Keep Customer Service in Mind When Starting Your Craft Business
Good Customer Service Makes Everyone HappyGood Customer Service Makes Everyone Happy

Starting your own craft business is an exciting venture. You get a chance to do what you love and get paid for it. What often doesn't occur to most people in such a position is the amount of time that you will need to spend on customer service. If this isn't managed well, you end up taking time away from what you really love - creating your products. Fortunately, there are options to make customer service easier, less time-consuming, and even enjoyable.

Doing it Yourself

This option can be a disaster without the correct resources and limits put in place. However, there are a few things you can do to make it manageable.

  1. Set specific hours - While you want to be able to keep customers happy, you need to make sure that you give yourself enough time to manage your business in other ways. Set aside certain hours of the day to be available to answer customer questions and stick to your plan. By setting up a schedule, your customers will know when you are available.
  2. Purchase a small business phone number - By doing this, you will know when a phone call is a customer, family member or friend. This will help you determine whether to allow the call to go to voicemail or answer immediately. This will eliminate unnecessary interruptions. You can answer customer service messages during the pre-determined hours.
  3. Online customer service - By placing a contact form on your business website, you provide a way for customers to contact you at any time of the day. It also allows you to respond at your convenience. You should have a set time of day where you review customer emails. If you use social media channels, you should also allow yourself time to answer any questions you have received there as well. Tim Ferris created a useful downloadable PDF with email templates designed to make customer service email response easy and quick.

Delegating to others

This option can be a time-saver as your craft business grows. There are a few ways to go about delegating customer service to another individual, freeing up your time.

  1. Hire someone - This is a flexible option. You can hire a full-time customer service person if your budget allows. If you're just starting out, hire a part-time employee and set your customer service hours to coincide with theirs.
  2. Outsource - There are both individuals and companies who can cover nearly every business need you may have. Search Google for "customer service outsourcing" and you'll find a bunch of services you can work with. Their hours are usually flexible to meet your needs. You can also hire a virtual assistant, who can filter your emails for you and even do other tasks you don't want to do, like data entry.
  3. Let your website do the work - This option actually requires your input and time upfront, unless someone else handles your website. Take time to think of all the questions and problems a customer might have and create a FAQ for your website that answers these questions. You can make a note that customers can save time by reading the FAQ first and only contacting you if their specific question is not addressed.

Conclusion

Customer service is a vital part of any business, but you don't want it to take up the majority of your time and energy. You also want to be sure that you're offering good customer service, not just fast customer service. By adopting one or more of the above solutions, you can make customers happy while, at the same time, saving your sanity.