Gone are the days when people only traded in their community. Once upon a time, you had local businesses who sold things to local people. Those companies had a small client base yet had few options by way of expansion. Now, you can have customers all over the world, and still offer them a fantastic level of service. These days, more and more business transactions take place online. That means that you may never meet some of your clients in the flesh. If you are late coming to the world of online activity, you will need this handy guide to give you the basic rules.

Attract new customers online

You need to ensure that people see your company online. It doesn’t matter whether you sell shoes or computer software; people need to know who you and what you do. You should ensure that you promote your business online on a daily basis. You need to use social media streams to attract attention from potential customers. You could consider working with a marketing team to create a plan of action. That way, you will have loads of online clients in no time.

Remember your manners

One thing that many people forget when they talk to people online is to be polite. When you deal with a customer on a face to face basis, you would never dream of being rude to them. When you write things in an email or chat message, they can seem a little abrupt if you don’t phrase them well. You could lose clients if they think that you have bad manners. Internet etiquette (netiquette) is different to the usual protocol.  If anything, you have to try twice as hard to show people that you are friendly online.

Ask how they found you

As a courtesy, it is an excellent idea to ask people how they found you. First of all, this question will help you to tell whether the customer is legitimate. Secondly, it will be a source of market research for you and your team. You can figure out what marketing streams work for your company, by asking each customer this simple question.

Verify their validity

There are many fraudsters out there, and so you need to protect yourself and your company. When you speak to clients online, you have no way of knowing whether they are legitimate or not. Use an agency that offers an identity verification service to help you check people out before you deal with them. That way, you can avoid becoming the victim of an online scam. You should always be wary of people when you don’t know who they are so that you can protect your business.

Take a deposit

Before you send new customers any products, you need to ensure that you take a deposit from them. That way, you have a guarantee that they are real customers and not people attempting to scam you. You should make the deposit mandatory for people who are newcomers to your business. If you use this system, nobody can catch you out.

Get everything in writing

When someone makes an order, you need to ensure that you get all the details in writing. You could ask people to fill out a form so that you know what they want from you. Sometimes, people fail to understand each other when they deal with people online. If you have everything on a signed document, you have proof of the transaction, and so you should have no issues.

At first, the idea of branching out and trading online might seem a little too much to handle. Once you start, though, you will wonder why you left it so long!