Can You Really Deliver Customer Service This Great From Your Home Office?
You’re not going to believe how great this solution is for your home office! With the addition of one little plugin to your blog, you now have a closed-loop online customer service system for your business.
The Comments Must Flow
I recently implemented the Disqus system on HomeOfficeWebTools.com to manage and track blog comments, as you can see below this article. Checking the Disqus blog for updates, I posted a reply to a note on the Disqus blog and got a reply within 30 minutes via email from Daniel Ha, addressing my concerns. At 10:30 pm.
The time of day and the response time caught my attention. Excellent customer service, for which I commend both Daniel and Disqus.
The thing that really caught my attention was a little note at the bottom of his email that said,
You may reply to this email to post your response.
Intrigued, I replied to the email, then decided to click the breadcrumb link back to the original comment on the Disqus blog. Lo and behold, guess what I found! That’s right! The entire conversation was posted with threaded comments on the original blog post!
Three things immediately came to mind:
- The method of contact no longer matters.
- The conversation is accessible from both the website and your inbox.
- The comments flow in both directions!
I know that this is just a simple example of RSS in action, but I’ve never seen it packaged so perfectly nor work so seamlessly.
Why This Matters
The point is, using Disqus removes several steps from the process of responding to blog comments, making it that much easier to dialog with your customers and fans. All you have to do is post a note to your blog then let the conversation unfold in the one place you already use as the central hub of your business: email.
Your customer service dialogs become valuable blog content, giving you more fodder for humans and search engines alike.
Bonuses
- You can eliminate your site’s contact form and exclusively use your blog for customer contact.
- Your comments follow you around online, freed from the blog to which you originally replied
- Your Disqus community page generates a link back to your website. Great for search engine rankings!
My existing WordPress comments imported with no difficulty, but your mileage may vary if you have a huge database with thousands of comments and posts to import.
Comments do stay synchronized on Disqus and your WordPress blog, so even if the service goes down, your database is still intact and site visitors can still comment without interruption.
What’s not to like?
What You Need to Do
Take action on this right now. Do not wait to do more research or read other people’s opinions. Click on over to Disqus, create your account and install the plugins or code as directed. Take some time to fill out your profile and tweak the various settings to your liking.
Man, I love technology, and you are going to love the various ways you can now use comments to deliver great customer service.
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Tags: home office, blogging, customer service system, business blog
5 Ways to Leverage StumbleUpon for Small Business Owners
If you run a small business, chances are you are too busy managing loose ends to have time to test all the newest social networking sites that have sprung up in the wake of MySpace and YouTube.
Here’s one for you that will help you sift through the barrage of gar-bage websites out there: StumbleUpon.
From the website:
StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests. Whether it’s a web page, photo or video, our personalized recommendation engine learns what you like, and brings you more.
After you register, complete your profile by telling StumbleUpon your interests. Install the StumbleUpon toolbar in either Firefox or (blech) Internet Explorer, and hit the “Stumble!” button. The service will deliver a page in its system that someone with similar interests as you has blessed as good.
The Benefits
In order of increasing value, here are 5 ways you, the small business owner, can leverage this powerful social networking tool to help your business.
- Discover interesting websites, photos, videos, etc as inspiration for blogging or writing topics. As you Stumble! and rate sites, StumbleUpon will learn about your preferences over time and send you more and more relevant content.
- Bookmark your Stumbling history for later perusal. StumbleUpon will keep track of what you like and don’t like, and allow you to drill deeper into topics that interest you. Use this for future reference when writing blog posts.
- Network with resourceful people online. Being that it is a social network, StumbleUpon is great for finding other people who share your passions and can provide solutions to your problems. You can find and follow people whose opinions you have grown to trust.
- Create a resource of useful websites and tools for your clients, patients, or customers. You can provide your constituents value by getting them to become a fan of yours on StumbleUpon and regularly sending them content you think will interest them. Great way to keep yourself relevant to them.
- Promote your own blog or website, increasing your online exposure. You can add your own content to the StumbleUpon database to benefit from some of that social networking mojo. As long as you push your own stuff in proportion to your other Stumbling activity, you can see develop consistent traffic from the service.
More Strategies and Tactics
I’ve been taking a course put together by Caroline Middlebrooke called StumbleRush. It’s a free, multi-part e-course that I recommend you take a look at, because it details several strategies for using StumbleUpon to promote your blog and website online.
In fact, it was Caroline’s gentle guidance that inspired me to experiment with StumbleUpon and sold me on its value to my online marketing efforts.
Take a look at the course, start Stumbling, and let me know how you make out in the comments.
Tags: internet business, StumbleUpon, social networking sites, recommendation enginePolls
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