Help! Need some advice, i'm tired of answering phones call and emails for my business

Hi there

My small web design business is slowly growing http://www.dmaireroa.com. I am in the process of doing a revamp to my website, and adding more services to my business; domain registration, web hosting, etc.

This month, I have completed a few projects, so work is going well. So far all my clients are happy, however, because I work alone (well hopefully not for long still deciding lol), most of my time is spent talking on the phone to the client when they ring me asking me the dos and hows (not to say it in a bad way), I have to explain over and over. This is taking most of my time, and would like a solution or a better way of handling it without using most of time?

I know there are a lot of smart businessmen out there, and was wondering if possible can someone give me some advice here? Pretty much, I just want to improve my business system; help-desk, etc.

HERE ARE MY IDEAS AND THINKING IF I NEED THIS FOR MY BUSINESS (TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK?)
1. A forum; helpdesk, tips, video, tutorials on how to create emails, CMS, etc
2. Automation; I don't know much about it but I do know it's very useful and would like to use it some how.
3. Hire a staff (The only problem is, I work from home and not sure how to work this in?)

I guess the main issue is, once I complete a project, and then I provide my client a one on one training day on how to use their website, cpanel, create an email, CMS, etc, and then the phone calls and emails is storming shortly afterward, and I need a simple solution in case the business starts to grow a lot bigger, well you can imagine the phone calls and emails I will receive

Many thanks in advance
CHEERS

 

well, as far as office space you can go to craigslist.org and look under commercial property for rent. This would be good for hireing staff. As far as staff, craigslist could solve this issue and you wont have to pay your staff more than 9.50/hr. Since your into web-design, there are plenty of trade schools with graduating students looking for a job. You can pick up grads rite out of school, and not go bankrupt just post an ad in local community college paper (or University). Most students jump on this pretty fast so you'll have a good selection to choose from.. Its nice working for yourself

 

Why don't you get a reseller account with Godaddy and sell domains via them, set oyur own prices as long as they are above the Godaddy minimum and keep the difference. Also Godaddy will take care of all the customer service part under a third party name, so your customers will never know they are actually Godaddy customers. The same with hosting, or get a reseller account with a host and make small packages that you resell to your clients under your own name.

A help desk system would probably be beneficial, check out Kayako Support Suite, support tickets, live support feature and knowledge database. Make it a rule to record all your clinets questions and then each day, you write up a step by step guide to solve one of those questions and add to your knowledge database. Continue to do this and you will soon have a useful but still very personal support database to point your clients to in the first place.

 

Try an answering service and create a very in-depth FAQ section on your website.

 

Great guys, thanks for advice that was so needed for me to hear. Oopps..I forgot to mentioned, I have already set up a reseller account for hosting and domain names but I only have them offered to clients. I'm not sure how to work them in properly if I was to sell them online?? I'm a little afraid if I make this available online then I might get all these calls/emails from someone I don't know lol.

I don't know much about Godaddy or what they offer, but I will check them out and see from there.

I found this site 'zendesk' http://www.zendesk.com/ is it similar to 'Kayako Support Suite'? There are so many, I will need to go over them and make a decision.

Thanks again guys

 

One of the things I do is when I have certain common questions (and people don't always look at your FAQ's), I usually do a small video. For instance, one of the common questions is, "how do I setup my email accounts for outlook".

This makes a great candidate for a small video. When clients call or email, I refer them to the online video. If you have a collection of these videos and you have done a website for a new client, give them all the videos on a nice looking DVD and encourage them to look at it for first line support.

Put a nice index page on there so they can find things easily...

 

Good point, videos may be a much better thank FAQs since a lot of ppl are too lazy to read.
You will still get people who want to speak to an actual person tough.

 

The only thing I can suggest is, Hire a operator or get and IVR technology phone. It will answer all the question of your clients automatically. Or you have have the is create a FAQ page on your site.

 

1. A forum; helpdesk, tips, video, tutorials on how to create emails, CMS, etc
Its not necessary because its already abundant when you do a search.

2. Automation; I don't know much about it but I do know it's very useful and would like to use it some how.
You can do automation on the business so that you no need to manually handle the billing system.

3. Hire a staff (The only problem is, I work from home and not sure how to work this in?)
You can hire freelance coz their paid is low then you can save cost.

 

You've covered the main points yourself.

