5 Revolutionary Tools That Will Take Your Customer Service from Good to Great

Featured, Marketing Resources — By BS Free Marketing on February 1, 2011 10:11 pm

Consumers have changed radically over the past decade as the Internet has allowed people to connect in a way that has never been seen before. People demand more from the companies they buy from because they have so many other options, all without leaving the comfort of their home or computer chair. So, the only way to set yourself apart from the competition and keep customers coming back for more is to provide amazing customer service. I’ve made a list of five tools that I use regularly, which help me ensure that my customers are always happy.

iAdvize: Instant Communication

One of the easiest ways to lose a potential customer is lack of timely communication. When a consumer goes to a store to buy something, there is always an employee they can ask for help if they can’t find something or need some more information. However, as online entrepreneurs, we don’t have this luxury. If a potential customer has a problem or can’t find exactly what they need on our website, they’ll simply leave and go elsewhere, as most people don’t have the patience to wait hours for a response via email.

However, the live chat support software from iAdvize takes care of this problem. With this software, you will be able to solve your customers’ problems immediately, without them having to wait for an answer. You will find that your sales will increase significantly, because people like the fact that there is a human on the other end of the “line” who can answer their questions. It takes your website from impersonal to human and people like doing business with companies that care. iAdvize says quite clearly that you care about your customers.

AskSunday: Corporate Level Customer Service for Small Businesses

AskSunday is an award winning company that provides virtual person assistants. When you sign up with AskSunday, you will get your own dedicated personal assistant who can handle a wide range of tasks, including customer service. Your assistant can answer all customer service emails, respond to customers’ queries and concerns via chat software and much more.

AskSunday has been a life saver for me because I can focus on management, strategic thinking and project development, without having to answer customer emails every five minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I value my customers more than anything but I can’t offer them the value they have come to expect from me if I have to answer questions regarding the checkout process every two minutes.

Grapevine Surveys: Knowledge Is Power

How do you know whether there are any areas of your business that could be improved if you don’t ask? The easiest way to lose customers is to ignore them and the easiest way to gain lifelong customers is to show them that you value their opinion.

Grapevine Surveys is a customer service survey tool that allows you to create surveys, collect vital customer feedback and analyze the results. You can create branded surveys tailored to your specific needs and use the results of your surveys to improve your customer service. Surveys can be web-based or sent via email to your customers and you are offered a number of survey templates to choose from, tailored towards general customer feedback and satisfaction.

Grapevine Surveys allows you to gather valuable intelligence that will save you time and money. You will be able to accurately pinpoint the areas that need improvement, while also making your customers feel that you care, which will increase your conversion rate dramatically.

SurveyMonkey: Give Them What They Want and They Will Come

If you give your customers what they want, they will keep coming back for more. However, you need to find out what it is that they want and SurveyMonkey can help you do that. Like the previous survey tool, SuveryMonkey allows you to create and send out surveys to your customers or subscribers to obtain feedback on everything from your customer service to new product ideas and more.

SurveyMonkey includes a wide range of invaluable market research tools such as response validation, which guarantees you will get the answers you need, or skip logic questions that increase response rate. SurveyMonkey allows you to create surveys in 21 different languages.

SalesForce: The Ultimate Customer Service Software

SalesForce is a complete customer service solution allowing you to offer customer support across a variety of platforms, including a customer portal, social media, online chat and email. It features a wide range of tools that will make your customer service agents more effective, including a knowledge base and the ability to track incoming cases and route them to the appropriate agent.

SalesForce is, essentially, a comprehensive customer service system in a box. Just point and click and you’ll be up and running in no time. With SalesForce you are guaranteed to have happy customers as their problems will be resolved in a timely fashion.

Depending on the size of your business and your specific requirements, I’m sure that you will find these tools invaluable. The best thing about them is that they improve your customer service, while also making your life easier. And if there is one thing I have found in my years as an online entrepreneur, it’s that top notch customer service increases sales and the lifetime value of your customers.

This was a guest post by Lior who is an advisor for 123 neon signs, one of the largest neon signs stores on the web and also runs the BeginSeoHere blog.

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Tags: award winning company, brand, computer chair, consumers, customer service, email, five tools, live chat, money, patience, personal assistant, seo, small businesses, Social Media, timely communication, virtual person