If customers are searching for your company’s customer service, they need to find you and not a third party website.
One surprising source of visitors to this site is people who actually think that I am the official representative of the company they want to reach.
For example, I get lots of people searching for “huggies customer service” and they land on a post I wrote about my good experience with Huggies four years ago. Why do they find my site? Because, last I checked, I showed up first when you Google that search phrase.
Shouldn’t Huggies be number one? Absolutely.
I also get questions about DiGiorno pizzas. Why? Because I’ve written about DiGiorno in the past, too.
These examples highlight an area of concern that your business needs to worry about:
Your customers are looking for support and your customer service contacts. Can customers find you by searching for you on Google?
If they can’t, then you are invisible. Not only invisible, but vulnerable to what others are saying in your place.
You will be replaced by someone else, not at your company, that is blogging about you or talking about you in an online forum.
Your customers will not always be able to tell that a third party site they visit isn’t yours.
So today’s action item is to google your company name, and especially “your-company-name customer service.” Are you showing up in the results?
Your business needs to be where people are looking. Additionally, you need to be where customers are talking. Be sure to monitor customer word of mouth and stay on top of any issues that arise.