Information technology revolutionized the world and made information available to all and brought along a new trend in marketing – online customer service.
Customer Service and IT
Information technology embraces broad applications. In online customer service, the technology is a tool that helps online entrepreneurs store, manipulate and manage information, communicate and give information faster and efficiently.
Online customer service uses both the computer and the information to its advantage hence it is mandatory that customer service personnel be adept at both – computers and information technology.
In customer service, customer information is stored for future reference. The information provides information on customers’ buying trends and shows how often the customers have transacted business with the online store, the variety and bulk of purchases, and the banking options used by the customers.
The information also provides a gauge for customer satisfaction, the number of complaints lodged or assistance requested from the business. Other information that can be stored includes the company’s stocks available, pricing, and company purchases.
The organized information provides management the data needed for sales projections, help shape future projects, and propel these towards the right direction. Company policies can be changed or made flexible to respond to emerging trends in customer behavior.
Hence, it is important that project planners, procurement, and online customer service work together in the planning to give each separate unit a comprehensive understanding of the changes help everyone enhance their performance.
Software versus Web-Based Application
Software is used to manage this information and requires a permanent worker to handle this. If the company’s financial resources do not allow the hiring of this software specialist, the company can sign-up for a web-based application, which is cheaper and efficient. A web-page application lightens up the workload as you don’t have to worry about hiring extra personnel and putting up the application.
A web-based application offers extra benefits apart from outstanding features. The intuitive system allows managers or administrators to manage easily online files. Service providers allow functional demos to let you see for yourself how easily this can be used. Or you can order an application that is relevant to your business needs. Your type of business and the volume of customers you have or project is designed into the system.
More expensive applications is not always recommended because there are features that are useless for your kind of business, so why spend more for the added features when you don’t need them? On the other hand, web-based applications come with outstanding technical and administrative support.
There will be some requirements that might demand the upgrading of your office computers. You might need Windows NT, Windows 2000 or 2003 or Windows XP. But if you have the right window program, the application can be made easily after the provider designs your software according to your specifications.
Customer Service Made Easy
The online customer service aspect of the business backed with Information Technology makes the task efficient and your customer service agents because they can help customers when the information is needed. These days customer service is not confined to courtesy, it must be updated to match fast changing Information Technology to give more meaning to customer service – offline and online.
