After I wrote about Practicing Good Online Business Ethics, then online customer service came to mind.

Do you practice good online customer service?

I don't know about you, but I've joined and bought some things and have had to wait up to 72 hours before anyone replied. Man I was mad!

Has that ever happened to you?

I thought the internet was supposed to deliver instant products?

I can understand up to 24 hours but some of these people need to get with the information highway business! Especially when we buy a download or access to a member's area. We want in Now not 3 days from now! Right?

And if I have a question, I don't want to wait a week for an answer! Gosh what kind of business operates like that in the real world? And if one does exist, I bet they won't be in business for  very long.

And all of these autoresponders. Does anyone reply personally anymore? I send a question to support and  get a reply back that says: We received your info and we'll get back to you asap.

Why do people do that? We know you received our message, now just reply with the answer not an autoresponder saying you received it.

These are very important factors in having a successful online business. If you don't provide good customer support, how can you expect to keep your customer's? They'll just move on to the next service or product whatever it may be.

Always reply to your customer's within a reasonable period of time. How long would you want to wait for your questions to be answered? Think like a customer when your running your own business.

It's fine to have an autoresponder don't get me wrong. I use them too, but to a certain extent. For instance, when someone subscribes to my ezine, they'll receive a welcome email instantly with their login info.

That's one way of using an autoresponder in a good way.

A not so good way of using one is like I said above. If you have a support form on your site for your visitors to leave their comments or questions, don't
use an autoresponder reply in those. All that does is aggravate people. It only takes a minute to reply to someone's questions. And when you reply personally, that makes them feel like they are important and your ready to take care of them personally.

As you should be willing to take care of them if they bought your service or product. If you don't, they will find someone else who will, and take their business elsewhere.

Treat other's as you would like to be treated and you'll do just fine. Provide the best customer care you can and your customer's will be yours for life. Just remember, the customer is always right.:)

Best Wishes To You!

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Audra Gehrke is the Publisher of Ecommerce  Resources Ezine. Dedicated to bringing you the  Best Online Marketing Resources, Biz-Opps, Free  Weekly Ads to Over 1,000 Subscriber's & Exclusive Subscriber Only Specials! http://ecommerce-resources.org/e-zine.html