMan.com. His goal is to
provide you with high quality information, management and internet
consulting services. You can read his other articles at
http://www.emarketingman.com/articlespolicy.htm. E-mail
to: emarketingman-subscribe@topica.com