Continued from page 1
CHAT Chat is very popular on
Internet, and is becoming a popular tool with customer service as well. The chat software is free and includes products from AOL, MSN, and Yahoo, as well as mIRC and ICQ. Personally, I feel that ICQ is best product to use for a business site. You can get it at http://icq.com. The only drawback to chat software is that they are proprietary and can only work with users that have same software. So if some of your customers use MSN Chat, and some use AOL Instant Messaging, then you need to have both on your computer. There are a few chat programs that are capable of working with multiple chat services including ones I listed above. These programs are: Jabber at http://www.jabber.com/index.shtml, EWZY at http://www.cactusvisionsoftware.com/ewzy.htm (which includes an autoresponder), and my personal favorite Trillian at http://www.cactusvisionsoftware.com/ewzy.htm.
There are more sophisticated software and services that you can use if you have larger needs for customer service. These include advanced chat with transcriptions, video, voice chat, etc. Take a look at following sites: http://www.humanclick.com, http://www.phplivesupport.com/, or go to http://www.ecommercetimes.com/product_guide/live_interaction/ to see a current list of live interaction services and software.
VOICE and PHONE Another method that really gives customers a “warm fuzzy” is being able to contact you by voice, such as a voice mailbox or live phone call. You can typically rent a voice mailbox from AT&T or other provider at a low-cost. Just make sure you return people’s calls! A great way to talk to customers for free (or low-cost) is to use a Voice-Over-IP software product such as Net2Phone (see http://web.net2phone.com ). This provides you a way to call anywhere in country for 2 cents a minute, and great overseas rates as well. I use it for personal calls a lot. The great thing is that if others have this software, you can talk from computer-to-computer for free. So put download link to software on your web site.
OTHER SERVICES If you want it all in one spot, look into ureach.com (http://www.ureach.com). They have A unified messaging service that includes call forwarding, voice mail, fax, email, file storage (30MB), PDA address book synchronization, pager notification, ICQ integration, all in a single interface. You can also access messages via your WAP mobile phone. Some of their features are free others are not. Their plan info can be found here: http://www.ureach.com/help/planinfo.htm.
Finally, you should track your problems (outstanding and closed) for historical purposes. Most of us are able to do this using either MS-Word or Excel. If you need a more sophisticated trouble tracking software, only one I found that looked decent and didn’t cost a mortgage was Request Commander (about $30) at http://www.nestersoft.com/requestcommander.
Good luck!
Mike Martone is the webmaster at http://www.profitmonkey.com, editor of the free newsletter Ebiz Edge, and author of the ebook '7 Days to 700% More Traffic'
