Is this picture representative of you when you think of offering customer service as an affiliate? It shouldn't be.

Many affiliate marketers think that because they have no ownership of a product, they shouldn't bother or there isn't a need for customer service. That is far from the truth. If you are not being transparent with your potential customers and offer your "referrals" support with their purchases and questions, you are likely missing out on a lot of revenue.

Reasons why you SHOULD offer customer service as an affiliate.

There are many reasons outside just the ones that I am going to discuss here, but I am going to cover three of the most important reasons that you should be offering service as an affiliate.

Reason #1: People are more likely to trust you than the company. Companies typically seem unapproachable to the average person. That is why word of mouth marketing is so powerful, because people trust people versus the company advertising. Apple can tell you they have the greatest phone on earth all they want, but you are not going to really believe it until you can communicate with someone that owns an Apple phone.

Reason #2: People want to get a user opinion and insight. Again, people would much rather obtain insight from a personal email to a website owner (affiliate) that is promoting a product versus the actual product website. Ideally you would be a user or very knowledgeable (at the very least) of every product you promote. Open your doors to people that have any questions and you will likely be able to generate a referral with relative ease. Promote stuff you believe in and like and it won't feel like selling.

Reason #3: People want to talk to someone before a sale (and may not hear back from the company). People need to be reassured that they are making a sound purchasing decision before they buy. Sometimes it is just a matter of being able to talk to someone about the product and if you make yourself available, you will likely be able to fill this roll.

Note that not everyone will contact you if you provide your contact information (your email, Facebook, Twitter, etc), however it is awesome if they do contact you. The reason being, when someone contacts you, they are very close to buying and they are very far along in the purchasing lifecycle.

Do the Products You Promote Offer Great Customer Service?

Before you promote any product as an affiliate, you may want to try getting in touch with the product owner with a question about their product/service. IF they don't get back to you or are very slow to get back to you, they are likely going to offer the same sort of service to the people you refer to them (not good). If this is the case, you may want to choose a different product to promote.