Once you have established a relationship with your customers, you’ll need to find ways to maintain the rapport. You have several options for implementing maintenance, but they all boil down to one issue: Customer Satisfaction.

Because relationship commerce relies on customer-oriented activities, customer satisfaction is key. If customers find themselves against a wall with your customer service, you will lose the relationship you build with them. To maintain customer service, consider the following:

  • Be accessible. Give out as much contact information as your customers need to contact you. Also help them give you as much information as you need with appropriate prompts within contact forms. For example, ask them to define exactly the ares of the site where they experienced a problem.
  • Be prompt. Reply immediately to their correspondence with am auto responder that tells them when their e-mail will receive attention and what they should do if, for some bizarre reason, they don’t receive a reply within a certain time period. Then reply to them as soon as possible.
  • Be available. Consider using a real-time customer service forum for customers to chat live with customer service representatives who are able to answer questions.
  • Empower your customer service representatives. Give them the authority to do what they need to in order to resolve an issue or to placate an upset customer.
  • Follow up. Use a customer service hierarchy that allows a supervisor to personally contact customers who have experienced problems. The supervisor then can ensure that the issues were resolved to the customers’ satisfaction or make amends otherwise.