What do you do when you are trying to decide between two similar products or services? I would suspect you are like me and you’ll put the options side by side to compare the features and price. We place value on each feature and if you’re lucky, you can even try them out for free to see what you think.
I found myself in this process evaluating two different free time tracking websites to help me stay organized when working on several different projects. SlimTimer.com offers a great, free, and simple time tracking with a web interface. It works great. Does what I want it to do. And it’s come recommended to me before.
Then a couple weeks ago I ran across another site that met my same requirements at Paymo.biz. It does everything SlimTimer does but it at least seemed better. Then I ran into a slight problem so I emailed the Paymo team late on a Tuesday afternoon. First thing Wednesday morning I had a prompt reply from a person (not an auto-generated reply) who actually read my email and answered it personally with solutions and tips!
It turns out that Paymo offers a download that works with the site that I liked better. But that wasn’t the point. I loved that they replied reasonably fast (within 2 business hours though it was overnight) and dealt with me as a person. That is why customer service is important. With both services being relatively equal, I’m going with the one that gave me a great human interaction — a social relationship.
To be fair, I have not tried to contact SlimTimer so I’m not saying they do not have good customer service. What I am saying is that when everything seemed rather equal, I went with the one that treated me well.
When you are thinking about your online presence be sure to place a high level of importance on customer service. In fact, I don’t even like calling it that. I prefer to think of it as relationship building, social engagement, or just treating people like people. With the social media tools we have available today there is no reason you can’t stay engaged with people and it’s bound to help your business.
