(I hope you already know this. But, you would be surprised how many e-commerce people concentrate on the "new and improved" aspects to the point of forgetting the very basics. Just surf around a little...:-( )
My 10+ years as an Internet shopper and 15+ as an ICT professional tell me that providing a good purchasing experience is the absolute must for a successful e-business. There is a lot of competition around, and customers will shop elsewhere if they feel they are not worth an answer and that they needs are not taken care of.
This is not to say that cool features are not important, but if you do not get the fundamentals right from the start there will be no chance to improve later.
Now for the most important bits of customer support (IMNSHO):
1. DO make sure that the customers deal with only one access point. Please, no middlemen or other companies in the loop. Make sure your company controls the process entirely. Sell the music files from your site, let them download from your site, answer questions on your site and make sure all e-mail you send out comes from your company site domain. Just avoid confusing customers.
2. DO NOT ever send automated boilerplate answers to email enquires following a purchase. (It really puts the customer off.) Be sure the customer gets to know that you are paying (human) attention to that. If any glitch happens with a purchase and the customer does not feel that you are doing your very best to solve it, then they will never return. Worse, if they only get inappropriate automatic answers, they will assume that your operation is a scam and they will report you as such to their friends and acquaintances.
3. Be prepared to deal with more support enquires that expected. Especially if your site requires either scripting or plug-ins to perform properly.
4. DO NOT make your "problem report" form pages use any form of client-side/server side scripting, active pages or DB-generated pages. Chances are that your site will have a malformed, unusable form just there, in the error customer interface. Plain HTML forms are good for us. (I have seen a couple of telcos do that: malformed javascript. With their error report form out of order, it was easier to switch to another provider rather than report a minor service problem.)
In general: customer support will be your honest face and friendly smile as seen by your customers. Get this wrong and your business will be dead at its very inception.
Best luck with your new business.
You CAN use WiFi alongside live discussions ...
on
Professors vs. WiFi
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· Score: 2, Informative
Clay Shirky reports on using WiFi to support a 30-people brainstorm session. They used chat as a way to allow side conversations -- on topic, of course! -- and commenting without disrupting the live conversation. It may not always be OK for classroom use, but it is worth checking.
(It is sometimes better to befriend 'em, even if you can beat 'em.)
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My 10+ years as an Internet shopper and 15+ as an ICT professional tell me that providing a good purchasing experience is the absolute must for a successful e-business. There is a lot of competition around, and customers will shop elsewhere if they feel they are not worth an answer and that they needs are not taken care of.
This is not to say that cool features are not important, but if you do not get the fundamentals right from the start there will be no chance to improve later.
Now for the most important bits of customer support (IMNSHO):
1. DO make sure that the customers deal with only one access point. Please, no middlemen or other companies in the loop. Make sure your company controls the process entirely. Sell the music files from your site, let them download from your site, answer questions on your site and make sure all e-mail you send out comes from your company site domain. Just avoid confusing customers.
2. DO NOT ever send automated boilerplate answers to email enquires following a purchase. (It really puts the customer off.) Be sure the customer gets to know that you are paying (human) attention to that. If any glitch happens with a purchase and the customer does not feel that you are doing your very best to solve it, then they will never return. Worse, if they only get inappropriate automatic answers, they will assume that your operation is a scam and they will report you as such to their friends and acquaintances.
3. Be prepared to deal with more support enquires that expected. Especially if your site requires either scripting or plug-ins to perform properly.
4. DO NOT make your "problem report" form pages use any form of client-side/server side scripting, active pages or DB-generated pages. Chances are that your site will have a malformed, unusable form just there, in the error customer interface. Plain HTML forms are good for us. (I have seen a couple of telcos do that: malformed javascript. With their error report form out of order, it was easier to switch to another provider rather than report a minor service problem.)
In general: customer support will be your honest face and friendly smile as seen by your customers. Get this wrong and your business will be dead at its very inception.
Best luck with your new business.
(It is sometimes better to befriend 'em, even if you can beat 'em.)