Customer Services   Building Relationships with your Customers A website is a powerful customer services tool and provides an ongoing point of contact with your customers and can be a useful way to collecting information about them for e-marketing purposes and for building successful relationships with your customers.   Customer Services - Answering Common Problems Answering the common customer services queries ask on your website - perhaps in the form of FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) - demonstrates you're ready to help. It may also save you time and money by reducing the number of basic phone queries. Provide an email facility for queries and customer services feedback - but ensure someone checks them regularly. Respond to customer services queries promptly and let people know their comments are appreciated. This process can be automated. Provide full contact details, particularly phone numbers, for people in need of an immediate answer or they may look elsewhere.   Customer Services - Asking Visitors to Register Many businesses ask first-time visitors to their site to register. This can be useful for gathering statistics and email addresses for direct mailings. But asking people to register straight away may put customers off. Make sure they've got far enough into your website to want to find out more. Tell your visitors how they can benefit from registering, such access to special content. And always ask for the minimum of information. If you intend to collect personal data, there are a number of legal requirements.   Customer Services - Customer Relationship Management Many businesses invest in a customer realtionship management (CRM) system to improve their customer services. The CRM system brings information like customer data, sales patterns, marketing data and future trends together with the aim of identifying new sales opportunities, delivering improved customer services, or offering personalised services. In addition to improving sales and profitability, the CRM system is very effective in handling customer complaints and can have a tremendous effect on your reputation.