Phone and email contact with customers

Customers can contact you by phone via bol. The customer will then see an encrypted phone number. When the customer calls this encrypted phone number, they will be connected with you as a partner. Customers have this option when they want to contact you within your opening hours.

Always adapt your response to the customer's tone and mood. When possible, use the customer's name to make it personal. After you've spoken to the customer by phone, a closed customer question will automatically be created in your seller account, or the phone interaction will be added to an existing customer question. If you want to send the customer another message after the phone contact, you can look up this customer question.

To reply to a customer question by email, click 'email customer'. The salutation and closing of the email are automatically set for you. It's also possible to use formatting options. Additionally, you can add a note, attach a file, and decide whether to keep the customer question open or close it after sending the message. Make sure your message always includes a salutation, a brief summary of the problem, the proposed solution(s), and a closing.

Did the customer send you a very short message? Respond politely and ask for more information. Then set your customer question to 'Waiting for customer response'.

Are you satisfied with your message? Then click 'Send'. You will then see a preview of your message. Does the message look good? Then click 'Yes, send'. Your message will be sent directly to the customer. More information about handling customer questions in your seller account can be found here.

To make contact with your customers even more personal, you can choose the 'personal signature' option from the 'standard messages' drop-down menu for an open customer question. Once you've set up a personal signature, it will automatically be added to new messages. Tip! Add your first name to your personal signature to make your message more personal!

In your seller account, for an open customer question, you can enter a standard message, which then allows you to communicate efficiently with customers with a single click. It's especially useful to work with standard messages for frequently asked questions. You can write, save, and edit these standard messages yourself.

You start composing a standard message by clicking the Plus (+) button in the standard messages menu while writing an email. If you want to adjust a standard message, click the pencil icon next to the specific standard message.

By investing a little time in setting up a few standard messages, you'll ultimately save a lot of time. A large part of your message will be ready in an instant; only adding the specific information to answer the customer question will still be needed.

Need inspiration for standard messages? Check out the examples below.

1. Mail: Order not yet received
2. Mail: Return item with bol return label
3. Mail: Return processed
4. Mail: VAT invoice

When answering a customer question, you sometimes need to send an attachment to the customer. For example, a VAT invoice or a photo of the returned item. In your open customer question, you can add an attachment while composing the email to the customer using the 'Add attachment' button.
The following restrictions apply:

• Maximum attachment size: 10 MB.
• Accepted file types: .bmp, .csv, .doc, .docx, .eml, .gif, .htm, .html, .jpeg, .jpg, ods, .odt, .pdf, .png, .rtf, .tiff, .tnef, .txt, xhtml, .xls, .xlsx and .xml
• Maximum number of attachments: 5.
• Maximum total size of all attachments: 20 MB.
• The attachment is considered safe by the virus scanner.

Then follow these steps:

1. Save the file as 'print to PDF'. You can do this by opening the file and then pressing 'print'.
2. From the list of printers, you can then choose 'print to PDF'.
3. Press 'print'. You will then be asked where you want to save the PDF file.
4. Save the file.
5. You now have a simplified PDF file that is suitable for sending via the customer question.

For Mac users:

1. Use the 'Preview' program.
2. In the 'File' menu, choose 'Export to PDF'.
3. If this also doesn't work, you can send the invoice via the customer's encrypted email address. You can find this with the order in your seller account.

If something unexpectedly goes wrong with an order, excellent service leads to higher ratings, returning customers, and promoters of your shop. Additionally, that extra bit of attention to your service also leads to savings, such as less repeated contact or preventing a return.