Customer inquiries can account for a large proportion of downtime for sales and support staff. Unfortunately, for each customer with unresolved issues there can be many poor reviews of your product. Fortunately, the internet age has created an ideal opportunity for handling customer inquiries while managing sales downtime. It is called online inquiry assistance.

There are two characteristics of inquiry assistance which are sought by customers. First, they want it to be right the first time, and secondly, they wanted it done yesterday. By the time a customer is speaking with a support representative, odds are that they have tried to use the product, failed, and are experiencing serious buyer's remorse. By the time a support employee has answered call after call from disgruntled customers, they begin to have poor attitudes as well.

Thankfully, the Internet can provide some relief for both groups through the use of online support materials. These are lists of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and user manuals which savvy customers can use to guide themselves through product education. Ask any support employee how many calls they receive from customers asking basic, FAQ-type questions, and you will understand the value of online support. As you can see, sales and support staff will not be constantly bombarded with as many of these so-called simple calls.

Assuming that online support will not solve a customer's inquiry, a phone call will become necessary, or will it? By utilizing online chat software, companies can offer customers a non-spoken method of inquiry transmission. This serves two major benefits from the assistance point of view. First, online chat allows customers to describe their problem who would otherwise shy away from a phone call. Second, the inherent difficult in transmitting emotion through chat text should keep incidences of support employee anger and frustration to a minimum.

As another alternative, companies can also rely on email support to augment chat support and online support. In this instance, customers have twenty-four hour product support through FAQs, chat during business hours, and email support which is followed up during the next business day. This is a model that many companies have already put into place for their product support, an idea especially true for the PC industry. Check any major PC retailer website, be they in-house or online sales oriented, and you will likely find many of the support ideas offered above.

So to sum it all up, is it possible to handle customer's inquiries online? The answer is a resounding yes. By using online methods of support, both the customer and employee gain an informational and psychological advantage that will result in greater customer satisfaction. And as all good business owners know, the more satisfied the customer, the more satisfied the producer. Think about implementing online customer inquiry assistance today, or your competitors may be profiting from your dissatisfied customers.