Are you having problems providing good customer service online?

Are you finding yourself struggling to connect with your clients?

Before I reveal my good customer services methods it’s important to know there is a new breed of online shoppers that have very different profiles, characteristics and needs.

The challenge to provide good customer service is increasing due to the heavy number of online software vendors.

The traditional methods of creating customer satisfaction often entailed face to face meetings and phone conversations. In the new era of good customer service people now prefer email correspondence and only the occasional phone conversation.

Three years ago, I was a customer service representative for an online retail store selling after market printer ink. I was able to increase sales by 70% my first four months by providing good customer service.

I will share with you the pearls of my discovery and how I successfully increased our bottom line.

Good Customer Service is providing Good Email Correspondence

The invention of the Internet and Email has drastically changed the way people communicate. Email is often the preferred method of communication for most clients. It is not unusual for a client to send an email consisting of only one sentence.

For example I have a client after taking our thirty day trial they down loaded our online accounting software and sent me the following e-mail:“how do I activate multi-user support?”

When people send you a one sentence question this is a perfect opening to show your good customer service skills. Instead of responding with a one sentence answer like, “go to your business profile on your dashboard and click on ‘grant / remove user access’. You now have an opportunity to build on generating customer retention along with an ongoing business relationship.

An Outstanding E-mail Example of Good Customer Service

My response to the question: “how do I activate multi-user support?”

Dear Customer,

Thank you for using our accounting software we really appreciate having you as a client. We would like you to know that if you have any suggestions about improving our service please feel free to contact us. We value your business and customer satisfaction is extremely important to us.

Following are the instructions on how to add multiple users to your business account.

1. Log in to your account
2. On the left vertical navigation bar, go to the Setup section
3. Click on “Business Profile”
4. Under your business information, click on “Grant/Revoke Access”
5. An “Access Control” pop-up will occur
6. Enter the email of the person you wish to give access to
7. Select the level of access you wish to give this person by using the drop down arrow
8. Click on the link “Add User”
9. The email address you have entered should show up with their access level
10. Click on the “Done” button
11. Ask the new user(s) to sign up for an account using the email addresses you have provided
12. Once they signed up and verified their email addresses, they should be able to log in
13. They will see a list of businesses they have access to under the “Navigation” bar by using the drop down icon.

We hope we were able to answer your questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or comments.

Warm Regards,
Clarity Accounting Support Team.
Phone: (778) 370-1880
Email: support@clarityaccounting.com
Web : www.clarityaccounting.com

Some key points in improving customer retention and customer satisfaction when submitting an email response:

• Thank your customers for sending you an email
• Thank them for their support and/or patience depending on the nature of the customer’s inquiry
• Always invite your customers to contact you again if they have any questions or comments.

The Proper Way to Handle Complaints While Providing Good Customer Service

Complaints are the emails you need to respond to ASAP. If the complaint is something that cannot be resolved instantly, you would still want to respond to the complaint immediately by saying: “Thank you for submitting your issue. We are sorry for the inconvenience and we are currently working on resolving state the problem here. We will contact you as soon as we have the problem resolved.

This will alleviate your customers anxiety while giving them a feeling of customer satisfaction.
Recently I had an experience with an online service company that did not provide good customer service. They did a software upgrade and I could no longer export any of my contacts. Since this drastically affected my work flow, I decided to send them an email saying this has affected me greatly and I needed this feature back.

They did not respond for 3 days and when they did get around to emailing me, they were casual and vague. I didn’t feel as if they cared about my problem nor did I feel valued as a customer.

If they had dealt with this situation in a professional and timely manner I would be recommending them to my clients and be more likely to purchase their next product, instead I was left with a bad customer experience.

Here are some appropriate guidelines to follow when responding to a customer compliant:

1. Set up an auto- responder on your web site that acknowledges the client immediately, letting them know with in a 24 hour time frame you will get back to back to them.
2. Respond in a timely manner honoring the time set in your auto responder e-mail.
3. Reply in a friendly and professional manner.
4. Offer to make up for any delay or lack of a promised service.
5. Be clear when stating appropriate time frames for the resolution.
6. Extend an invitation to be contacted concerning any other needs they may have.

How to Make a Good Customer Service Call without Alienating your Clients

There is a reason why people are buying online instead of showing up at a store front. They want an easy, hassle free customer experience minus the sales calls. Customers find it inconvenient to be interrupted by a service call.

The proper way to go about creating a good customer service experience is to a send an e-mail requesting a convenient time to talk. Now that you have their complete attention you can go over all of your customers needs and inquire about any additional suggestions they may have in better serving them.
There is one exception to this however, when your customers call you, your response time should be as soon as possible.

How Good Customer Service Converts to Excellent Customer Retention

Here at Clarity Accounting we have a policy to get back to our customers the very same day. We believe in going the extra mile while providing that human touch that is missing with so many big companies. When you sign up for our astounding on-line accounting software program you find that we have thought of every angle to respond to your needs. We even respond to e-mail inquires outside of the normal office hours.

We have found that this policy has greatly improved our customer retention and puts us on top when it comes to customer satisfaction.

There is nothing we won’t do for our customers. Our motto is if you’re doing business with us you are part of our family. Therefore we would like to welcome you to our family by extending an invitation for you to start your 30 day free trial of our remarkable on line accounting software that creates automatic data backup and gives you anywhere access. You won’t find another program that is as easy and simple while taking care of all your accounting needs.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
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• Log in to Clarity Accounting

I came across a blog post today by Ryan Allis, founder of iContact called “Study Proves that personalized emails are more effective“.  This is referring to emails that begin with the client’s first name.  For example, an email that begins with “Dear May, did you know there are many reasons why personalize emails are effective?” has the possibility of increasing sales by 57% compared to those who does no email marketing at all. 

