{"id":10494,"date":"2021-12-23T16:04:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-23T16:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/?p=10494"},"modified":"2025-12-15T13:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T13:25:09","slug":"online-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/online-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Provide Online Customer Service: 8 Real-Life Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They say that customer service technology began with letters and post-pigeon, but in fact, it started long before that. In 1750 BC, a customer demanded a refund for the delivery of the wrong grade of copper (old times, same problems)<\/em>. He inscribed his accusations on a clay tablet<\/a> commonly known as the first-ever customer service complaint and sent it to the seller. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man, and rumor has it that \u201cholding on the line\u201d is exhausting. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The Old Babylonian-era tablet is held in the British Museum in London<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The first breakthrough in customer service technology happened with the invention of paper in China around 100 BC. No more clay bricks, people could actually pour their thoughts out on paper and hand it over to the vendor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that channel of customer communication has also been buried eons ago once call centers and email communication emerged around the 1970s. It was a revolution that completely changed the way people communicate with brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet enough with the history, let\u2019s see where we stand today. While phone and email assistance are still in place, live chat, self-service tools, and AI-powered chatbots are taking over with confidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brief history lesson proves just one thing – people have always been and will always be choosing the fastest and the easiest way to communicate with one another. Thus, online customer service and its peculiarities are something we should focus on at the moment (until Elon Musk teaches everyone <\/em>human-to-human mind communication<\/em><\/a>). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For starters, let\u2019s begin with building excellent digital customer service within your company!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

What is online customer service? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Online customer service is every action that the company makes to provide assistance to customers via digital channels like live chat, email, social media, chatbots, knowledge base, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, digital service means that you need to be connected to the Internet in order to perform any customer service activities. To provide offline customer service, you’ll need to go back to using the phone, face-to-face meetings, letters or fax, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg. Are you ready for a deep dive? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each channel of communication that we choose gives us different opportunities for customer data collection. For example, <\/p>\n\n\n\n