Introduction

Most websites are created in order to make money by bringing in prospects and sales, but they can also be extremely valuable in saving time and money. By using your site to improve communication, customer service and order management, you can significantly reduce your administration time and better serve your customers.

This article looks at some of the tools available to help you save time and money online and perhaps more importantly, how to make sure they work for your business.

Know what you want

Achieving goals for your business means setting out exactly what you need. Sit down (with your web designer if you have one) and plan out not only what you want to achieve, but how you are going to know if you've succeeded. If you want to save time for your staff, measure how many of them use the new system. If you want to speed up customer orders, measure the time spent before and after the changes.

By spending time - and if necessary, money - on getting your system right, you will save a lot more in the long run. You also need to be aware of how much time the system itself will take, who will manage it and who takes responsibility if it goes wrong. With planning, you can also establish the best areas on which to focus your changes. There's no point creating an online customer database if you only work with three companies repeating the same orders. However, if you have a large number of customers and orders, the time and money saved could be enormous.

Managing orders

Your customer service starts as soon as the prospective customer phones, writes or visits your website. If you get the information right at this point, you can improve sales and save the time your staff spend managing the process. If they are relevant, noticeboards on a website can be a great way to promote and inform. This could be as simple as a box on the home page, announcing special offers, technical information or new products. Or you could have a comprehensive noticeboard for different services and relevant areas, such as mountain climbing or skiing for a sports supplier.

The next step is to provide a list of frequently asked questions - or FAQs - to better inform your customers. If you get the content right, your FAQs will not only promote the product but also make it easier for the customer to complete the order. And if you have fifteen people phoning up every day asking if widget A will work with gadget B, you will know just how much time you could save by making this information public.

When it comes to the actual order, you may or may want to allow customers to provide the information themselves - it all depends on your services or products and your approach to the customer relationship. However, by giving customers the chance to fill out their own orders, you are not just saving your time but also allowing customers to take control of the process. At the simplest level, you may just want to take their contact details so that you don't have to type them up later. Or you may want to ask for all sorts of specifications about the job - this is also particularly useful for repeat orders and long-term customers.

By automating this aspect of the order, you can also send relevant information straight to the appropriate member of staff. You may for example want to separate orders by furniture sales, repairs and commissions. Or even separate enquiries by sales, accounts or technical support. Your web designer should be able to direct automatic emails to the right person according to the options selected by your customers.

It may be worth creating an online customer database, which would allow you to store contact details, order histories, etc. dependent on your needs. A tailored database or even a package program might not cost as much as you think, and if everything is online then the information your customers enter themselves can be applied straight away and without your time.
Customer queries

Customer problems are best caught early, and they can also seriously harm relationships if the communication isn't there. Your website can combat this by providing a support section in case of problems. This area can be a combination of information support and contact options - by giving customers control over the situation you are removing the frustration. This could be as simple as the FAQs mentioned above, which outline common problems and how to fix them.

If your products or services are particularly complex, it may make sense to have a larger database of information. You could then allow customers to search the resource for their problem. If the solution isn't found, the same question could be sent to you by email. For example, if someone's pen isn't working, they could fill out their contact details and provide the query "my pen nib is leaking ink". This search term may then find an article about leaking nibs and how to prevent them, or if there is nothing relevant the email can be sent to your nib department. This method gives customers much more control over the problem and allows you to provide a solution, but it needn't take time away from your business.

Forums provide another way to support customer problems, often with information from other customers. Many web hosting packages provide forum solutions, so it needn't cost much, but it can add an enormous amount of information to the customer support system. By giving staff and customers access to the forum, you can allow customers to post problems and get answers from an enormous expert resource. This is particularly useful with specialist areas, such as a fishing shop or a software re-seller, where it can not only provide support but also build a sense of community that is very important in increasing customer loyalty and retention.
Staff communication

The forum solution also provides a lot of options for internal communication. If you don't want to get involved with a customer forum, then an internal support forum can do much the same job. By allowing staff to post and answer queries, you can build a resource of support that will always be useful.

You can also expand forums to include partners and suppliers, seeking their advice or providing more information. Internal forums can be used for a range of information, not just customer support but also accounts queries, marketing ideas, product information and sales statistics, to name but a few. This kind of tool can bring together a huge range of information, and allow users to utilise the system in their own way. It's also especially useful with a remote workforce, such as sales people who are often out on the road or work from home. Customers and staff alike can access the forums at lunchtime, midnight or Sunday morning, and from anywhere in the world.

Making it work for your business

Your website - like any business tool - needs to be integrated into your business to have the best effect. This means providing the right resources, setting objectives and achieving them, giving staff the chance to contribute and develop the tool, and most importantly responding to customer needs.

There are an enormous number of website tools available to help make your business more efficient, more profitable and more supportive to your customers. Your success in applying these tools lies in knowing what you need and how you are going to achieve it.