Service With a Smile Follow these basic steps to create a solid customer service program for your site.

Neil Closner ran a brick-and-mortar store for baby products, hecould look his customers in the eyes, answer their questions inperson and tell by their smiles-or frowns-how satisfied they were.As president of 2-year-old, 12-employee BabyUniverse.com, the27-year-old entrepreneur can't perform any of those basiccustomer service functions. "Online, you don't have thathuman, physical interaction," says Closner. "We have tomake up for it in any way we can."

Closner and other e-business entrepreneurs are making up forthis lack of human contact in multiple ways: e-mail, telephonesupport, well-staffed chat lines and easily accessible FAQs. Theseautomated and semi-automated customer service tools are admirablysuited to the 24/7 schedule of e-commerce. But there's no doubtthat replacing the friendly smile of a salesperson with all thesetechno-tools raises some very relevant questions. Here are thebasic steps of creating a solid customer service program for yoursite.

• Good e-business customer service allows shoppers to do allkinds of things with ease: find ordering information, check thestatus of orders, view their order histories and account balances,and, of course, get live help via e-mail, chat lines or telephone.Decide which of these things you'll need the most byconsidering your customers' needs. For instance,BabyUniverse's customers tend to be first-time parents who havelots of questions about safety and want product recommendationsfrom experts, so direct communication with live customer servicestaff is essential.

• To help you decide what elements to incorporate into yourcustomer service, check out other sites. Study competitors as wellas major online sites known for good customer service, such asAmazon.com. Check how easy it is to find FAQs, locate orderinginstructions, check order status, update account information and,if necessary, contact customer service by phone, e-mail orchat.

• Will you want to handle these jobs by yourself or outsource?This decision will be driven by how fast you need to have yourcustomer service function operational, whether you want to hire andtrain the necessary employees, whether you can invest the capitalto purchase the necessary software and hardware, and how muchcontrol you want to have over the process. Third-party providersusually charge stiff setup fees and monthly tariffs ranging from afew hundred to thousands of dollars but will provide and maintainneeded technology for lower upfront costs. You can also get up andrunning faster if you outsource, going live in weeks instead ofmonths, and you will be relieved of hiring and trainingemployees.

Lack of control, however, is a bigger issue for many firms,large or small. "It probably would be more cost-effective forus to outsource," says Closner, "but I don't want totrust a farmed-out calling center to handle my customers." Ifyou do it in-house, hire good communicators, and teach them abouttechnical and other issues concerning your products and services.Create standard forms for customers to use when submittingquestions by e-mail, and prepare FAQs. These forms will beinvaluable to customers as well as your staff.

• Site design is critical. You want a lot of information andassistance available, but it must be easy to reach. "Peopleare often impatient and might not look deep enough on your site tofind what they are looking for," says Ken Shapiro, presidentof Askit.com, a New York City online automatic 24/7 question andanswer service.

• You may be able to partially outsource customer service tocompanies like Askit.com-Closner uses the site to reduce the loadon its telephone help lines. "It probably saves us 50 to 100phone calls a day," he says. In the future, Closner expects tooffer online chat with live video of customer servicerepresentatives showing customers how to, for example, fold up ababy stroller. It won't be cheap, but customer service isalready his second-highest cost, next to keeping the Web site upand running.

But Closner says it's worth the cost. "Customer serviceis probably the most important factor in my company'sreputation," he says. "If we don't make customershappy, they're not going to come back."

Brain Food

Call Center News Service is a Web publication that covers thelatest technology, trends, vendors and issues in customer serviceand the call center industry, including online customer service fore-businesses. Go to www.callcenternews.com.

Mark Henricks, author of Business Plans Made Easy(Entrepreneur Media Inc.) and Mastering Home Networking(Sybex Inc.), writes on business and technology issues.