Provide options for customers to communicate with your company

I was speaking with a woman earlier this week who was having difficulty reaching a business in Mexico. The company's home office is in the U.S. with an office in Tijuana, Baja California. The company's web site only provides links to send an email. No fax numbers or telephone numbers are giving.

After searching the company's web site to ensure she hadn't missed the telephone number, the woman then started searching on-line for the Mexican office number. She finally found the phone number of one of the company's U.S. offices and got the number for the Tijuana office. Obviously the woman really wanted to do business with this particular company and their office in Mexico.

How many of your potential customers would go to such lengths to do business with your company? Many companies, especially in the U.S., have decided that email is the only form of communication they want to offer to potential customers. This is a mistake internationally.

What happened to customer service? It's not customer service to force visitors and potential customers to communicate with a company by just one form. The idea behind customer service is the customer gets to choose and have it their way, not what's convenient just for the company.
Many international customers prefer to talk with someone initially rather than sending an email. For some cultures, email is seen as impersonal and a form of communication to be used only after a relation has been started.

Companies may be making all the right moves when it comes to reaching out to foreign consumers. However, if customers can't communicate with a company the way they prefer, they may simply go find a company that understands quality customer service and makes it easy for the customer to do business.

Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru

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