Online Rules of Successful Companies: The Fool-Proof Guide to Building Profits, The

Chapter Six. Email and Chat As Profit Builders

Most talk about business use of the Internet centers around the World Wide Web, but email and, to a much lesser extent, chat and instant messaging, are also effective profit-building tools. In some cases they can be far more valuable than a Web site, although they tend to work best when tied to a Web site instead of trying to stand on their own.

Responding to Customers' Email

The simplest and most basic use of email is to answer inquiries from customers. Email has the advantage over telephones in that it does not occur in real time; if you take one minute to answer a phone call it is a long time, but if you take an hour or even a day to answer email, customers will generally accept the delay. Customers ...