Customer service is one of the fundamental elements of marketing mix and the actions you take to keep your customers informed about your products or services are extremely important to strengthen the relationship. However, it often becomes tough for the typical business owner to keep all customers on the same page, especially if your business needs to adjust its operations to anticipate the high level of complexity derived from the competitive market environment of today.

Blogging is increasingly becoming one of the most important marketing tools in customer service. Regardless the type of business you are in, your customers need and demand to know the progress of operations, the type of products and services provided and where your company aspires to be ten years from now. Strategic planning and marketing planning are good enough to provide customers with a general overview of the business as well as what steps you plan to take in order to expand the business operations and make the company more profitable. However, besides the long-term planning, your customers need to feel that they can be aware of any development in your business, positive or negative, as soon as it occurs. And this is only feasible with Web-based project management tools such as blog.

If you are already using blog to promote your business, you know that your customers – at least in majority - love to visit your blog and read comments and any kind of information related to your products or services. In doing so, they keep themselves informed on a daily basis about your business, future development, current problems, and they save themselves from unwanted phone calls. At the same time, the blog works for you too, because having the blog minimizes the bother of scheduling sales visits and allows keeping control of the job.

To achieve maximum benefit for your customers with the use of a blog, you need to follow several steps that keep customers informed about your business and guarantee customer satisfaction.

a)      Post regularly

Posting on a regular basis is extremely important. If you run an international business, you need to update your blog daily. If you run a business that doesn't change dramatically, you can post on a weekly basis. Nevertheless, you need to keep your posts short and to the point. Keep in mind that your customers visit your blog to get valuable information and not to waste their time on unnecessary mumbling. So, provide them with what they have to know about your business and save every singly detail for those customers who will pick up the phone and ask for it. Make the posts relevant to the blog niche, and keep them as short as possible.

b)      Share quality content

Content is a key word on the Internet world. If you own a blog that is rich in innovative, quality material, you are more likely to generate more hits, rank higher with search engines and attract more followers than any other blog with similar content. In the competitive marketplace of today, you need to generate more circulation in your blog by providing your customers quality content. Customers don't need to read what they already know. They need to acquire top-notch information from day one.

c)      Include pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words and many customers don't like reading information on the Internet. Therefore, it is important to include pictures in your blog to enhance it and convey your business message in a better way. Pictures combined with quality content may answer any question customers might have. Highlighting a product or service with a relevant picture followed by a list of specifications, features and benefits of that product or service and a link to the marketing department for e-mailing inquiries is a great catch to keep your customers attached to your blog. You may even include a ‘Buy Now' button for customers that are interested in completing the sale themselves.

You may even include short videos to inform your customers about new products or services you plan to launch. Videos are an easy and convenient way to learn about a business and your customers will appreciate that a lot. You may use YouTube to post videos on your blog for free.

Overall, using your blog like you use your business is a great way to keep your customers informed. Just make sure you keep it professional and clear, using the colors, fonts and other graphics used throughout your marketing promotional material. Add your content on a regular basis and make sure you stick to your schedule. Finally, make sure that there are no typos or factual errors in your posts so that your blog reflects professionalism and the true nature of your business.

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About the Author:
Christina Pomoni has acquired her MBA Finance from the American College of Greece. Her advanced familiarity with financial statement analysis, capital budgeting and market research has been acquired through her professional career at high-esteemed organizations. Besides, having lived at Chicago, IL, Boca Raton, FL and Paris, France has helped her, not only to be a successful professional, but mostly to see life under a more creative and innovative perspective.
Since 2005, Christina provides high quality writing services to Helium.com where she is also appointed as a Channel Steward of Economic Values (http://www.helium.com/users/edit_show/279681). Besides, she contributes her knowledge and expertise to several websites and research companies. Her areas of specialization are Business, Finance & Investment, Society, Politics & Culture. She also has a very good knowledge of Entertainment, Health & Fitness and Computers & Technology.
Christina recently launched her own writing company (http://analysiswriting.com).
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