7:15 AM: Finish responding to any email that has not been dealt with as this time. Don't leave any over "for later". You'll never fully catch up! Depending on how much email you receive, and how fast you type, it may take you hours to finish all of it, especially if a long, and detailed response is required.

If you sell a lot of products, you're going to have a lot of customer support, but there are certain things you can do to cut that time down, and we cover some of those in another section.

8:30 AM: Check for order problems, duplicate orders, or any orders that seem questionable from the day before that you have not already dealt with by email. This is done by logging into your payment processing system, and requesting a report for the previous day's transactions. (Ideally you should do this multiple times during the day as well, to catch any problem orders shortly before, or after they occur.)

If you see someone who had a problem placing their order, such as someone who tried to order by credit card, or electronic check, but was declined, you should email them, or call them if they are located in the US, or Canada. If they are overseas, use email.

If you see someone who did have a problem placing their order, and you think that you can provide helpful information to solve their problem, send them an email similar to this:

The subject line of that email should explain clearly as to what the message is about, like this:

If you like, you can send that high priority, by marking it with the PRIORITY function in Eudora, like this:

The email written to assist the customer in overcoming their ordering problems should be saved as "Stationary", as with any email that you frequently write, over and over again. That way, you can use it again in the future.

The subject of Stationary, and canned responses is covered in another section.

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If you find a DUPLICATE ORDER in the last day's transactions, you can safely assume it was NOT done intentionally by the customer.

You MUST REFUND THIS PURCHASE IMMEDIATELY, and contact the customer to inform them that you have:

• Found a duplicate purchase
• Have refunded the purchase

This is what a duplicate order usually looks like if you use the payment processing services provided by Verisign:

Naturally the names and information above are not real, but it gives you a pretty good idea of how to instantly spot a duplicate charge. In most cases, the duplicate charges are right after one another, or so close, that you can see them by viewing the same day's transactions. Keep in mind that just because you can't see a duplicate charge, like the one above doesn't mean one hasn't occurred.

The customer may have placed their order at 11:59 PM, and then again at 12:02 AM, which would technically be two separate days. Make sure to always take note of your orders each day, and you shouldn't have a problem, providing no glitches in service have occurred to prevent you from seeing all transactions.

After processing a refund, for a duplicate purchase, you need to send the customer an email, which says something like this:

Depending on the email program you are using, you may even be able to request a "Return Receipt" so the customer can confirm with you that they have received your letter, and are aware that the charge has been refunded to their credit card.

A return receipt is an email that is included along with your letter, that asks someone to reply back, to confirm that they have received it. When the customer has read your email, and clicks to close the message, a box appears, asking them to confirm they received the message!

(This is especially great for refund confirmations, or duplicate charge notifications!)

Here is an example of a "Return Receipt" request:

The customer can choose to NEVER confirm receipt, and there is nothing you can do about it, but for the most part, they usually do click "NOW", or "LATER" in which case, you do get confirmation back.

If you use Eudora Pro, you will have this option. I believe it is available with Microsoft Outlook, since it IS an option with Outlook Express.

NOTE: Not all email programs are capable of handling this request. Eudora allows you to request them, and also be a recipient of them, but not all programs will show the customer the request. I believe web based email may not accommodate them either.