Communicating With People:

As Featured On Ezine Articles

You might scoff if someone were to suggest that phone support was obsolete, but Sarah Hatter of 37signals makes the argument that you no longer need an 800 number. "We get requests every day from people who don't think email support will cut it and demand a phone number to call us," she writes in a post at her company's blog. "Their worries are assuaged when they get a reply from me in less than 15 minutes that is informative, helpful and obviously written by a human being. It's absolutely 100% possible to provide excellent customer care without a phone or phone number, and our company proves that daily."

The Service Untitled blog adds a "yes, but … " to that claim. "A lot of times, a 10 or 15 minute phone call can resolve an issue that would take multiple days of going back and forth via email to resolve," they say. And with the concession that the online-only model works for 37signals, Service Untitled concludes that it probably isn't feasible for most companies.

Here are the key questions they think you need to ask:

* Can you afford phone support?
* Will phone support increase the speed and efficiency of your company's customer-service?
* Do your customers expect phone support?

The Po!nt: The idea of conducting all customer service online is intriguing, but think hard before abandoning phone support. "Sometimes it is just necessary to pick up the phone and work with your customers live," says Service Untitled, "regardless of how efficient the medium is."

If you're a small business, you're aware that Web 2.0 offers entirely new channels for attracting and cultivating customers. And in a post at the Acquiring Minds blog, Robert Lesser explains why your diminutive stature might actually give you the social-media edge over your larger (and richer) competitors. So cheer up, little guys, you've got a lot going for you. For instance:

You know that social media are—to borrow a British-ism—cheap and cheerful. It costs almost nothing to launch a impressive online presence with the assistance of services like Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. If you have a tight budget, but there's sweat equity to spare, these tools become that much more attractive.

You're more likely to recognize the potential benefits. "The small B2B marketer recognizes that the rewards associated with engaging in public customer dialog outweigh the risk of losing control of the marketing message," he says. Because of this, you're willing to experiment with various options, even if they're not a sure bet.

You also have more flexibility. According to Lesser, the larger a bureaucracy, the greater the likelihood that top executives will put the kibosh on social-media components like untraditional press release formats.

The Po!nt: If you use a blog only to host warmed over press releases, you probably won't see the results you'd like to have; for those who innovate, however, Lesser says Web 2.0 is the perfect fit for a small business.

"Email is not dying in the midst of the Social Media revolution," says Anna Billstrom. But your email marketing strategy, she says, must evolve to go with the flow. Take the way subscribers read email. You probably have a BlackBerry or an iPhone, and so do your customers. It's therefore critical that you gear messages for on-the-go readers with streamlined copy, meaningful images and plenty of links that make it simple to follow up or take action.

Also, remember that email isn't the only way your subscribers receive content. "With the advent of micro-blogging tools," she says, "you can repurpose your content in the form of mini updates on several platforms such as Tumblr, your blog, your site, or Plurk." To do that, implement ideas like these:

* Use email sidebar links to invite customer interaction at social media sites. Example: "Follow us on Twitter, FaceBook, etc."
* Syndicate content through aggregators such as FriendFeed and Social|Median.
* Simplify and consolidate updates with a tool like Ping.fm. "[I]t will make your job as an author much easier," says Billstrom.

You can also create your own social network with a service like Ning. But Billstrom argues this might not be worth the effort. "These sites can be burdensome from a maintenance point of view," she notes, "and there is far less networking and internetworking available."

The Po!nt: Diversify. "Customers are telling you how they want information," says Billstrom. "[I]t may not be just via email."