Email 1.0, we salute you
In the last couple of years I’ve said goodbye to ‘institutions’ I thought would be around forever. Borders, for instance. Many an evening did I spend sifting through the shelves of my favorite bookstore till I found a book I appreciated enough to pay for and take home with me. Those evenings at Borders are gone. And whilst some traditional brick and mortar stores have fallen through the recession and others are still staggering, the cloud-based tech industry is emerging triumphant.
How to prepare your customer support team for live chat
You’ve made the decision to add live chat to your customer support offering. Good for you, as statistics show that 86% of consumers want live chat assistance when getting stuck on a website. You’re already on your way to more sale conversions! The next step is to ensure your customer support team is ready to provide assistance when those first chat requests start coming in. Here’s what you should consider:
5 habits of the successful small business owner
Outstanding customer service doesn’t have to come from deep pockets and a 24/7 contact centre. In fact, according to the American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, small businesses are outstripping their larger counterparts in the customer service arena. Why? Because small businesses can offer a more personalized experience and more immediate action.
Delivering superior email customer service
When it comes to customer service, every consumer has a set of expectations. Usually those expectations are met, leaving the consumer to continue his day with very little reaction on or afterthought to his buying experience. Unless his experience far exceeds expectations! Here’s a bunch of tips to achieve this through email, a passive medium that has, however, great potential to delight customers.
Manage more customers simultaneously with live chat
You know that feeling when you’re truly powering through the day? You’re on a roll, ticking items off your to-do list like mad, savouring an ever-growing sense of accomplishment. You feel like a billion bucks – until that one customer ties up your phone line with a rather lengthy support request and everything else gets pushed to the side. ‘Pop’ goes your productivity bubble, down goes the day.
The killer support portal
On average 57% of consumers search online for solutions to their questions. Can you afford to have that many people frustrated with your business? Even if you could, I don’t think any business should.
So if you run a business, ask yourself if there are certain support questions that keep popping up in your inbox. Is there an easy, generic answer to these FAQs? Then you’ll want to spend less time responding to these enquiries, giving you more time to do what you do best: running your business. So just put all the answers online, in a logical order, with search functionality and links to contact support. And in plain, easy-to-understand text.
4 free tools to convert online shoppers to paying customers
There are lots of variables between your product and the transaction confirmation page. If you’ve got the foundations of your website nailed – great design, logical user experience, visible calls to action – you’ve already put your best foot forward. Now it’s time to propel your business even further! And the internet treasure-chest offers a number of fantastic tools to help you out – for free.
RTL Ventures: ‘Casengo looks professional, competitive and attractive’
Any Dutch dude calling himself an entrepreneur picks up a Quote from time to time. He might not admit this – Holland’s one and only ‘business glossy’ is a little too glossy for some – but believe us: he does. The features he’ll pay most attention to, are Pitch (in which upcoming companies are introduced) and Kickstart (in which a new company explains why it’s looking for external funding).
When Quote’s tech reporter called us in February with an interview request, we obviously said yes – even though it meant a dreadfully cold photoshoot on Amsterdam’s Museum Square. So run to your local newsstand right now and get Quote’s April issue! Casengo is featured in Kickstart, on page 50 (next to an amazing ad for a couple of hideous lawn mowers) (FYI: the cheapest model is all yours for €14.999 plus taxes).
“Being challenged” Inside Casengo #8
Ivan Krumov (1989) is the intern we couldn’t wait to keep. He brings his determination, focus and Bulgarian flavour to the Casengo table day in, day out. The depth of learning hasn’t changed much from his days as an intern, but that’s what keeps him going: “There’s a steep learning curve when you’re required to become skilled in new processes and technologies that you’re unfamiliar with – and this is multiplied when the responsibility for a project rests with you.”
The daily Casengo unworkout
No it’s not a typo: we’re un-working out today. If you run an SMB that’s been using Outlook to handle all customer enquiries, you’ve been working your fingers overtime – and needlessly so.
First, you’ve been creating multiple folders to file away the different types of correspondence. Then, there are those endless search sessions to retrieve one of the hundreds of emails you’ve kept for record’s sake. Then, there’s all that mouse clicking to open and close the various emails you stumble across until you find the email you were looking for from the start.
