With the wealth of communication channels now available to both business and customer, what are the best paths to walk in order to convey a message to your vital customers?

Over the Phone

It seems simple, almost trivial, in fact many believe that it’s a skill that is somewhat lacking amongst many sales and accounts representatives nowadays. People are only human¸ this means that we have evolved to texters and typers, rather than conveyers of speech and verbal outlay. As I speak to a variety of customers regarding all topics, one keystone of every conversation is to ensure that both business and customer appreciate the value of the phone call.

It may be over something unimportant, but as many of us are somewhat time-poor these days, having a good old yarn over the phone about nothing in general is a solid and surfeit way of building rapport.

Live Chat

As a hosting provider we have a dedicated and expert support team; however ‘support’ is not what many believe it to be for a hosting company. For us, support is a culmination of all of the talents including engineering, operations, technical, sales, accounts and marketing; it is a team effort. All of the man-hours which go into delivering a hosting product requires a face to sell it, in this case a little chat window at the bottom right hand corner of our website.

And as a Gen Y, I can advise of one thing; the stereotype that we are impatient is horridly far off the mark. Our thirst for efficiency is a simple by-product of having an efficient information delivery system, the internet. Live chat enables your customers to ping you at all hours of the day and get the tid-bit of information they need but can’t be bothered calling about. It’s ICQ or MSN all over again, for business.

Facebook

Some are endeared to it, others loath it, in most business cases; it’s a necessity. Since launch in 2004 Facebook has provided the ultimate platform for global procrastination and networking. In fact it’s this unique and unchallenged platform for networking that has enabled business to develop new and clever ways of marketing. The reach of Facebook is truly amazing.

An active Facebook page can improve the visibility of your business greatly, as syndication occurs automatically when a customer shares or likes your page, just don’t go thinking it’ll give you a gold star for SEO – Facebook is unfortunately not part of Google, and Google make note of this.

Twitter

This is something I personally believe everyone should have installed on their smartphone. Twitter is a powerful information transfer tool that is utilised by spammers, celebrities, sportspeople, business and Barack Obama. If it’s good enough for POTUS, it’s good enough for you.

With Twitter, you are capable of targeting every customer who follows you within seconds – you can see how this is useful for uptime based providers such as Crucial. In fact, many customers of yours will value the transparency of news posted on Twitter – regardless of the nature – over the old school approach of non-disclosure. Although Twitter has its drawbacks (it’s incredibly monotonous and your stream will fill with spam quickly), it is vital for modern day commerce.

Just avoid the celebrities, substance is sorely lacking on that front.

YouTube

This is the hidden gem, the power tool amongst the spanners. Some would feel uneasy about posting publically available videos of themselves on YouTube, however if you’ve had your teeth whitened and would like your name up in lights, YouTube is perfect. People are generally more comfortable watching than reading, a prime example of this is spending a few hours on a Saturday drifting down a tangent of football videos, old clips of Top Gear, the history of Russian geography, how dolphins communicate… wait how did I get here?  ‘Nuff said.

Although YouTube is underutilised by business – it requires a complicated and costly outlay for quality content – it does offer you a unique way of delivering three dimensional content to your customer, something they will love you for.

Oh, and it is kick-arse for SEO.