The Promotional Benefits of Good Customer Service
- Alan Grainger
- October 25, 2011
In offline businesses, customer service teams and marketing departments don’t always have much to do with each other, with these two disciplines rarely over lapping. Contrast this with online companies however and there is an enormous amount of benefit in using great customer service to promote your company.
Of course, you will want your levels of customer service to be as high as possible for more reasons that good marketing, but how can you use great service to promote your online company?
External Reviews
Good reviews have become like golden nuggets over the last year and if you are currently running an Adwords campaign it might be in your best interests to get your customers writing reviews. You will have noticed the little star rating next to some companies appearing in the SERPS and this is all to do with feedback that has been left on external review websites such as Review Centre.
Google takes your average star rating from reviews left on these sites and displays them next to your listing, giving a great trust signal for e-commerce sites and improving conversion rates.
On-Site Reviews
Setting up a simple customer review section on your own website can also be a valuable asset to have. If you get customers to review individual products it can add valuable original copy to your product pages that can help with your organic listings, while if you get customers to review your site then it adds a vital trust signal for new users. With just a little technical knowhow, it is also possible to use a system called Schema.org to markup your reviews, enabling Google to display your aggregate total in your organic SERPS.
Social Media
Social media is fast becoming the new telephone directory for online businesses. Referrals and likes have become effective ways of promoting your site as any likes or comments you receive will appear in the news feed of all of that individual’s friends, giving a powerful endorsement for your company. Endorsements are worth their weight in gold, so it is worth steering your customers towards your social media outlets and encouraging them to leave their feedback as this can help to drive targeted traffic your way.
Keeping your customers happy is always important but in online business it can really help to promote your company to other people. Follow up all orders with an email asking for reviews and don’t worry if you get a bad one. Make a visible effort to rectify any problems and these negative reviews can easily turn into some of the best you receive.
Do not underestimate the power of customer service in online marketing, it could be more important than you first thought.
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