Accommodating for your customers and tailoring your service for their needs is essential to making sure you keep them happy. You may know that 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain? But 91% of non-complainers will simply leave and never come back to you.
And where do you think they’re going? Yep, you guessed it, your competitors! A customer is 4 times more likely to defect to a competitor if a problem is service related as opposed to product or price related.
We’ve rounded up 5 of our top tips to help you craft the best customer experience:
#1 – Invest in your customer facing staff
They’re the front-line of your company, the people that your customers interact with the most. And they definitely need the most love! Investing time to train your customer facing staff is an often overlooked, but shrewd investment. You need your staff to represent the values of your brand, to understand your customer and to help your customers with their needs. Training can help them understand these points.
It need not be an expensive session, simply something that’ll help your staff understand:
- The principles of customer experience (And how to deliver a great experience!)
- Your brand values
#2 – Give something away – We’re all a bit skint after all!
It’s just been Christmas. We’re all a bit skint, so a giveaway is a fantastic way to get your customers engaging with your brand and to generate loads of interest in what you and your organisation can offer. In terms of what can you giveaway? It depends on how generous you’re feeling and it depends on what you industry you’re in.
You could give something away by running a competition. Try a themed quiz, with a prize at the end!
Earlier last month we gave away a 16% discount on a couple of GP enhancements. And our customers loved it!
#3 – Standardise your customer experience
Make sure all of your collateral, social media, web and offline marketing efforts match. There’s nothing worse than having a disjointed approach to these. It’ll confuse your customer and detract from the brand your organisation has worked so hard to build.
CRM software such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM can actually help with this too. Your customer interactions should be the same, and CRM has the capabilities to support this, with things like email templates, social listening and portals.
#4 – If you can, set up self-service
Think about how you pay your phone bill. You can pay in store, over the phone and online. And 2 out of these 3 options involve some sort of automated self-service system. Self-service is very much a thing now and offering that opportunity for your customers is going to make your business a far more attractive proposition for your customers.
It doesn’t just have to be an automated payments system. Most utility companies have an FAQ section for you to search and find your own answers to queries or issues you may have.
Customers want to do their business in whatever way they can. Self-service is just one way of achieving that goal. It saves time, effort and dramatically improves customer experience.
#5 – Use all of your communications channels, including social media
You have a wide range of communications channels available to you. And your customers will get in contact with your business in a wide range of ways. Utilise them all to accommodate for as many of your customers as possible.
Social media is an effective way to engage with your customers and listen to their experiences. For your company to effectively use social media, you’ll need to monitor and respond to conversations through your social media channels. This includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
You’ll need to make sure you have the right people and tools to do this. Once again, Dynamics CRM can provide your business with Social Listening tools you’ll need to action all of this.
By listening to your customers and engaging with them on the channels they choose to engage with you on, you’ll be keeping your customers happy
If you have any other customer experience tips, please share them with us in the comments section below. We always love to hear from you all!
