Sam Leader of Flying Solo offered this story on setting expectations for customer contact: she got an immediate—though automated—company email reply that promised someone would “get back in touch soon”. Months later she still hasn’t heard from them.
She notes her frustration isn’t because they didn’t reply, but because they failed to keep the promise they made. The first (and only) step she offers to avoid disappointing your own customers is
…review what channels of communication you make available. If your business card includes your landline, mobile and email, then you must be prepared to handle all interaction that follows.
Keeping your promises
She raises an important point. While you may feel compelled to include every possible way for a customer to reach you, you’re better off only making promises you can keep. Take a moment to consider which contact methods work best with your personality, business practices, and office setup. Then:
- Include on your business card only the methods you intend to monitor daily
- Highlight your preferred contact method with color, bold text, primary placement, or a larger font size
What to include, what to leave out
Here are some ideas on what to add or subtract from your business card:
- Include office hours on your business card if you don’t intend to answer the phone whenever
- Include your US time zone (e.g., EST) if you have customers throughout the US
- Include your international time zone (e.g. GMT -5) if you have customers all over the world
- Omit your phone number if you don’t want to talk to people…crazy, I know! :D
- Omit your street address if you work from home and don’t want customers at your door
- Include your usernames for social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn if you monitor them daily
- Include your website URL, period. If you don’t have a website, get one—here’s why.
Online communication tools
And while you’re thinking about how customers will contact you, look over these online tools that can make incoming faxes, calls, and mail more manageable:
- Use uFax or MyFax for a silent, secure fax “machine” that costs less than a second phone line. Another benefit: no need to wait by the fax machine, you can read these faxes online from anywhere
- Consider uReach’s Find Me/Follow Me for a single phone number that will redirect customers to any of your phones or voicemail, depending on the time of day
- Try Google’s Grand Central for a single phone number that can route calls based on the caller. You customize which of your phones will ring and which voicemail message they hear
- Check out Earth Class Mail for an online mailbox. They receive your snailmail, scan the envelopes, and you choose whether they should forward, shred, toss, or—get this—open the mail and scan the contents so you can read your mail online. I can’t wait to try this!
There are certainly ideas I didn’t think of, and services I haven’t heard of. Feel free to comment on what I left out…
Photo credit: IStockphoto
