5 Ways You Can Improve Your Online Customer Service

Lizzie Weakley

September 17, 2015

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Like any good business owner, your top priority is customer satisfaction. You do your best to answer customer calls, ship products on a reasonable time frame, and retain loyal customers with discounts and rewards. But are you making the most of your opportunities for online customer service?

Thanks to the Internet, you have a whole new set of tools to help your customers make purchases. But the Internet doesn’t come with an instruction manual, which means you might not know how to make the most of it. Fortunately, you don't have to muddle through the learning process alone. Instead, use our five steps below to enhance your customers' online experience.

1. Engage Customers with Social Media

When they have a question or complaint, more and more customers turn to social media to reach companies. If you don't have an active social media presence, customers will have a more difficult time contacting you or finding the products and services that best meet their needs.

Build an engaging social media presence to connect with your customers and answer their questions quickly. Add a social media feed to your website's home page, and add Facebook, Twitter, and other social media widgets to your page for customers to explore. Visit your social media pages frequently to address customer concerns, questions, and reviews.

2. Enhance Customer Satisfaction through Instant Messaging

When customers have questions about your products or services, they either call you or email you. If your business is closed, they may not be able to reach you by phone. And if your inbox is flooded with emails, you may not be able to answer individual questions for several days. In either situation, you risk alienating or angering your customer.

To shorten your customers' wait times, add a business instant messaging program to your website. That way, customers can ask you a question and receive an immediate response. They'll find the product or service they're looking for faster, and they'll leave your website feeling happy instead of frustrated.

3. Stay Personal with Customized Service

When customers deal with you online rather than face-to-face, it's all too easy for them to perceive you as a faceless entity. They might not think you know or care about them, which can make them more belligerent—and more willing to write bad Google reviews that deter potential customers.

As you interact with customers online, make sure to offer a human experience. Customers want to know they're interacting with a real human being who cares about them, not with a computer that sends automated responses.

As you talk online, address your customers by name and engage with the specifics of their problem. Do what you can to make each customer feel like you value him or her as an individual.

4. Get Accurate Feedback

Thanks to the Internet, you can gather customer feedback immediately after customers interact with your business. Include a feedback box that customers can fill out on your home page, or add a drop-down survey that customers can opt to fill out after they order a product or interact with you via instant messaging.

5. Train Your Employees for Better Online Service

Online customer service differs from age-old customer service methods, and interacting with customers online isn't necessarily instinctive. Hold employee trainings where your employees learn how to interact with customers over instant messaging and social media.

Teach your employees strategies for defusing angry, upset customers with polite language and immediate responses. Talk with them about ways to deal with irate clients on multiple venues, including instant messaging and social media. A little training can go a long way towards improving your customers' online experiences and your employees' confidence.

With these five tips, you have the tools you need to give your clients an excellent customer service experience. Implement these tips today and watch your online ratings soar.