Tactics > customer service
Helping customers
help themselves
By Davin Yap
Offering web
s you no doubt know, ecommerce self-service is becoming increasingly important.
presents merchants with a great This entails moving beyond static FAQ pages to
opportunity to win and retain a dynamic, self-organising database of questions
self-service
A
customers and sales. But it also and answers that automatically prioritises entries
presents a great challenge: How according to how frequently they are viewed.
do you create a face for your A typical self-service programme works like
benefi ts
brand and loyalty among customers when the this: A customer clicks on a box labelled “ask
competition is just a click away? a question”, “need help?”, or the like, then
Web self-service—providing immediate, types in a question in everyday language. The
shoppers and,
accurate answers to customer queries online— application replies with a simple response and/
can help. It enables you to deliver a high level or links to similar questions and their answers.
by extension,
of customer service, accelerating sales as well as A context-sensitive application can even present
providing unique insight into customer needs. a customer with the most popular questions and
answers based on where he is on the site before
your business
Helping shoppers he begins typing in his query.
The web, bricks-and-mortar stores, and the A database is only as good as its content,
contact centre are dependent on each other so it’s important to update it as customers ask
to maintain successful engagement with new questions. An effective back-end interface
customers. An unfulfi lled customer expectation of a web self-service application allows even
at any of these places will damage a company’s staff who lack programming skills to add new
brand and potentially its sales. content and announcements. A multilanguage
The quality of information provided by solution should ensure that new content added
websites and sales staff can heavily infl uence a in one language is automatically alerted for
consumer’s purchase, which is one reason web update across all language modules.
Check it out
Customer service begins before the checked the credit ratings of all the do companies such as Experian that have
consumer becomes a customer. For companies on the shortlist,” says Michael their own databases. And if you subscribe
instance, if prospects request a catalogue Smith, Heist’s head of data and mailing to a speciality online service, you will be
or other printed materials, it’s important services. “Some of these results were given access to the risk report portfolio for
to get those materials into their hands surprisingly low, and the knock-on effect any UK business. These reports contain
as soon as possible. For one thing, if you could be huge.” far more information than a credit rating,
delay, they may no longer be interested in Mail Workshop, a mail and distribution and they take an objective view: Just how
your offer by the time it reaches them. For company, proved to have what Smith calls much risk is involved in doing business
another, speedy delivery of a catalogue “an impressive credit rating. Coupled with each company?
suggests that you are also able to deliver with the knowledge that this particular “Every day hundreds of UK companies
their order speedily. large despatch of over-2kg, catalogue-size are going into administration,” says
Hand in hand with speed is reliability. prospectuses was their forte, this made Mail Workshop managing director Mark
Marketing fi rm Heist, which handles it a very easy decision to change from our Rosenberg. “With the increase in prepack
prospectus distribution for British existing distributor to Mail Workshop.” companies, many directors are closing
universities, prides itself on reliability as One way to protect yourself from your down one day and restarting the next, in
well as cost-effectiveness, so it looked for supplier going bust and leaving you at risk the same industry, to the same potential
those same attributes when selecting a of failing your customers is to research clients, and even with the same trading
distribution partner. the reliability of your suppliers and name. Whilst the company directors carry
“In these tricky fi nancial times it was partners. The government stores details of on regardless, the existing customers are
important that our fi nancial department both limited and nonlimited companies, as often the biggest losers.”
12
Catalogue e-business www.catalog-biz.com
ceb 170.indd 12 26/10/09 19:19:05
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