Customer support should be a high priority for any business, whether you are starting up or already established. At MBP Advertising, our motto is "Our business IS our Customers."

Daily, we strive to show our customers that their concerns, comments and their time is very valuable to us. By making customer support a high priority, it gives customer a sense of trust in our company and they know that they can come to us with any question and we will answer it and usually pretty quickly.

You need to make sure your customers receive same quick and efficient support. How you handle customer support can and will make or break a company. Too many companies now, concentrate on front-end sale, but very rarely work at keeping that customer after sale has been established. If you have a website that focuses on "free" products or services, these customers should be treated same as if they were "paying" customers.

If you treat all customers, whether paid or free, same and with respect, you will find these customers will be there for years to come. It is these customers, that will help you establish your company and they will refer others to you and continue to purchase or use your services.

Without customers, where would your business be? Each and every customer support issue, you need to address promptly, honestly and in a professional manner.

How can you handle customer support issues?

There are quite a few tools, software or programs that will assist you with dealing with customer support. The most favorite now is Help desk system. Many companies are integrating these support systems into their websites.

Help Desk Ticket System

This is one of more popular customer service systems being used now. With a help desk system, your customer can log a support ticket, they can track ticket and receive response they need. With most ticket systems, they also include a knowledge database, this is a place where you can put most frequent asked questions. By providing this, your customers may browse database and may very well find answer to their question, before having to log a support ticket.

All tickets put in by a customer are logged and saved in database. This is very beneficial, because you and customer can track what was previously said, what issues were and just by saving it, it is a place where your customers can reference later.

A help desk system will also help you analyze your customer support promptness but also it allows customer to rate service they received. This is very valuable information and will show you if your customers are happy with support responses and time it took to receive answers to their questions.

Tip #1 – Don’t Let Fear of Rejection Hinder Your Efforts

Dr. Joe Vitale, www.MrFire.com, is a very successful copywriter and best-selling author. I’m sure he’d never heard of me when I contacted him via email about my recent “Networkaholics Revealed” ebook project. So I didn’t really expect a response from Joe. But I sent him an email anyway. After all, I really had nothing to lose… and a lot to gain if he responded.

And he did!

Why? Perhaps because I was doing what he himself had done early in his career -– reaching out to someone of a higher level.

Joe said, “When I was first starting out as a writer, people way above me, such as famed copywriter Bob Bly, helped me. In later years, marketing gurus such as Murray Raphel and later Paul Hartunian, all helped me. I simply wrote to them. They sensed my sincerity and offered guidance. Today I do same for others.”

Joe did that for me.

Was I nervous about contacting Joe and other big-name successes? You bet! But I didn’t let that stop me.

According to Chip Tarver, www.FirstContactSecrets.com, you must put your fears aside. “Most people have a fear of rejection,” Chip said. “The most important thing to keep in mind is that you are typically not rejected, your idea is. So try not to take that personally.

“Remember that failure is something to be cherished, because it gets you closer to success. Every failure is just a test that didn’t work. It is not a personal failure. When you get a ‘No,’ just think ‘Next’ and move on to next person.”

Was I rejected by anyone? Of course! But my results were better than 50-50. If I’d been afraid to approach people, my ebook would never have gotten off drawing board.

Tip #2 – Focus on Relationship, Not Just Deal

Regardless of who you want to develop a JV partnership with -– whether they’re already rich and famous, or unknown newbies interested in helping you while they learn -– remember they are people, not business deals.

As Chip says, “You will never, ever do any business anywhere in your life (online or off, in any industry, with anyone) until you learn that business is all about people; and people are all about relationships.”

Alice Seba, www.InternetBasedMoms.com, says “I like to meet other people, learn from them, interact with them, and build long-term relationships and partnerships.”

According to Alice, those relationships may ultimately develop into joint ventures or other business benefits. “When they do, they are stronger relationships than contacting someone and saying, ‘Hey, will you send this email out to promote my product? You’ll make a commission!’

“I have gotten some good joint venture deals with ‘big name’ people to promote my stuff,” Alice said, “but I was friends with these people for a long time before any business relationship developed. I’m nice, I give. Some people don’t get it. They are just focused on ‘How do you get gurus to promote your product?’”

Build relationships/friendships first.

Tip #3 – Address Their Interests, Wants & Needs

My project dealt with topic of networking. So when I decided to approach people about collaborating, I contacted those whom I knew had an interest in that topic, or had a list of people who could benefit from topic.