When you are prepping Thanksgiving dinner and your turkey is causing you nothing but aggravation, you can dial up the turkey hotline for answers. The people on the other end of the line can tell you almost anything you need to know, from how long it takes to thaw a 15 pound turkey to how much turkey you need to feed 20 people. It is being able to reach someone with an answer that makes all the difference to you as your turkey taunts you on the kitchen counter.
If customers have a complaint, question, or concern about a product or service, they have a number of options they can turn to. Long ago, the option was to write a letter of inquiry to the company whose product was in question, then await a reply. It could be weeks, or even months before the inquiring customer received a response in the mail. While this method was once practical, it is no longer the most ideal means of contacting companies. More recently, the ideal customer service became customer service hotlines; in many cases, hotlines are still the means people take to reach customer support representatives.
In the age of the Internet and Web 2.0, when millions of people are online and connected to a wealth of information, often they are turning to the Web for immediate answers instead of waiting in a telephone queue for the next available service representative to answer their call. In response to this fact, many companies are seeking ways to envelop the Web in their customer service practices in hopes of supporting their customer relationship management (CRM) strategies and providing customers with valuable, meaningful customer service experiences.
Many individuals are now turning directly to the Web when they have a question about a product they have. They will open up their favorite Web browser, like Yahoo!, and type their question in the search function. The answers the search function generates will direct inquirers to various websites, blogs, and even YouTube videos, where they can get further details to answer their questions. Thus, to address this level of self-service customer service, it is important to look into ensuring your website, which has answers and product information, as well as additional means of reaching your company, shows up at the top of search inquiry lists. Making these efforts will help direct people to the places they need to go for the most accurate information available to them.
If looking into alternative customer service options, you might also consider using Yahoo!’s “Answers” application, which is accessible from their home page. Through this function, Yahoo! provides a forum for Web users to ask questions and receive answers. You can apply this application to your customer service platform by monitoring it regularly. Questions are categorized by topic, making monitoring fairly straightforward. By monitoring people’s questions, you have the opportunity to answer questions and provide customer support in another capacity. Many people do actually go into these forums to ask product or service related questions, so there is the potential for you to provide customer service via Yahoo!’s Answers application.
Yahoo! also offers small business options, where you can develop websites, track shipments, initiate marketing campaigns, and establish means of communicating with your customers. These options provide additional platforms from which you can reach your customers and provide additional levels of service.
Using a Web browser like Yahoo! can allow you to provide customer service in a variety of capacities, from search functions, to answer forums, to websites and email accounts. Yahoo! and its various offerings has the potential to be a viable customer service and CRM tool.
