Other than the current buzz words, customer service has changedvery little since commerce first began. If you want a customer tobuy from you again, and to recommend your product or service toothers, complaints or problems must be handled properly.

"A satisfied customer will tell five people about theirexperience, a dissatisified customer will tell twenty-five!"

Customer Service on the Internet

The Internet is an impersonal place to shop. Because of this, theonline customer feels little loyalty to you or your company. Manyonline shoppers won't restrain their anger and upset either. Theyfeel safe behind their anonymous email address. Therefore, inresponding to a complaint, you must quickly establish rapportwith your customer. To do this, your phone skills and emailetiquette must be exceptional. You won't likely get a secondchance to make the right impression.

Here are some tips to put you on the right track:

1. Don't give stock responses when customers are not asking stockquestions! Take care to answer every question or concern that acustomer poses in an email. There's nothing worse than gettingback an email from a business owner or their customer servicerepresentative that doesn't address the concerns you stated inyour email, gives canned responses to what you asked, or makesyou feel like a nuisance...or a dummy!

2. End the call or email on a high note for the customer. They'llremember your last words best. In other words, don't end theconversation by saying, "And I'm really sorry you didn't receiveyour widget when promised." Say, "Martha, your widget is on mydesk right now. I'll be packaging it right after this call and Iwill take it to the post office myself." Now stop talking! Don'tbe tempted to apologize again and remind them of the problem.Leave customers with the good taste of a resolution in theirmouths.

3. In emails, use "exaggerated courtesy." Since the person can'tsee your expression or hear your tone of voice, your words mustdo everything for you. Read emails at least three times beforehitting the send button.

4. Remove or reword phrases in your email that could beconsidered rude, such as, "As I said on the phone,...." (Ouch,that's a reprimand! We expect the sentence to end like this, "AsI said on the phone, Stupid!")

5. Consider outsourcing your customer service. I was a customerservice professional for fifteen years in the high-tech industry.As a hiring manager I looked for two customer service "virtues"in candidates: patience beyond measure and a genuine liking forpeople. If you do your own customer service for your smallbusiness, you need to determine if you have those qualities. Ifnot, you might want to outsource your customer service to someonewho does!

6. Ask customers what they want! Often their request will be morereasonable than whatever it was you were going to do to make itright. And it will be the solution they want, not the solutionyou think they want!

7. Acknowledge their pain and make it right! In my experience,customers rarely demand something more than what they originallyexpected. So don't start offering all kinds of freebies to tryand make them feel better. What they really want is for you toacknowledge their pain and make it right. Making it right usuallymeans getting what they expected in the first place. And itdoesn't have to be accompanied by a free gift. Don't substitute"bribing" the customer for genuinely caring about their pain. Youcan't buy their loyalty, but you can earn it.

8. Avoid over compensating for your company's mistake. Gushingwith apologetic words and offering them the sky because of asmall shipping error can leave your customer doubting yourprofessionalism. And if you've given them the sky for such asmall mistake, what the heck will you do when you really mess up?

9. If possible, give customers a choice as to the solution totheir problem. They'll view their experience with less pain thatway. If they couldn't download your ebook because of sometechnical difficulty, they might want a full refund, they mightwant the chance to download the ebook again, or they might preferthat you email them the ebook.

10. If you do it carefully, you can use some customer servicesituations to upsell customers. "Martha, did you notice on ourWeb site that you can get a second widget at half price? If Iship them today, both widgets will arrive in plenty of time forChristmas. Gift-wrapping is included, by the way." Now stoptalking and let Martha sell herself on your offer. This is notthe time for a hard sales pitch!

How does good customer service increase your revenue? Everycustomer service encounter gives you another chance to:

- improve customer loyalty- correct problems in your buying cycle- upsell customers.

By retaining customer loyalty you now have the chance to sellthis customer something else, and you can rest assured they'llsay positive things about your company. Remember, a satisfiedcustomer will tell five people, but a dissatisified customer willtell twenty-five people!

About the Author

Andrea Wilson is a former customer service professional who nowowns Able Webs, an online Web design business. Visithttp://www.ablewebs.com and subscribe to "Web Marketing Today" tolearn proven tips and tricks to marketing your business on theWeb.