CRM practice for online stores
A demanding effort is considerable for the online stores nowadays because its customers may be located anywhere in the world. The owners of online store need to firmly follow the standards of good practice to maintain the relationships with their end-users and may wish to consult their Internet Payment Service Provider (IPSP), before framing the customer relation management (CRM).
The following are some of the more important actions that Merchants should implement:
*Make it very clear to customers what they can look ahead to when their purchase goes through the online transaction process. For example, Merchants must inform the customer how to identify the charge on their credit card statement, they should tell the customer what the credit card ‘descriptor’ will be? (ie. identification of the Merchant which is not always the complete name of the Merchant’s business or e-store, and is often an abbreviation or combination of abbreviations.)
*Explain in simple terms to customers what happens when a customer orders goods that are out of stock. Normally, the Merchant should not charge the credit card immediately but should ‘reserve’ the amount to the customer account and process the charge when the goods are actually shipped. If there is no ‘payment reserve’ system, specify how customers will be advised of the ‘back order’ situation and how they can cancel their orders if they don’t wish to wait.
* You should provide customers the information relating to returning products (RMA) and when products are to be shipped and by what delivery service it will be delivered.
* Ensure that customers are fully informed of Merchants’ TOS & your privacy policy and are given advance notice when an e-store changes its contact information, the TOS or any aspect of the service that a Merchant provides and is about to change.
Overall, the store owners should dedicate themselves to 100 % towards customer satisfaction and to enlist the co-operation of their IPSP in addressing the queries and concerns of end-users.
An IPSP should be prepared to make a search for any payment information that goes through its system and use that information to help the customer with any problem and also they should be prepared to answer any questions.
