As a staff writer at 'home based business' we regularly answer questions submitted by our members one great topic is how an online company should handle their customer service.

Before the days of online sales, people would have no choice but to visit local retail or specialty stores. If they needed help, they would have the opportunity to talk to the employees there, face to face. Answers would come right away, or someone would get back to you within a few moments.

Now, with the amount of transactions made online growing every year from small sites to huge Amazon.com sites, people have become increasingly insistent upon better customer service. Waiting days for an email to be returned becomes stressful and irritating. Being put on hold for 20 minutes (if not longer) for a simple answer leads to unhappy customers. Questions that go unanswered altogether can lead to a customer so dissatisfied with the service they refuse to shop there again and will spread the word to friends and family about their bad experience, leading to more possible sales lost. Some may even go father, wanting to inform the entire Internet world and relate their experience on their blog, write a scathing review on consumer product sites such as Epinions.com, or even developing sites to negate the business, such as IHateEbay.com.

Neglecting customer service in a customer driven business is not a wise choice. Should a prospective customer bump into a bad review about your site even before visiting, they could be turned off completely and the sale is over before it has even begun. This is one good reason our 'home based business' staff personally answers e-mail questions.

Even if your business is small, there are a number of things you can do to help keep your customers happy and returning again and again.

1.)Create a page dedicated to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).People will often want to know more about your business and what you can offer them before making any purchases. What are your return policies? Shipping rates, times, and options? Do you offer discounts? There are numerous questions people may want answers to depending upon your service.

A good way of knowing which questions to post is to create a specific email for FAQ. Then you will have a good number of possible questions to post and answer for future customers. If you have an extremely comprehensive and well-organized FAQ page, you can devote more time to specific questions customers might have. Prompt response is the key to the busy business world.

2.)Make Contact Information easy to find and offer multiple ways of being contacted. Even if someone decides not to contact you, knowing they always have the option helps make them feel better and instills faith in the business. If a question is not answered on the FAQ or happens to be about a specific transaction, they can use this contact information to get the answer they need.

Obviously you may not always have earnest or excited customers emailing you with a good question, but you cannot avoid them either. Exceedingly slow response times or no response at all is a surefire way of getting a bad reputation on the Internet from angry customers.

3.)Keep your customers up to date with an Automated Sales Process. You can easily take the time to set up auto responses to customers to make purchases. An auto response lets them know you have received their order and plan to get it to them soon. You can also request they join your email list, or simply thank them for doing business with you. Using an automated process keeps you free to do other things concerning your business and your customers remain feeling satisfied that things are going smoothly.

You can use automated emails to generate more sales. Aside from feeling good and wanting to come back at another time, you can help entice your customers by giving them coupons to use on their next purchase or giving them related information about other products similar to the one they just purchased.

4.)Personalize Email Messages.Doing this one little thing helps customers feel better about their purchase and gives the impression that someone on the other end is paying attention to them and wants to see that all transactions are efficient. By simply adding the consumer’s name to the email, you have already increased the probability of that person wanting to do business with you again.

By adding in information such as items they may want to purchase due to a past purchase, sending special occasion offers, and overall tailoring the email to that customer, you can do a more precise job of increasing the likelihood that they will return. You can easily obtain software to help you manage personalization, so just a few extra time and dollars can help generate even more sales.

5.)Give your customers A Chance to Respond.If there is something a person did not like about your service, by providing them the chance to fill out a short survey or other response form, any edge they may have had can be taken off. Customers get the satisfaction of knowing they were able to give the business a piece of their mind, whether or not the business takes any action on the information.

Of course, it is always best to actually consider and execute some customer requests. Should people return and find out their suggestion was acted upon, they will know that the business actually cares about their customers and will continue to return, purchase more, and tell friends and family. Recently members of Epinions.com raised an issue about a specific ad campaign which was taken care of very quickly by Epinions staff to see that their members remained happy.

The little things you do for your customers can be the difference between your business succeeding or falling into Internet disfavor.

The staff at www.homebasedbusiness.com regularly updates the Home Based Business website with new information on the up and coming work at home jobs and other Internet based home businesses opportunities.

Bill Scott Webmaster Homebasedbusiness.com Features Home Based Business and Internet Business Opportunities It\'s like a Myspace for entrepreneurs.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Great Online Businesses Have Great Customer Service