On the high street your existing customers will call in with the hope that you have that {Insert product} that they are looking for, often prompted by the fact they were passing. The internet is a slightly diffecent marketplace. There is no equivalent concept for just passing as such, but customer interaction is a pretty good match conceptually.

Your existing customers like to be involved, be that commenting on your Facebook page, sharing content from your website or rating you and your services on-line. The trick is to harness this potential for your benefit. Under most circumstances you'll be busy enough dealing with the day to day running of your business without wanting to spend an hour a day vetting comments on your website and social media so it's in your interest to consider how best to deal with customer interaction before you embark on stimulating it.

Social media. Facebook in particular has become a major means of connection between businesses and their customers. If you have a Facebook page for your business, which you really should have, make sure that you reply to enquiries that people post on your page. By replying quickly and being helpful you instil a feeling of pro-activity and trust in potential customers as everybody who has liked your page can see these interactions.

Social recommendation sites – Trip Advisor & Rated People etc. If you have a presence on one of these services again ensure that you deal with customer comments quickly and politely. Even if it is simply to thank somebody for adding a positive review. If by chance a customer raises concerns by replying promptly and dealing with these concerns you not only recover what might have been a tricky situation, you build trust.

Email. If metacraft provide your email services we can connect these to most mobile phones. A quick reply to an email is the first step towards securing a sale. Unfortunately technology has made people very impatient, if you don't reply promptly your potential customer will find somebody else.

All this said, keep things seperate. Mixing your personal views with business interactions is always a bad thing. There's one outstanding example I recall a client embarking upon. On the run up to the local elections he posted a well crafted graphic on his Facebook business page, all well and good so far. It was intended to stimulate interaction from his customers. However it was politically provokative and although it stimulated interaction, this took the form of a heated dedate which escalated into a full blown argument and about a quarter of the people who had liked his page clicked un-like.... Not the best move.