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Online Customer Care - Your Options
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Telephone Support
If your business is large enough, and generates sufficient revenue, you might also consider telephone support through a 1-800 number. The very mention of a 1-800 number generates a degree of credibility around your business, and lets the customer know you are available toll-free.
Product Tracking
If you sell physical products, providing the customer with a way to track their order should be a given. After the package has shipped, provide the customer a tracking number and a link to the shipping company's tracking system.
Borders allows inventory searches for books, movies and music, along with real precise instructions.
The types of customer care mentioned here are only a snapshot of what is possible on the Internet. Remember why you have a Website in the first place -- to further your company's products and services, and provide easy and cost effective customer interaction.
Customers are in search of the exact same thing, especially when money is involved. If the customer is not satisfied that reliable after-sales support efforts are in place, they simply will not whip out the plastic.
The Bare Essentials
Email support is the most popular, and possibly the most effective type of customer care available. With just a little time searching script repositories, you can find much help in implementing a system to organize and manage all support requests. Aside from programming a support ticket system yourself, you can download and implement pre-made scripts from script databases. A few are:
Download a few of them, test them out and decide what script, if any, works best for you. Of course, no script is required, as an email address can work fine, but some scripts help to organize and manage support requests in high volume environments.
The Bottom Line
Customer care really boils down to the bottom line: revenue. Satisfying and helping the customer before and after the sale will attract new customers to your Website, and keep them coming back for more. Give the customer what they want, and they will return the favour!