Have you ever thought the amount of time spent advising clients, when there job will be completed, their order fulfilled or their simply the status of orders they may have faxed to you?

Often valuable time is spent by your staff on the phone to customers advising them simple information that with the application of some smart online applications, they can determine themselves.

One of the ways that this can be achieved is the development of online job management processes that enable you clients to request work or products online from your website. This can either be a purpose built application designed specifically for clients to use via your website only, or it can be a system that is integrated into your own business processes, with data transferred in and then pushed out to a client management area at your website.

When your clients log into the client area of your website, they would be able to review the status of their orders and all other relevant information from you in relation to the delivery of your product or service. The client management area can be personalised with greetings and messages from you, enabling you to communicate with your clients at the source.

For regional businesses, this has some great opportunities as your clients are in many instances geographically spread over many areas, so the opportunity for face-to-face communication is often limited. By creating personalised client areas at your website, you can bring them in to your business, enabling them to keep track of their orders in their own time and freeing up your staff to complete the jobs rather than giving clients updates as to the progress of the jobs.

We have a recent client who has just set up an export arm of their business and an online client management area of their website is proving an invaluable tool for them. It enables their clients to log in and monitor their orders in their own time and not contact Australia at 3.00 in the morning! Obviously normal communication channels operate as you never can completely replace the face to face touch, but a quick online update as to the delivery date, processing details etc provides a very cost effective method of keeping on top of product fulfilment.

Obviously this type of application has benefits for business who sell a product, but can easily be applied to service providers, for things such as repairs & maintenance, service calls, advertising placements even website developments!

The essential idea though is to engage your clients in better ways, to provide them with information about their custom with you in a timely manner and to free up your staff to actually get on with the job of completing the work. To invite them into your business!