Making your Virtual Customer Service More Personal

Technology is a wonderful thing for the service-based business owner.  It has enabled small service providers to offer their services across the country, or even worldwide.  It is even possible to automate much of your customer service.  But too much automation can be a turnoff to your customers.  With a little thought, you can keep the human element in play while still providing efficient customer service. 

An FAQ, or frequently asked questions page, is your first step to answering customer questions.  Common and basic questions about your services, payment process, and website should be put on an FAQ page that is linked from every page of your website. 

It is often the first place a customer will look if they have a general question, and can help you avoid unnecessary calls and Emails.  Be sure to keep the tone friendly and the answers simple yet thorough.  You want the customer to leave with a good impression whether their question is answered or not. 

If you don’t have time to answer questions via Email, you could consider hiring a virtual assistant to do it for you.  If trained well, a VA is the next best thing to answering Emails yourself.  You can also have a VA to answer phone calls if you get them frequently.  Virtual assistants free up your time to concentrate on your work while providing excellent customer service on your behalf. 

Setting up a ticket system is a good option for technical service providers.  Customers who have problems can submit a help ticket and you or your VA can answer the tickets in the order in which are received. 

The system keeps track of all correspondence, so if more information is required from the customer it won’t get lost.  Ticket systems give you the best of both worlds:  Automated submittal and tracking of inquiries for you, and a human response for your customer. 

Your customers deserve to have their concerns addressed by a real person when possible.  You can automate or outsource much of your customer service without giving them computer-generated responses that may or may not be helpful.  If you let them know that you feel they are worthy of a human response, they will be grateful.

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