Free tips for Communicating with Online Customers

By Belle on 5 June 2006 in Blog

Hey there,

By now you know that I really value communicating with customers – it makes life so much easier having happy customers and happy customers make for a healthy and thriving business.

Communicating with online customers who are in different time zones or simply have different hours to you can sometimes be a little tricky. People tend to expect an instant response and that isn’t always possible. It is possible though to put in place systems and tools that help manage customer expectations and makes them feel safe and valued.

For emails it can be as simple as setting up some autoresponders. These are emails that are sent directly back to customers who have contacted you. For example, you can set up an email address details@mybusiness.com and when people send you an email asking for information you can reply to them immediately with a reply that covers the top 5 questions you’re asked and a note saying what time frame you get back to people. This way they know what’s happening and 9 times out of 10 their question is answered.

This makes people feel informed, know that their email got through and gives the impression you are a professional organisation.

It also buys you some time to get to the emails effectively. If their question isn’t answered by the initial reply email (autoresponder because it has automatically responded to their email) and you get back to them as promised they are happy. Communication builds trust and helps create happy customers so use it.

One autoresponder email can answer thousands of emails and saves you from writing the same answers again and again. It saves you time and it helps look after your customers.

I learnt all about autoresponders with the Internet Marketing Center’s “Insider Secrets” material and my business has really benefited from them. They are free and the Internet Marketing Center’s “Insider Secrets” gives you example autoresponder text that you can copy and modify for your own business (they don’t just explain what they are and the value, they actually show you how to do it so you don’t have to be the world’s best writer to make it happen! – great stuff).

So go for it – get your copy of the Internet Marketing Center’s “Insider Secrets” and make it happen for your business and save yourself from answering all those emails!