Find Sporting Goods on eBay
Video and Audio], Broadcasting and podcasting Broadcast On the Net

[description], Story, any other text you want to use.

our On-Line Business Customer Friendly?

 by: Philippa Gamse

Customer service is increasingly seen as one of the most valuable uses for a commercial World Wide Web site. Your Web site is available on a 24 hour, seven days a week basis. So it is well worth exploring ways in which your customers can virtually "serve themselves," without the need for overtime staff, or lengthy voice mail procedures.

James Feldman is President of JFA, Inc., an online business offering high quality and unique gift items including automatic watch winders, Grundig shortwave pocket radios, and nitroglycerine pill fobs. The JFA Web site has been online since 1997, and has doubled its income every year - it's now a multi-million dollar e-commerce enterprise.

Jim, who's also a professional speaker and expert on customer service, highlighted for me how the online buying experience differs from the bricks-and-mortar model.

Buying online eliminates the physical presence and personality of the salesperson from the process. This makes the Web site copy critical in creating a one-to-one relationship with the customer or prospect.

Which echoes one of my favorite mantras:

Every page of your site should be written from the visitor's point of view, not yours.

A visitor should be able to look at your offerings, and immediately answer the questions:

  • "Why me?" – that is, is your Web site the right place for me?

  • "Why should I care?" – does this copy convince me that you can meet my needs?

It's much easier and immediate to jump from Web site to Web site than to move between real-world stores. So the visitor has far more freedom of choice online. Jim says that the challenge for customer service is therefore very clearly to focus on one customer, one purchase at a time. E-customers expect great service, with little or no direct interaction. They will tolerate some mistakes, but not many.

Jim offers five rules for effective online customer service:

1. Be accessible. Show very clearly on your site all the ways that your customer can contact you – including e-mail, phone and fax numbers, and your office hours.

And, if it's practical for your business, be personal – give your visitors a real person to call who has a name, as opposed to sales@mycompany.com

Of course, if you're really upscale, you can include a "Call-me" button on your site.

2. Return every e-mail or phone call in the same day, as far as reasonably possible. This may sound simplistic, but a recent experiment with the top Fortune 100 companies showed that nearly a third failed to respond to e-mail sent through their Web site within one month! Some of these companies still don't provide a usable e-mail address on their sites at all.

3. Acknowledge all orders. Send e-mail confirmations (this can be done very effectively with autoresponders), and if you're shipping actual products, give tracking numbers and expected delivery dates.

4. Provide a clear return policy, honor it and learn from it. This may give you more information about what's working and what's not. Jim's products are sometimes returned with no explanation, so his staff always call the customer to establish and resolve the problem.

5. Expect more phone calls. Jim says: "Customers can't read or write!" If your Web site traffic and response rates grow (which is, of course, what we want), so will the volume of phone calls, whatever your business or industry.

Regardless of the site quality, clear returns and privacy policies, secure servers, etc., people still require human interaction. All of my clients report talking to customers on the phone, and walking them through the Web site, where their questions are clearly answered. Maybe these psychological barriers will lessen over the next few years, but right now, they are very much there.

If you can get the customer service aspects of your business working well, there'll be a definite bottom line impact. Jim is quite clear that his business has grown substantially through repeat business and referrals from satisfied customers.

And in contrast, we can see the impact of poor customer service and fulfillment procedures in many of the dot.coms that are currently failing. Jim says that people buy things online in the expectation of getting something more valuable than the actual money they spend.

Does your Web site do this??

JFA Inc. can be found at http://www.jfainc.com/

About The Author

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is an internationally recognized e-business strategist. Check out her free tipsheet "Beyond the Search Engines" for 17 ideas to promote your Website: http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com.


verizon broadband

Brodcast On the Net - streaming video, streaming audio, video conferencing, audio
Broadcast On the Net. If you are running a search for video conferencing and are looking for audio streaming or video streaminng and web conferenceing then you have come to the proper place. You can find many of the finest sites with the best conferencing services. Even find video studios or maybe the video talent to produce your program, no matter what you are looking for you can see the best streaming media here.
Brodcast On the Net - streaming video, streaming audio, video conferencing, audio

The Internet has been touted as a global forum covering thousands of topics including verizon broadband. What it lacks in human contact it makes up for in pages.

The major search engines have indexed tens of thousands of verizon broadband websites. All of these sites have people behind them but how can you determine whether one site is better than another. We believe we have found the very best verizon broadband sites and the links appears here:

Abundant as it is in written materials the Net is also, fortunately, a place where you can chat online with other people interested in verizon broadband. There are lots of verizon broadband chat related sites on the Net.

People passionate about verizon broadband can meet online and exchange information in real time with each other. If you have ever attended a verizon broadband convention then you will know how valuable these live exchanges can be.

Main Menu
Broadcast On the Net
Site Map

Affiliate Ads, Links, news, etc.

News for 21-Jul-25

Source: BBC News - Home
Drip dry

Source: BBC News - Home
All heart

Source: BBC News - Home
Carrie Fisher: Star Wars actress suffers heart attack

Source: BBC News - Home
Ken Matheson: Former British Cycling coach says 'culture of fear' exists

Source: BBC News - Home
David Moyes: Manchester United's great traditions have gone says Sunderland boss

Source: BBC News - Home
Wedding gift alpaca has 'surprise' baby

Source: BBC News - Home
British passenger missing from Queen Mary 2 liner

Source: BBC News - Home
Your pictures: Best of 2016

Source: BBC News - Home
Allan Little: The year the world changed

Source: BBC News - Home
Chile anger as jailed Pinochet reign abusers ask forgiveness


Links
Links
Links
Google

MD News | Forum On The Net | Take Medicine Correctly | Real Time Media On The Net
Copyright © 2005. Name of Site here. Last Updated: Monday, 21-Jul-2025 00:02:46 MDT.
Medical Newscast   Listen On The Net   Present On The Net