Website communications - talk with customers online

Website communications are a crucial part of any website where you’re selling something or offering a service.

Normally, as a standard, you’d publicise the following to allow customers to get in contact with you:

• Postal address
• Telephone number
• Mobile number
• Fax number
• Email address

You might even add your Instant Messenger sign in or Skype name.

If you go down the more technical route for website communications, make sure you try out Skype’s free services to make the entire contact experience look more professional.

Free website communications code for all purposes

The benefits of signing up for Skype accounts are probably pretty well established by now, but just in case you’ve missed it, here are the key points:

• Free calls to and from your PC or laptop throughout the world
• Free instant messaging from your PC or laptop
• Ability to set up a voicemail and forwarding to a second account - great for keeping business and personal separated
• You can buy a phone number so customers can call via landline phone and you pick up the call from your PC or laptop
• You can send texts from your PC or laptop via Skype
• You can call out from your PC or laptop to normal landline phones
• You can conference call for free, around the world, from your PC or laptop
• You can video conference free, around the word, from your PC or laptop

See Skype for full, current offers, terms and conditions)

You can either get standard buttons or custom buttons, both online pages are extremely easy to use.

You can select whether to show your status live on your website ('Skype me!','Away' etc) or just to have an active invitation live on your pages … something like 'Call Me!'

The code allows you to talk or instant message your customers online, via your laptop, at no cost.

You can even have conference calls or video chats, all free.

Tip: If you decide to show your status, make sure you go to Tools > Options > Privacy and click ‘Allow my status to be shown on the web’ … or else it looks like you’re never online.

Being in contact 24/7

On a basic website or a blog you wouldn’t want people contacting you by Skype every few minutes - you’d never get any work done - so on my websites, where easy customer contact is a benefit, I’ve put my Skype options behind password protected ‘Agents only’ pages.

Here’s a screen grab of what the customer sees on your web pages:

Skype is the tool I'd recommend for any home internet business as a basic 'must have', as your website develops and you get more ambitious, you can start to try some of the other free online services that are available.

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