If you visit online forums at all, inevitably you might just see a customer service issue that makes its’ way to the forum for discussion. This is usually the result of a failed attempt at dealing with the company in the first place. By the time the issue hits a forum, it tends to already be more cantankerous than it needs to be.
Customer service is a chance to sell again
If you handle your customer service issues promptly and professionally, you have a chance at 1) keeping customers happy and 2) promoting other products or services to the customer. If a customer is pissed off, you can figure out that they probably won’t buy from you again, and likely will even tell others about it. When you run an internet business, they’ll go and blast you at as many places as they can. The trouble with this is people will probably find these complaints easily using search engines.
Your best bet it to settle any issues long before they hit the public circuit. If they already get to that point, things might just degrade further, and you’ll have the added embarrassment of slogging it out with people watching. These people will also be potential customers. How you act will help people to decide to buy from you or not.
In the end, make sure your communications are professional, and always put the consumer’s needs first.
Funny you should write about this.
This summer I was a victim of extremely poor customer service from a well respected IMer.
The program was Google Cash Detective. I was one of the unlucky ones that was able to purchase in the 45 minutes it was open.
Hours after purchasing, users were getting their hosting accounts suspended and the communication was nil. It went days until they acknowledged all of the problems they were having.
I asked for a refund 7 days after purchasing and after repeated emails saying that they were going to refund I’m now having to dispute the charge through my bank/credit card.
Because of their lack of customer service their product was being slammed all over the forums and almost all of it was negative. The owners even went so far as to have some of the threads removed from the forums as spam because they didn’t like the threads. Not cool!
Moral of the story is – do customer service right because it only takes one bad thread to ruin a reputation.