Staying interactive with your site visitors is very essential if one wants to succeed online. Choosing the right tools, one is able to care for the loyal and potential customers that stop by their websites to do business. Although we often confuse the two, customer relationship management and customer service do work hand in hand. Customer relationship management focuses on the management of the customer and your relationship with them. Customer service however focuses on providing the assistance and services that customer’s need. For the next couple of weeks I will delve deep into Customer Relationship Management and Customer Services as it applies in doing business online. Both are very crucial for the success of e-commerce business. Customers are generally becoming aware that they will occasionally buy the wrong product and service or have some problems whiles dealing with you online. However, they are more concern about how these issues are going to be handled when they come up. Poor customer service has always been a great cause of losing customers and the potential gain they bring with them. In e-business the story is not different, poor customer service will certainly turn potential customers away from your site. You will agree with me that traditional commerce has most often provided us with that confidence and interaction we expect with our buyers. Imagine the corner store some few minutes’ walk away from your home where you are always welcomed like a friend or even family. I enjoy going to the store and having some chat with the store keeper about a football match this weekend before actually buying something. The interaction is even more intense with women, where they share some few gossips just about anything, before finally buying their stuff when they realize they are getting late to cook for their families . You see, Kwame the shop keeper near my house has my phone number via which he contacts me about new stuff arriving in his shop. My auntie Doris never stops buying, as her numerous dealers keep calling her up to check out new stuff at their shops. There is some trust between me and the shop keeper at the corner shop. E-business also has tools, which when used appropriately could enhance the relationship between buyers and sellers. We are in the age of multi-tasking where we are expected to handle several responsibilities at a particular time. You are the father, the husband, the manager, the church leader etc. Time is becoming shorter and it seems we need some extra few hours to make up for each day. It is common knowledge that technology, most especially the internet is changing the way we do shopping today. Here in Ghana the e-commerce concept is gradually catching up with us. In fact e-commerce has enormous advantages for our lifestyles today. Irrespective of the convenience that e-commerce business brings, customers still look out for that relationship that exists between buyers and sellers. The question then continues to boggle their minds as to whether the web can offer that confidence and trust that is very characteristic of any form of commerce. Most merchants wanting to move online are also asking similar questions as to how best they can relate to their loyal customers and potential ones. Advancement in web technology has provided tools that ensure that online merchants can have excellent relationship with their customers. Do you know that there are tools that can help you know exactly who is stopping by your online shop? It offers you various communication channels to best offer products or services specifically for a particular buyer. Experts say for you to be successful online, your e-commerce solution should be able to hint you as to who is visiting your site. It should also be able to help you track purchase behaviours of loyal customers, just like in the traditional way of doing business. It very disappointing to see many of our merchants moving online with just one focus; making more money. A look at their website and its performance reveals that they have ignored the concept of customer relationship management. If your online business has no customer focus, you are going to fail. E-mail addresses alone are becoming inadequate to effectively communicate with your customers. The pathetic aspect is that most of these email correspondences do not even work. So customers do not even get their messages replied. And even if it is, it takes so long a time. Online merchants here in Ghana must begin to look for other multiple channels of interacting with their customer base. Keeping the communication online: You will agree with me that customer service is very crucial for e-business success. How responsive are you to the needs of your customers before and after doing business with you? As an online merchant it will be very advantageous if you can anticipate and respond timely to the various questions your loyal a well as potential customers will be asking. In fact you will be ahead of the competition if you can communicate and interact effectively with your customers. Maintaining the communication and staying interactive with your customers have been identified as two rudiments which are very crucial to your success online. With communication, I am looking at the possibility of your site visitors to contact you as quickly as possible and also for you to respond to them promptly. Traditional commerce has this wonderful feature of prompt communication between buyer and seller. And this is because you are visible to the buyer. As you plan to get online, I would want you to consider the following carefully: • Get Customers E-mails: Make sure you encourage your site visitors to sign-up for your e-mail correspondence via which you can reach them with needed information. This may be specific adverts designed for a category of your customers. For other times it could also be in the form of news and sometimes initiatives you want to inform them about. Remember that e-mailing has and still remains crucial to online business, so ensure it works effectively .Don’t leave questions unanswered when they do come through your mail. •Automated Answers to FAQs: As a customer wants information, getting it immediately is very much appreciated. In setting up your email, you can tie in general answers as much as possible. The customer will initially get an automatic response to his or her email. This makes him or her feel appreciated even if it does not fully answer his or question. Knowing the frequently asked questions, it is very good to set up prompt answers to them •Be Noticeable As much as possible you would want to be as visible to your loyal and potential customers. Here in Ghana, our web addresses are not making the big contact listing in our various forms of advertisement yet. I believe strongly that the time is not far away when Ghanaians will begin to seek for enough information before making a single purchase decision. Then the call for ‘ go to my website’ to find out more will become very common as we try to reach our customers. So go ahead start making your web contact seen at every opportunity you get to reach you potential customers: Display your web address on the bill boards, TV, print media etc. Staying interactive online: I know it is not common especially in our part of the world for sellers to want to know how their loyal customers feel about their service. You see with traditional business it is somehow easy to see from the reaction of the customers while doing business to know if he is content or not .You can equally achieve the same result in e-business even from customers you don’t see. Here are some ways to do that: •Creating Forms –On your website, have forms created which customers can fill out to give you some feedback information that will help you better serve your numerous customer base. Make these forms as easy as possible and attractive to fill. •Get Reviews –Occasionally you can also carry out surveys to ascertain the level of satisfaction your online customers are getting. It can also help gather their opinions on various ways of improving upon your service or product you offer them. It is also very good to say ‘Thank you’ as they finish your survey. You can sometimes add incentives so as to reward them for their effort in making you know what they want. It very essential to know that customer service goes beyond just responding to customer inquiries. It is good to also know what they are thinking so as to make an informed decision way ahead and anticipate what they might need. About the Author: Theodore Lawson (An international Certified Project Manager and E-commerce Consultant) Email: tedlawson10@gmail.com