Regardless of whether a company's website provides:

• information-only,
• has e-commerce online sales,
• or provides other online services;

all companies want to provide their consumers the best, personalized-online customer service experience possible.

Despite industry, the big question looms:

How does one give the appearance of being right there, AND available for consumer questions or interaction, while NOT "really" being right there?

Fortunately today's ever growing, and easy-to-use technologies provide a multitude of free, inexpensive methods that provide consumers a more personalized, online experience; regardless of industry, from basic to more complex solutions, both are covered below:

Basic Online Customer Services

There are many options to providing (what many consider) the minimum, when it comes to online customer service requirements:

• Some of the most basic customer service methods companies should provide for the online consumer include:
  • follow-up emails,
  • feedback requests,
  • social media,
  • and ideally live chat and surveys.
• Additional basic online customer service ideals include:
  • an online resource section containing helpful information such as FAQ's,
  • consumer ratings,
  • product how-to manuals,
  • industry news blurbs,
  • and so on.

There are numerous options to choose from when it comes to email services, feedback gathering, social medias, chat and survey companies. Often the options are dependent on the industry of the company, as well as the target market of the consumer.

Implementing any, or all, of the above noted basic services is rather easy in today's world. Many of the solutions are cut and paste scripts that can be integrated into most any website platform.

Better yet, many of these options can be obtained and installed for free, with the option of premium services offering additional insights, analytics, and assistance for companies and their clientele.

There are also other methods of providing personalized customer service that go above, and beyond the basics.

Beyond Basic Online Customer Services

In addition to the basic options mentioned above, there are various other methods to utilize today's multi-media technologies to improve the online consumer experience.

To truly personalize the consumer's online experience, the user must feel as though they are right there experiencing the product or service such as:

• online video conferencing & meetings,
• multi-media,
• how-to videos,
• online scheduling,
• and other presentation style technologies

All can provide users a virtual, near-hands-on experience with a product or service.

Such detailed experiences invoke a greater sense of emotional appeal for a product or service, than without the use of multi-media technologies.

For example:

• A video showing a musician playing an instrument for sale at a music shop.
• A video walk through of a massage salon or medical facility to familiarize potential patients with the business.
• A presentation on how-to use a particular hand tool for sale.
• A how-to video showing how to navigate or checkout on a site.
• A live web-conference using a new feature of a product or service

Videos are showing a 200-300% increase in user engagement.

Such amazing results are not so difficult to believe when taking into account how a video demonstration of a product or service gives consumers greater insight into how they can potentially use that particular product or service to solve their own needs.

Many multi-media technologies are quite inexpensive, if not free. Most of today's laptops, tablets, and smartphones come with many of the video and editing programs pre-installed and ready-to-use.

In fact, most smartphones today come standard with high resolution cameras for professional grade images. More recently, many even include 4k & 8k video recording capabilities for "professional video" and other multimedia projects!

Summary

By using these technologies to create interactive multi-media presentations, the everyday business owner has the opportunity to create real-life experiences, professional looking videos, presentations, and more.

In an effort to enlighten and personalize the online consumer's experience, using everyday devices already at everyone's disposal, will enhance the user's experience, which can lead to better conversion, and again in turn can improve a company's bottom line.