In a traditional brick-and-mortar store, if a customer needs help, he or she can look around and find someone. In e-commerce, obviously, that's not an option. So how can you provide customer service as a part of your online sales experience? It's probably easier than you think.

There are several ways to provide high-quality customer service with a minimum amount of work.

Live chat
Live chat is probably the best option for most start-up e-businesses. It gives you the option of providing real-time help to more than one customer at a time. The downside is that you or your employees have to staff the chat utility. Make sure that your site clearly states when representatives are available to help. Once you have set your live chat hours, do your best to stick to them.

Using a live chat utility is much like instant messaging. After you install the utility on your site, customers can simply click on a link to contact you immediately. Normally, a small browser window will open, and you can communicate with your customer in real time.