Make Your Customers Fall in Love
Relationship building is crucial, no matter your business. Today, automation and innovation is what sets our generation and world apart, but it also can allow us to lose the real sense of customer service. The beauty of the internet is how we can speak and help our customers when our physical location isn’t open. Today, helping our customers from 9-5 isn’t enough!
Walt Disney said it best, “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” Creating love between your company and your customers will help promote positive word of mouth, which I’m sure I don’t have to remind you how priceless that is. You need to be on the ball with every customer who walks in your door. You need to be prepared for any problem that can arise and you need to be ready to fix that problem. Messing up is not the business’s problem, it’s when they don’t fix it properly, a real problem can arise.
Creating a customer-focused culture is a business opportunity that should not be overlooked. You always knew to take care of your customers when they walk into your establishment, but what about at nontraditional business hours, when your establishment is closed. They can still track you down you know, they have the world wide web. Your website and social media pages are places they can go to get information.
But, the information that is there, is it what they want? Is the information current and up to date?
The data speaks for itself:
Only 37% of brands received good or excellent customer experience index scores in 2012. Whereas, 64% of brands got a rating of “OK,” “poor,” or “very poor” from their customers. Source: Forrester Research
As many as 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. Source: RightNow
Up to 60% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience. Source: Desk
Average annual value of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned – $289. Source: Genesys Report
There is no better time than now to improve your customer service. Here are 5 ways to help make your customers fall in love with your business.
1. Treat your Customers Right – Genuinely Interact
Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell 4 to 6 people about their experience. Don’t act as a nameless or faceless business; genuinely talk with your customers as a person representing the business. Address your customers by name, and tell them your name at the very beginning of your interaction.
Talk to your customers as you would in person, ignoring the fact that you’re online. An example of this is usually seen on social media. American Express does this well on Twitter, making certain customer concerns are addressed in a timely manner with a friendly and personal response, signed by the employee who’s doing the tweeting.
2. Always Listen – Hear What Your Customers are Saying
At a time when it’s easy to have a two-way dialogue with your customers, it’s important to truly listen. When listening to your customers, take into account what changes your organization should make from this feedback, and then follow through. Your customers are the lifeblood of your organization, and not dealing with the reasonable requests could cause backlash.
Use the following methods to gather feedback from your customers:
- Surveys
- Blogs with a Comment Section
- Focus Groups
- Observation
- Point of Sale
- Customer Service
- Social Media
- Communities and Groups
- Email and Web Forms
3. Be Available
When your customers have questions, they want them to be answered. They don’t like the unknown, and of course not, do you? Make sure your website is full of important information and FAQ’s. A great way of knowing what to put online is by asking your front end staff. Are there questions they seem to get more often than others? Is there any new information in your industry you think would benefit your customers? Take all this information and feature it in your blog. Your customers will appreciate the information and it will also give them a reason to check back on your website more than once.