Last month was my first month in getting on the ban waggon of sending out newsletters.  In fact, I personally used iContact’s services.  I must admit I needed a bit of help from my Technical Director (since I am really not born to be a techie) but I am sure Ryan and his team really tried very hard in making things as easy as possible.  Which is why my input was so crucial during the creation of our online accounting software.  The idea is that if any dummy user like me can use it, anyone can.

I was told by a self-made real estate millionaire, July Ono, that newsletters are essential in building my network.  In fact, there is a saying that a person’s network is proportional to his/her net-worth.  I was taught there are 3 main components that contribute to the success of newsletters:

1. Write consistently on a monthly basis
2. Offer value to the target audience
3. Get real and personal with a touch of vulnerability

I took those suggestions to heart and began writing my first newsletter in July 2008.  I am personally on the mailing list of several newsletters but I have always found that many newsletters are sent simply to tell the clients about new products and services without offering any real value.  Most importantly, most newsletters were missing the “vulnerability” element.  I think many people found it hard to be vulnerable, thinking that showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness.  My experience was quite different.  I found that the more I shared my thoughts and struggles, the more my clients relate with me on a personal level.

My first newsletter to my personal network received raving reviews from those who read it.  Although iContact showed only 30% of my contacts opened my newsletter, I found that many more people have actually read it and this statistic did not show up in the tracking function of iContact.  In fact, I would suspect that at least 50% of my network read my first newsletter. 

Here is a sample of the contents of my first personal newsletter delivered through iContact:

Dear May, In this issue, I will share with you some valuable tips and insights I have learned from starting a software business as well as tips on creating joy and abundance in your life. Website Marketing Tip: How much do you know about your website visitors?      Do you have a website? If so, do you know how many people visit your website on a daily basis and where they come from? Do you know which pages on your website attract the most visitors and which keywords they used to find your website? If you do not have this information readily available to you, I highly suggest you sign up for Google Analytics. It is completely freeand it will give you up to date information about your website visitors. This can be incredibly useful if you want to know how effective your Internet marketing strategies are. Warning: this can be addictive! I remember when I first started my blog, Manifestation Stories, I used to spend hours looking at where my visitors were coming from. Google Analytics Case Scenario: Clarity Accounting Soft Launch Month 1      At the beginning of June, my business partner (and life partner) and I decided to soft launch our online accounting software for small businessesand home based businesses. Soft Launch is the term we use to describe the process of making our software available on the Internet for people to use for free. The purpose of this soft launch was to gain some valuable feedback from users as well as seeing which methods of internetmarketing are useful in attracting potential clients. In the first month of putting our software on the internet, we have had approximately 1000 visitors and more than 3000 page views. Now, I think it was a pretty good accomplishment considering Clarity Accounting is a brand new website. Here are some other interesting things we’ve found: 61% of our visitors came from links from other websites 28 % of our visitors came from Google searches 11 % of our visitors came to our website by typing our website address into their browser our visitors came from 5 continents (with the exception of Africa and Antartica), 43 countries, and spoke 16 different languages; 86% of which spoke English it is worth it to put in the time to submit our website to web directories – where other prominent bloggers may pick up what we are doing and do a little article about us finally, we found that Google Adwords was actually not a very good marketing tool for us so far Create more Joy & Abundance in your life today! The concept of actively manifesting my reality is a new age concept I’ve learned since 2006, beginning with watching the movie “The Secret” and attending The Landmark Forum. As a result of transforming the way I think and feel, I have since created a joyful and abundant life for myself. I’ve chosen to spread the joy by sending out monthly tips you can use to manifest a joyful and abundant life.  Manifestation Tip of the Month: Truly feel like you deserve the things you want While this may sound like a fairly simple concept, many people are plagued by the feeling that they are not deserving of what they truly want. For example, you want to have an abundance of money and an abundance of time. However, you were told by your parents as a kid, “money doesn’t grow on trees”, or “you have to work hard for your money”. If you have unconsciously take on those beliefs, chances are, even when you want to take some time off, you will feel guilty doing so because you are not working hard enough. In fact, you might find yourself ignoring opportunities that seemed “too easy”. Manifestation Exercise Put down everything you are doing and proclaim to the universe: “Money comes to me easily and effortlessly!” Baby News For those of you who haven’t heard from me for awhile, I am half way through my first pregnancy! I am currently collecting second hand baby related stuff in anticipation of the arrival of my baby in November.  I am also looking for a nanny in the downtown Vancouver area to help me out by the end of this year.  Contact Me! If you have comments about my first newsletter, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to contact me directly via phone or email at: Phone: 604 808 6297 Email: maychu@clarityaccounting.com Web: www.clarityaccounting.com

Table of Contents:   Web Marketing Tips Tracking Web Traffic Joy & Abundance Baby News Contact May   Upcoming Events Tuesday, July 15th @ 7:15 am High Output Networking at the Sylvia Hotel. 1154 Gilford Street, Vancouver, BC. Join a group of high profile business professionals for a round of highly effective networking. Thursday, July 17th @ 11 am eWomen’s Networking at the Terminal City Club. 837 West Hastings St. Vancouver, BC. Presented by: July Ono President of: On The Beach Education July Ono went from $40,000 in debt to millionaire in less than 2 years buying real estate with other people’s money and none of her own. Over the next 3 years, she became an expert in acquiring apartment buildings and became a multi-multi-millionaire. She is the President of On The Beach Education Corporation and the Founder of the Real Estate Network Group, an ongoing education and mentoring program. Her members have generated over 30 million dollars in real estate fortune in less than 2 years!

So? What do you think?  I would love to hear some comments from people in terms of what they thought of the contents of my first newsletter. 

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting