As a small business owner we want to help our customers personally, to meet with them face to face or talk to them on the phone so that we build a connection and a relationship. Unfortunately, sometimes our customers want to help themselves. When you allow customers to help themselves, where it makes sense, you empower them to get what they need when they need it. In the long run they are more likely to come back to you for additional products and services.   It doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario – why not allow them to choose between self-service or in-person service?

So what do I mean by self-service? It can mean different things to different companies:

• As I mentioned in an earlier post, services firms can allow their customers to set appointments online.  You can tell from this post I am a big fan of being able to set appointments online at my own convenience.  It may not always make sense but is something to consider.
• Companies that have a product can include product manuals and warranties online.  This one has become near and dear to my heart lately; I have a 10-year-old son and I probably don’t have to tell you that instructions and new toys/games/whatevers they belong to are soon parted.  Just last night I had to go online to find the instruction manual for the rock-tumbler he got for his birthday.  What a relief!
• Firms that share a lot of documents with their customers can set up portals to allow them access and share documents.  Tools vary in their sophistication and include (but are certainly not limited to) Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs, Basecamp, et al.
• If you regularly do business with a customer why not present the invoices online?  Any then maybe even PAY online?  Cool, huh?  There are a lot of options for this and it is a topic worthy of its own post so we’ll leave it at that for now.
• Online ordering or online quote capabilities have been around a long time but it is surprising how many companies still don’t use them.  I think the mindset is that they want the prospect to all or come in so they can sell them in person.  Certainly some products and services are too complicated to handle online but, honestly, most aren’t.  I for one will likely look for another service provider if I can’t get at least a semblance of a quote online before I pick up the phone.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways for you to provide service to your customers online.  The additional benefit is that not only will you make your customer’s happy, you’ll reduce the customer service load on your employees, perhaps even freeing them up for other revenue generating task.  Sounds like a good deal all around to me!

Have you considered adding customer self-service to your small business technology plan?

I started to write this post about some other more specific examples of how small businesses can use  technology to improve customer service but some of them were related to a company’s website – and since a lot of companies STILL have awful websites and a few don’t have a website at all, I thought it made more sense to start there.  With the training wheels on.  Next week we can take them off.

A good, relevant website is essential to providing good customer service.  How?  Any time you can provide answers to  your customer’s questions at their convenience you are providing good customer service.  Your website can be accessed from virtually anywhere at anytime, giving your customers (and prospective customers) instant access to the information they need.  Descriptions of services and products, fees and costs, contact information, hours of operation and maps or driving directions are a great start.  If you get a lot of the same questions over and over you can include FAQs.  Testimonials or references from other customers provide prospects with references that they can contact.  If you have service manuals, installation guide, instructions or other documentation, you can allow them to be downloaded from the website.  You can provide video clips or blog articles with educational content.  The possibilities are boundless.

Your website can be a storefront and a vehicle for your marketing and branding but it can also be the hub of your customer service platform.  Once you have the basics covered you can move on to providing even more service online.  A few weeks ago I wrote about providing customer self-service by allowing them to schedule appointments online.  In my next post I’ll expand on this customer self-service theme.  In the meantime, how do you provide customer service online?

This week I am going to start a multi-part (how many parts?  who knows?  Methinks a good number) of posts about using technology to improve customer service.   When I talk about “improving customer service”  I mean everything from reducing your your costs of customer service to providing better quality customer service over a number of channels.  You can see that this is a broad topic and will take a while to cover!  This week I’ll start you off easy with things we all should know…and yet I can give you many examples where even these simplest of processes aren’t followed.

You have to answer the phone.

It is probably safe me for me to assume that virtually all businesses have a phone.  When possible someone should answer the phone when it rings.  I can understand where some small businesses may have a cell phone as their main business number, say for a solopreneur consultant or the like.  In that case it is ok to let the call go to a professional sounding voicemail during meetings or while driving, etc.  Those voicemails need to be checked regularly and returned promptly.  And promptly means THAT DAY if possible.  I recently called a local dog grooming establishment to make an appointment to get my two labs, Jester and Cimarron, bathed.  I got voicemail or an answering  machine.  The first time I called I just hung up (potential lost customer).  The second time I called I left a message (the dogs were really smelly and it was very cold outside).  My message was returned over 24 hours later, late one evening when I couldn’t take the call.  I had to call a third time to make an appointment.  Turns out when I finally got there that my service was adequate and the cost reasonable but I am not in love with this place.  It seems to me that a service establishment like that thrives by keeping their appointments booked – why do they not have someone dedicated to answering the phone?  Why can they not return calls during business hours?  Or better yet, why don’t they look into allowing clients to book appointments online at their convenience?

You have to have email and check and return it regularly.

It boggles my mind that in 2010 there are still some businesses that don’t have email and or don’t integrate its use regularly into their business processes, yet it is true.  Of course, if you are one of those that doesn’t use email, you probably aren’t reading this article either.  I sure hope you have a friend that prints it out for you and either hands it to you or puts it in an envelope with one of those stampy-things.

I believe that small businesses should embrace email; it is convenient for you and your customer.  It allows your customer to reach you when it suits them, even before or after business hours.  When using email keep the following in mind:

• check it regularly, at least at the beginning and end of each day, more if you can.  Go thru all of it and handle it in some appropriate way. I recently responded to an email I received…later when I saw the sender she claimed not to have seen my response.  When I expressed surprise she admitted that she gets hundreds of emails a day and didn’t always get thru them.  In today’s world not getting thru email (or having someone get thru email) is not an acceptable business practice.  Especially when you send an email and are looking for a response!
• Commit to responding within a certain amount of time.  Consider responding to email with an autoresponder that tells your customer when to expect to hear back from you.  For example, an autoresponder might say “Thank you for your email, it is important to us.  Emails received by close of business will be answered that day, otherwise they will be answered on the next business day.”
• Answer customer questions or concerns politely and completely.  Assume that the sender wants to communicate via email or ask them if you can communicate differently.  Nothing is more annoying than to send someone an email and for them to respond with “call me”.  If you need specific information to interact via email, let the customer know what that is.

I know phone and email are so ubiquitous to barely be considered “technology” but we have to start somewhere.  Next week we’ll take a baby step beyond that.  In the meantime, as always, I’m interested in your opinions on this – how do you use technology to improve customer service?

Note:  this article was originally published last week in our newsletter.  If you’d like to receive the newsletter you can subscribe here.

Have you ever thought that you need a better way to keep track of your customers or clients? Have you heard about CRM systems but not really understood how they could help your business?

If you have a service-based business…

If your business provides a service then a CRM system can help you in several ways. First, it becomes the single repository for all of the information about your customers or prospects – you and all your employees are keeping notes about emails, phone calls, quotes, deals and everything else in the same place. In that place you can make ticklers to follow up with contacts, create reports on who is calling on who and keep an eye on your pipeline. In one place you have all the information about the work you’ve done for a customer, making customer support much easier. Having lunch with a prospect you haven’t seen in a while? In your CRM you can look up references to his website, LinkedIn profile or Twitter account – won’t he be surprised when you are up-to-date on his business and congratulate him on his recent wedding anniversary!

Or if you are in the retail or hospitality business…

You can keep track of your vendors and suppliers. Create and newsletter and keep track of subscribers. To that list of subscribers you can provide special offers and incentives – and better yet, measure the effectiveness of those offers and incentives. You can create a relationship with your customers and reward their loyalty.

Of course, a CRM system isn’t one thing for one sort of business and something else to another. All businesses can be more effective, efficient and even more profitable by doing a better job of keeping track of customers and contacts. It is a smarter way to do business.

In my last post I talked about how small businesses can become more convenient for their customers if they allow online self-secheduling.   I promised that this post would talk about what online appointment scheduling services are available.  This is a representative list; it isn’t a formal review nor is it an exhaustive list.  The ones I am going to talk about are cloud-based services (see this post if you don’t know what cloud computing is) that are easily hooked into your website.

So how do they work?  There is some variance but basically:

• you provide information about business hours, who can be scheduled, what services are offered and the appointment length of each service
• you also provide setup information about how you want to be notified about appointments (email or text), what sort of confirmations and reminders you want sent to your customers (email or text).  You can also specify if you want to be able to approve appointments before they are confirmed.
• you are given a small snippet of code (or a widget)  that needs to be included on your website.  Generally these can be customized so they match your website and look like they are integrated.  You can also include “book now” buttons in strategic places on your website or other places on the web (like your Facebook page for example), sending visitors to your appointment page.

Customers can now schedule appointments online!  Back at your office you’ll have a master calendar that shows your the appointments, allows you to confirm them and to book appointments you receive from drop-ins or via phone call – all on a consolidated calendar.

Some of the services provide, in some cases based on the service level you choose to purchase, mobile scheduling, calendar syncing, online pre-payment and smartphone integration.

Service providers include Bookfresh.com; Schedulicity.com, Genbook.com, Appointment-plus.com, Appointmentquest.com, Flashappointments.com and Netappointment.com.  You generally pay monthly based on the options you select – for example it costs more for more people or multiple locations.   Prices start as low as $10 a month.

How many times have you at the end of a busy day (week?  month?  year?) got to the point on your to-do list where you need to make a hair-dog grooming-dentist-doctor-exterminator-repair appointment but it is, of course because you’ve been busy, after business hours?  What happens?  That item remains on your list and, maybe worse, gets shoved further and further down the list.  Aggravating for you, right?  And what about that hair dresser, dog groomer, dentist, doctor, exterminator or repair person?  They are missing out on your current business and might lose your long term business if you find someone who provides their service but is easier to do business with – by allowing you to set appointments when you want, online.

Imagine it, it is in the evening, after the kids are in bed.  You are comfortable on the couch with a nice roaring fire and your laptop (or iPhone) open.  You have your beverage of choice at your side and you are able to actually cross items off your to-list as you make the appointment to get your hair colored and for your son to get his cut (finally).  Your beloved mutt desperately needs a bath after the recent bad weather – in a zip you have a grooming appointment set for tomorrow.  To be able to make short work of your to-list at your leisure…what a wonderous thing!

But wait – you are a small business owner too.  Maybe you aren’t a hair dresser, dog groomer, dentist, doctor, exterminator or repair person (because if you were this story wouldn’t make sense – you wouldn’t make an appointment with yourself!) but you are an accountant, lawyer, designer, photographer or personal trainer.   You have customers that have the same problem you do – they have making an appointment to see you is on their to-do list but they are too busy (or can’t get thru for some reason) to make an appointment by phone during regular business hours.  What is the cost to you of all those missed appointments?  And as more and more people move to using the Internet for convenience what is the cost going to be in the future?

If you haven’t considered adding self-service appointment scheduling technology to your website, now might be the time to do it.  In my next post I’ll talk about some of the vendors out there and the features of their services.  In the meantime, enjoy the fire and the beverage and think about how making  it easier for your customers to do business with you could help you bottom line.