Research has shown that the number one reason businesses fail to succeed when selling products online is that they take too long to respond to an inquiry. It's hard to believe, but true. Why go to the trouble and expense of building an impressive website that is focused entirely around instant, 24 hours a day, seven days a week access, and then blow it all by taking a week to respond to an email inquiry?
The internet is an instant access facility that, ideally, will save us all a lot of time. As customers, we have grown accustomed to the instant access that the internet provides, so having to wait for a response is incredibly frustrating.
Recently a friend had a problem with his internet service provider, so he e-mailed them. He received a response saying that they were inundated at present and it would take them eight days to get to the problem. My friend couldn't believe it. How appalling is that for customer service? This was a very large company, which reinforces my belief that people will start to move away from these organizations because they cannot provide the same levels of service that smaller companies can.
If your business does receive inquiries over the internet, make sure that someone is ready to respond promptly. People understand time differences. They realize that if they have contacted you from New York and your business is based in Australia, there will be a slight delay before you can respond, but you should definitely be able to get back in touch within 24 hours at the latest.
I feel that this is a particularly important point after-sales service. Most companies respond quickly when there is the possibility of an order, but they move a lot slower when it's a follow-up question or request for information. Both should be treated as equally important.