1. A forum; helpdesk, tips, video, tutorials on how to create emails, CMS, etc

There is the issue of people being too lazy to follow them, but if you advertize it widely to your existing and new clients, and keep updating it with new stuff, then it will eventually work. The information you provide here won't be anything new or startling, and it will probably be available elsewhere on the internet, but having most of the resources available in a single location for stuff that is relevant to your clients will help them.

If clients send you an email to ask a question where the info is already available on your knowledgebase, then just send them a link back to the article. It seems a bit rude, but you can front the email with a nice note providing a link to the article and maybe a link to something else they might find useful. Clients soon learn to visit your knowledgbase first before emailing you, particularly if you leave it a couple of hours to reply since you "were in a meeting" and they needed the answer quickly.

I know this because I've been through it myself several times. When I started on my own clients contacted me directly. Eventually we had dedicated support staff 24/7 and introduced a ticket system - this was a few years ago. We made a fanfare of it and made sure the support responses were fast and relevant, but people still contacted me directly. For a short while (the first month) I'd answer their questions but remind them of the ticket system and tell them that I wasn't always around to answer to their support requests whereas the support team were always available. After a while if I received a support request I'd create a ticket for the support team then answer the email telling the client I'd done that for them because I was rushing to a meeting and support would deal with their request. After about 3 months most clients got used to using support@ rather than email me directly. Some still sent me support requests but what I ended up doing was ignoring the request for at least 24 hours - no matter how urgent - then create the ticket and email the client saying I was sorry this took so long but I was out of the office all day yesterday and I'd only just got back in, then I'd remind them that support@ is available 24/7 and they will always get a quick answer by contacting our support team. I still occassionally get a support ticket addressed to me directly, but it gets the 24-hour treatment.

We went through a similar process when we introduced our knowledgebase, video tutorials, "how tos", and "troubleshooting" systems, but it has to be done. Customers can be reluctant to change but if your systems really do make things easier and quicker for them then they will use them - sometimes with a gentle nudge and reminder of where to find the information.

2. Automation; I don't know much about it but I do know it's very useful and would like to use it some how.

As someone else mentioned automated billing can eventually be a big time saver. Other things that help is keeping detailed records about clients in some standard and easy-to-find system. A CRM system can help to share information when you have employees.


3. Hire a staff (The only problem is, I work from home and not sure how to work this in?)

A necessary expense eventually but when you figure out how much time is being spent dealing with issues that aren't necessarily your responsibility and don't get paid for them, you will be surprised how much of your earning time is being eroded by "favours" and helping people out. Which bring me to your next item...

You need to put a stop to this immediately, or start to charge for your time. I used to be a developer and know how much time this can take. If you agree a one-day course on how to use the system, make sure it counts, and then make it clear that while you're happy to provide additional support it will be chargeable. It doesn't matter if it's a two-minute phone call, or a 30-minute email reply, charge for it with a minimum time interval of 15 or 30 minutes. Don't overcharge, but do charge.

At the end of the day it's not your job to educate clients on general internet use and/or provide additional training if your initial training covered the subject. You spend years accumulating your knowledge and while it might be a 10-minute answer it's 10 minutes backed up by 10 years (20 years, 30 years) of training and experience. It seems harsh, but you need to free up your time. I'm all for helping out where you can, but sometimes people take it too far and you need to draw a line between being helpful because you're a nice guy and making a living.

 

Why don't you implement a knowledge base type of page where you will write everything down and refer people there.

If someone calls you with a question you've already covered, refer him. If you didn't covered it, answer and then go write it down on your site. Plus you can integrate some social bookmark buttons, who knows you might get more customers and gradually expand your business taking it to a whole new level.

 

Don't use a forum. Nobody will want to register on the forum to ask a question when they could just email you.

The BEST thing you can do is create a FAQ page. Take all the questions you've been asked and neatly organize them into a huge list.

 

HOLY!! Thanks guys, I have a lot to improve now.

My solutions are:
1. Build a Knowledge-base/FAQ page/Support desk and if possible a 24/7 support team
2. Staff: Outsource to freelancers (minimizes my time and the budget)
3. Automation (billing System): I will need to do more research on CRM, etc.

I think that's all of it, but if there is more please let me know

Thanks

 

i dont know whats been posted there was too much to read, but i would say go 2 months answering phone calls and writing down all what they ask. Build up a database kinder thing of common questions, they when you sell them their website, they get a free 'manuel' with it so they have a hard copy to fall back on. This should then lower your calls by far when you would recieve the odd phone call, where you update your manuel again (obviously make it PDF form)