Client communication is critical to my business success. I'm constantly juggling and multitasking. Social media is both a blessing and a bother.
Simpler Times
My Web design business launched in the fall of 2001. Back then, face to face meetings, emails and phone calls were the ways I communicated with customers (sorry, couldn't do the pager on belt thing).
How things have changed
With the explosion of mobile phones and social media, I now have customers contacting me via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Trying to keep up with the various incoming messages from all these sources has become a challenge.
Time to talk
Communication is critical to business success, but it can be a real time vacuum. As a small business owner, I constantly struggle to juggle the various aspects of running the business. Things like work flow, cash flow, and trying to grow. I need to be able to respond quickly and concisely to the multitudinous customer inquiries I receive.
Email to the core
My preference has always been email because I like to have a "paper trail". I also like the ability to respond at any time (even 2 am on a Friday night, I'm ashamed to admit). I use Outlook and Gmail with synced calendars, this allows me to use the best of both tools. Priority flags and reminders are my virtual post-it notes.
Google Voice - A nice choice
The "Swiss army knife" of small business communication tools?
- It's free
- Local phone number
- Call forwarding / call screening / conference
- Voice to email and/or SMS
Help Desk - Scalable and Professional
I have implemented an
online help desk (Zendesk) to help manage projects, changes and technical support issues.
- Web based
- 24/7
- Tracking
- Integrated with email
From my experience, customers seem to resist the "lengthy" ticket creation process (sarcasm).
SMS / Texting
Not new, but it's still very convenient when possible.
Integration is a problem, although Google contacts and Voice play nicely together. No way to push events to G calendar (app idea?), I also find that messages can get buried quickly. And land lines are land mines. Accidentally trying to send a text to a land line and you get the dreaded 25 cent extra charge message. I've never found the courage to do it. Damn, I actually have to call the customer back.
Social Media - Lovin' G+, Facebook not so much
Keeping pace with evergreen social network landscape is fun but challenging.
- Highly interactive
- Non intrusive (Turn the alerts off - gasp!)
- Hooks into help desk
Any of these tools can be a barrier for non technical customers. I also have privacy concerns. Accidentally posting a reply that's set to public versus private. The equivalent of "reply all" if you will.
My quest for the ultimate solution continues...
No matter what I have in-place, it will never please everyone, myself included. Clients demand 24/7 accessibility and instant response. Spam blockers, forgotten passwords, playing phone tag... all barriers to effective streamlined communication.
I look back fondly on the "olden days". Before smartphones and social media enveloped my every waking minute.
And I had to walk uphill both ways to school. :-)