Have you recently taken a proper look at how customers contact your business? Not just whether you have a contact page somewhere on your website, but all of the different ways a potential customer might try to reach you, how easy those routes are to use, and whether somebody is actually responsible for responding.
For a small business, customer communication is part of the customer experience from the very first interaction. Before someone buys from you, books with you or visits your premises, they may have a question they need answered first. If contacting your business feels difficult, confusing or slow, there is a very real chance they will simply move on to another option.
That is why it is worth reviewing your customer contact points regularly.
You might have a contact form on your website, an email address, a phone number, Instagram or Facebook messages, comments on social media, LinkedIn messages or enquiries through your Google Business Profile. Most small businesses now have several different contact channels, often added over time, but having lots of ways to get in touch only works if those channels are actually monitored.
Start by checking your website contact options
One of the easiest places to start is your website. When was the last time you actually tested your own contact form?
Not just looked at it and assumed it was working, but filled it in yourself, pressed send and checked where the enquiry arrived.
Does the form still work properly? Does it send to the right email address? Does the customer receive any confirmation that their message has been received? Is the email address on your website still current? Does your phone number work when someone taps it from a mobile?
These sound like very small details, but broken contact forms, outdated email addresses and incorrect links can quietly cost a small business enquiries.
Websites get updated, plugins change, email addresses move and members of staff come and go. A contact form that worked perfectly two years ago may not necessarily be working today, so it is worth testing these customer touchpoints every few months.
Who is responsible for customer enquiries?
The next question is ownership.
Who in your business is actually responsible for responding to customer enquiries?
If someone sends an Instagram message, who sees it? If somebody leaves a voicemail, who calls them back? If a customer comments on a Facebook post with a question, is anyone monitoring those comments?
In a small business, it is very easy for everyone to assume somebody else is keeping an eye on a particular inbox or platform. If there is no clear responsibility, enquiries can easily get missed.
You do not necessarily need a complicated customer service system, but you do need clarity. Every customer contact channel should have someone responsible for checking it and responding.
What is a reasonable response time for a small business?
There is no single perfect response time for every small business. A sole trader, independent retailer or small consultancy is unlikely to have someone sitting behind a customer service desk all day, and customers generally understand that.
What matters is consistency and communication.
If someone sends you an email at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning, when are they likely to hear back? What happens if they send an Instagram message or leave a voicemail?
Even if you cannot answer the enquiry properly straight away, a short acknowledgement can make a big difference. A quick reply such as, “Thanks so much for getting in touch. I’ve seen your message and I’ll come back to you properly tomorrow,” reassures the customer that their enquiry has been received and that there is a real person at the other end.
For many small businesses, simply setting an internal expectation such as replying within one working day can make customer communication much more consistent.
Keep the human element in your customer service
Automation can be incredibly useful for small businesses. Automatic email responses, booking confirmations and FAQs can save time and make the customer journey smoother.
But there are still moments where customers simply want to speak to a person.
Does someone answer the phone when it rings? Does someone respond thoughtfully to social media messages? If a customer has a slightly unusual question, can they easily get help from someone who understands the business?
Good customer service does not necessarily mean being available every minute of the day. It means making it easy for customers to reach you and giving them confidence that someone is paying attention.
Sometimes the best customer experience is simply knowing that somebody is home.
Customers rarely tell you when communication goes wrong
One of the biggest challenges with poor customer communication is that you often never know when it has cost you a sale.
A potential customer is unlikely to send you a message saying, “Your contact form didn’t work, I waited three days for an Instagram reply, so I have now booked with somebody else.”
They simply move on.
They search for another business, send another enquiry, buy from another website or book with someone who made the process easier.
From your point of view, nothing happened. From the customer’s point of view, they tried to buy from you and could not.
That is why reviewing customer contact points should be part of your wider customer journey and customer experience.
Try a simple customer contact audit
Every few months, take ten minutes and try to contact your own business as though you were a potential customer.
Use your phone rather than your desktop computer and visit your website. Can you immediately work out how to contact the business? Test the contact form, click the email address, tap the phone number and check your social media profiles.
Then ask yourself:
- Are all of our contact details accurate?
- Do all website contact forms and links work?
- Who is responsible for each contact channel?
- How quickly do we normally respond?
- Are social media messages and comments being monitored?
- Is it obvious to a customer how they can speak to a real person?
This kind of small business customer experience audit does not need to be complicated. Often, a few small changes can make the whole customer journey feel much easier.
Make it easy for customers to choose your business
Customers should not have to work hard to give you their money.
They should not need to hunt around your website for an email address, wonder whether your Instagram messages are monitored or submit a contact form twice because they are not sure whether the first one worked.
Improving customer communication is not always about adding more technology or opening more contact channels. More often, it is about making sure the channels you already have work properly, that somebody is responsible for them and that customers receive a clear, helpful response.
Behind every email, social media message, phone call or website enquiry is somebody who has already taken a small step towards becoming a customer.
Make that next step easy.
A quick customer contact audit checklist
If you haven’t checked your customer contact points for a while, set aside ten or fifteen minutes and run through this list. You may find everything is working perfectly – or you may discover a contact form that has quietly been sending enquiries into the abyss for the last six months. Better to know.
Your website
☐ Is it obvious how a customer can contact you?
☐ Have you tested every contact form recently?
☐ Do forms send enquiries to the correct inbox?
☐ Does the customer receive confirmation that their message has been sent?
☐ Do all email links work?
☐ Are your phone numbers current and clickable on mobile?
☐ Are your contact details consistent across your website?
Email, phone and social media
☐ Is your main business email inbox checked regularly?
☐ Are voicemails being checked and returned?
☐ Are Instagram direct messages monitored?
☐ Are Facebook messages and comments monitored?
☐ Are enquiries through LinkedIn or any other platforms you use being checked?
☐ Is the contact information on your Google Business Profile up to date?
☐ Are there any old or forgotten inboxes where enquiries might be getting lost?
Who is responsible?
☐ Does every contact channel have someone responsible for it?
☐ Does everyone in the business know who should respond to what?
☐ Is there cover when somebody is on holiday, off sick or particularly busy?
☐ Can an enquiry be handed over without making the customer explain everything again?
Response times
☐ Do you know approximately how quickly you respond to enquiries?
☐ Do customers receive an acknowledgement if a full response is going to take longer?
☐ Is your expected response time realistic for the size of your business?
☐ Can urgent enquiries be identified and prioritised?
☐ Is any customer channel routinely going unchecked for several days?
And finally… be your own customer
Pick up your phone and genuinely try to contact your business. Visit your website, submit the form, click the phone number, send an email and message yourself through one of your social platforms.
Then ask yourself: Was that easy? Did I know my message had been received? And would I feel confident that somebody was going to come back to me?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, you’ve probably just found a relatively small improvement that could make a surprisingly big difference to your customer experience.
Want to do a proper check?
I’ve put together a simple Customer Contact Audit Checklist to help you work through your website, email, phone and social media contact points and spot anything that could be making it harder for customers to reach you.
