There are a number of reasons to offer your customers an online support forum. A forum gives your customers a place to leave feedback for your business in order to solve problems in-house before they get out of hand. It also helps to build a sense of community between your customers that can lead to an increase in brand loyalty.
A Source of Customer Feedback
While telephone-based customer support may be too expensive to implement in your business, an online support forum is an easy and affordable way to allow your customers access to frequently asked questions, outage notifications and general usage questions. In many cases, the inquiries are the same over and over again, and for these types of issues, compiling a FAQ that’s available at the online forum is an efficient way to solve problems in-house. Support forums also give you an opportunity to de-escalate issues before they go viral. By offering an in-house forum, your customers are more likely to provide any kind of criticism there, close to the source, prior to blowing things up on social media. Just make sure you respond appropriately to their concerns.
Improving Customer Service
Create and design a support forum to solve problems in-house. The way you create and design a support forum can have a huge impact on your ability to provide quality online customer service. There are multiple ways to structure support forums, and which design will be best for your business will require some additional research on your part. It could save you time and money to consult with e-commerce design professionals for help setting up your business’ online forum.
It Builds a Sense of Community
Support forums also afford your customers the opportunity to get to know one another. All businesses have their fans, and these fans can work to your advantage in a well-structured support forum. They will answer questions and possibly even moderate the forums without the need for you to expend paid resources to do so. Building up a sense of community is very important in e-commerce, and having and maintaining a support forum is a great way to do that.
Online support forums provide e-businesses an inexpensive method to provide high-quality customer support with a minimal expenditure of resources. They allow you to get out in front of potential problems early, and they help to foster a community of loyal customers for your products and services.
Here’s another article you might find helpful: What to Know About Your Facebook Business Page
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