In an era when people are bombarded with more information than ever before, excellent communication skills are critical.
How critical? Digital marketing expert and trainer Marcus Sheridan recently called communication “the Greatest Skillset of the 21st Century,” one that has more of an impact on a person’s income than their education or formal training. Great communicators can drive people to think, laugh, cry, and feel anger.
The importance of communication holds true for businesses as well. The organizations that can properly communicate with their customers and prospects are the ones that tend to succeed. Communication is especially important if your customers are facing an unexpected inconvenience or setback, such as your site being down for maintenance.
Here are a few guidelines on how to keep your customers happy when your website is offline because of maintenance.
Using Twitter to let fans and customers know that your web site will be down is a great idea.
Send a proactive notice
You might be surprised by what people will be willing to put up with, as long as you let them know in advance. If an important part of your site is going to be down for maintenance, you want to let your customers know as early as possible. And don’t just send one message: remind them multiple times in the weeks and days leading up to your site going down.
Though your customers may still be frustrated by your site going down for maintenance, most people understand that things in the digital world need to be repaired from time to time. As long as you give them plenty of notice and your site isn’t down for an extended period of time, it shouldn’t cost you any customers.
Obviously, if your site goes down unexpectedly, it’s not possible to send a notice ahead of time. But you should still let people know as soon as you canthat they can expect to have trouble with your website soon.
Explain the benefits
You aren’t going through the trouble of having your website down without a reason. In fact, there’s a good chance that the reason your website is down for maintenance in the first place is so that you can provide a better level of service to your customers, or improve what you have to offer.
So let them know about it! After you inform your customers that your site will be down, you might send out a message letting them know why the downtime will be worth the wait. Maybe you are redesigning your company website to make it more user-friendly. Or perhaps you are launching a new product or service that will solve a problem your customers have had for quite a while.
Whatever the case may be, use this time as an opportunity to get your customer base excited about the future of your organization and its offerings. It’s also a great way to draw back the curtain and show them what it’s like when you are working on something new.
Respond to correspondence quickly
When your site is down for maintenance, it’s a good bet that there will be a number of customers calling or emailing you for help. Even if you sent out advance notice that your site would be down, there are probably some people who will be caught off guard.
Other customers might not have been aware of the exact length of the downtime, and still others may have simply forgotten. Whatever the case may be, don’t leave people waiting and confused about why they can’t access your site anymore. Doing that is a sure path to creating annoyed customers.
Instead, answer emails and support tickets as soon as you can. Think about expanding your help desk temporarily if you know your site will be down, to help ensure that you don’t miss any messages and upset your customers as a result. An automated message might be a good start, but your customers will want to hear from a real person at some point.
Offer an alternative
Another good way to make people more accepting of your site being down for maintenance is to give them an alternate solution. Is there a way that they can still access the data or tools that they need even while your site is down for maintenance? Perhaps there is an alternative that can help them in a similar way.
You don’t want to be promoting your competitors while your site is down for maintenance, but trying to provide your customers with an another option shows that you actually care about them and aren’t just focused on your own offering. At the very least, try to keep your customers up to date about when they can expect your site to be back online.
Make up for it when your site is back up
What better way to make up for any inconvenience that you might have caused your customers than by offering them something special? Some ideas for things you could provide once your site comes back up include:
- A temporary discount code for those who remained customers while the site was down for maintenance
- The right to purchase or preview a new offering first
- A “behind the scenes” look at something the company is working on
- A personal greeting or thank you from the owner or head of the organization
It doesn’t have to be something significant or very expensive: even a small, simple token of appreciation can help you win favor with your customers and convince them that you have their best interests at heart.
Final thoughts
From cars to computers to clothing, everything that we use frequently has to be repaired once in a while. Websites are no exception. It’s okay for your site to be down for maintenance, but you need to make sure that you are communicating it effectively to your customers.
If you give people sufficient notice, answer any questions or concerns that they voice, and show them that you are truly concerned about the inconvenience it may cause, you can take your website down for maintenance without worrying about any excessive negative impacts on your customer base. In the end, your customers will appreciate that you are making an effort to offer them better service, even if the downtime is frustrating for them in the short-term.
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