2. Make it easy for your potential online clients to ask and receive responses to their questions and concerns. This commonly know as customer service.

No matter how hard you try, there will always be a visitor to your site that needs to ask a question or share a concern. I strongly recommend that you provide visitors with numerous ways to contact you.

Let us start with traditional ways of enhancing communications and feedback. Ideally you will want to include a highly visible link on your site to your contact information page. Ensure that your contact page includes:

• a complete mailing address
• telephone and fax numbers
• a real contact person
• an email address that is monitored by a real person
• your toll free number if you have one
• a link to the frequently asked questions (FAQs) area of your website
• get even more feedback by providing an online suggestion box

As in a traditional bricks and mortar business, you need to address each and every inquiry that you receive. If you want your online store to be successful, you need to spend the time and energy to address all, and I mean all, the inquiries coming in from your website in a timely manner. Try to address these inquiries between 24 and 48 hours of the original request. If you wait too long, you’ll simply loose these potential buyers to your competitors.

It goes without saying that sooner or later you will probably get a complaint. Don’t take the complaint to heart! If there is a genuine reason for the complaint, rectify the problem as quickly as possible and get back to the person. If someone is providing constructive feedback, try to be as unbiased about their comments as possible. Reflect on the comments and ascertain if there is reason for any adjustments. If there is, make the changes and send a quick note to the originator, thanking them for their feedback and advise them that adjustments have been made.

Welcome additional feedback. This will show your visitors that you are not only open to feedback but that you are willing and prepared to make adjustments if needed. The worst thing you can do is ignore online complaints and feedback and hope that they will go away. I can tell you with great certainty that they will go away and so will any other potential business opportunities, as word of mouth (called “word of mouse” on the internet) is very powerful and prevalent with the online community.

In the next two articles, Frank will address how a little automation can help your online business. You will also learn how a $300 order can generate in excess of $120,000 of business.

Frank Barajas is an editor for Leather Pages.com (www.leatherpages.com), a portal to the global leather goods and apparel, and footwear industries.

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