While attending a recent seminar in Las Vegas, I found
myself in a room with horrible Internet connectivity. As
someone who actively monitors and manages hundreds of
websites, this used to really panic me. Yet, I calmly sat
through many of the seminar presentations, knowing that all
of my customer service concerns were being handled very
promptly.
Let me explain my set-up, and you'll understand why
customer service is so easy for me now.
I should begin though by pointing out that, as your online
business starts to grow, keeping up with the customer
service issues is often the most challenging part of
running your business.
Just keeping up with all of the emails can be nearly
impossible!
Like many online marketers, I decided to outsource customer
service, but also maintain positive control. I maintain my
own helpdesk (customer service center) where a few
assistants take care of 95% of issues within minutes of
them arising.
I route a major percentage of communications through my
helpdesk because that puts everything all in one place. I
have a threaded record of many exchanges, stored in a
secure database, so I can always go back and look up the
details later.
I am a bit of a "control freak" so I haven't put the life
of my business totally into the hands of strangers. I have
a few customer support assistants that I know fairly well.
I know that they are trustworthy, understand my business,
and have good judgement.
I use a help desk software, called Three Pillars Help Desk,
but there are other comparable support desk packages. At
under $100, this is an amazingly feature-rich piece of
software though.
The typical customer service interaction is as follows:
1) A customer has a question, lost a download, needs a
software install, wants to joint venture with me, can't get
a file to open properly, etc.... they visit my help desk
and fill out a help ticket.
I DON'T require them to register. They just fill out the
ticket, and they are entered into the system, receiving an
email confirmation. Actually, before they submit the
ticket, they are encouraged to peruse the "frequently asked
questions" (FAQ) built right into the help desk. Often, the
answer to their concern is right there and they don't even
need to file a help ticket.
2) As soon as a help ticket is filed, admin assistants
assigned to that "category" of ticket, receive a desktop
notification that a new ticket has been filed. They get an
audible chime, as well as a desktop icon that tells them
how many tickets are awaiting responses.
I have my help desk set up so that I get these same,
notifications. I have it set to check every 15 minutes, so
I can see if any tickets go unanswered for too long.
Usually, my tech support is fairly fast though.
3) Admin assistants log into the admin control panel, using
their unique admin log-ins, and respond to the tickets in
categories assigned to them. They don't see, and can't
respond to tickets in categories not assigned to them.
One of the categories at my helpdesk is "Personal For
Willie." Naturally, I only want those tickets visible to
me. Three Pillars Help Desk Software allows that option.
Tickets regarding JV's are also only visible to me, but I
could have an assistant assigned to sift through JV
proposals, and have all of those tickets ONLY visible to
that admin. Many of my contemporaries do have assistants
assigned to screen JV proposals... some using the very same
helpdesk setup that I just described.
4) Many of the help tickets that we get can be responded to
with a "one-touch response." The admin just selects the
answer from a drop-down selection of pre-composed answers,
clicks "send," and in a matter of SECONDS that ticket is
taken care of. The precomposed answers are assigned to (and
only visible for) specific categories, and the categories
are assigned to specific admins.
Perhaps a customer unfamiliar with PDF's or .zip files
failed to download and save one properly, or perhaps they
don't know how to open the file. Perhaps a customer had a
harddrive crash, and needs a replacement copy of an ebook.
If my tech support is provided with proof of purchase,
they are authorized to replace these files. My admins are
empowered to make these types of decisions, that I really
shouldn't need to get bogged down with. 5) As soon as
the ticket is responded to, the customer gets the response
via email, and the desktop notifier, when it next updates,
shows that that ticket has been taken care of.
I mentioned earlier that I route most communications
through my help desk. This includes requests for joint
ventures, requests for me to broker joint ventures, request
for me to review a product, etc. Details on how I do all
of these things are also included in the FAQ, so potential
JV partners can see if their product is a likely match
before they even file a help ticket.
Email is so unreliable these days. There is nothing more
disconcerting than having a customer upset with you over
not responding to an email that you never even received.
You don't have that problem with the help desk. The
correspondence is stored right in the database, and only
visible to appropriate parties. You can retrieve records by
name, email address, and a number of other database
variables at any time... even for closed tickets. So, you
have a real treasure of data at your fingertip.
The FAQ file shows how many views a given question has.
That can show you potential problems, or indicate that you
need to cover a product feature more thoroughly on your
sales letter. Just paying attention to something like that
could easily double your sales of a given product. The
fact is that most prospect, who have a question, won't
bother asking. So you need to really pay attention to those
who do, and assume that many more had the same question ;-)
Anyway, I've just shared with you how I handle customer
service for the hundreds of websites that I actively manage
in mere minutes per day. I haven't actually tracked how
much time my admin assistants spend responding to tickets.
They haven't asked for raises in a long time, so I assume
that it's not very much.
If you want to spend more of your time working on growing
your business, rather than putting out customer service
"fires," then I highly recommend that you set up your own
help desk. My helpdesk of choice is Three Pillars:
http://ThreePillarsHelpDesk.com
but there are others. You
can get as fancy as you want to with a help desk with them
ranging from free to several thousand dollars in price.
Three Pillars Help Desk was designed specifically for
Internet marketers which is why it was a natural choice for
me.
----------------------------------------------------
Willie Crawford is an internationally-acclaimed speaker,
author, seminar and radio show host, and leading Internet
marketing expert. When not out fishing in the Gulf of
Mexico, Willie can be found sharing his 11 1/2 years of
online marketing experience with members of The Internet
Marketing Inner Circle.
Join them at: http://TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com
No comments:
Post a Comment