Whether you have a cleaning business or a food joint, customer service is crucial since it can dictate your future sales. According to research, 39% of customers avoid doing business with a company with which they had previous negative experience. So, instead of delivering a bad customer experience and letting your sales take a hit in the process, why don’t you work on your frontline? Here are ten tips to help you get started straight away!
- Train your staff
How your employees behave with the customers can be a deciding factor. Since the employees are the ones who interact with potential leads and customers, they need to be educated on what is and what is not appropriate when it comes to dealing with customers. So, prepare training material and conduct occasional workshops that could improve the ethics and behavior of your staff. Continue with this until your employees’ behavior and daily conduct reflect your company’s values.
Remember, when your customers feel valued, they will keep coming back to you even if your services are subpar.
2. Learn and grow from negative feedback
Some people crumble under the negative feedback, while others learn from it. One path leads to disappointment and the other leads to a learning experience. Which one do you want to choose?
Nobody is perfect and the same goes for commercial services. If you have received negative feedback, do not feel saddened. Instead, create a company culture that promotes individuals to turn negative feedback into a great growing experience. Show customers that you are willing to change your current practices in order to fit their idea of how businesses should be.
3. Work towards understanding the obstacles
Every entrepreneur that tells you that their business is obstacle-free is either clueless or lying. Whatever the case is, no business is free from a few hiccups that annoy customers. Long lines, clueless workers, and difficult product acquiring process; all these things can ruin customer service. Because of this, you need to observe everything critically.
Visit your physical outlets at peak time and make a couple of rounds. Make sure to observe your surroundings at the same time. Note everything that you think can be improved, enhanced or worked upon in any manner. Gathering such information will prove crucial in the long run.
4. Review your policies occasionally
Hardline policies never benefit anyone. Instead, policies that are rooted in experience serve the interest best. Usually, entrepreneurs create a list of policies and stick with them until the end of their time. Due to this, many skilled workers lacking the right experience are barred from joining the organizations.
Although it is okay to opt for experienced individuals when it come technical skills, it is better to allow inexperienced yet skilled individuals to take up the frontline positions. Often, the upbeat, enthusiastic, and uplifting attitude of amateurs is all you need to deliver a better customer experience.
5. Adopt a flexible approach when dealing with customers
A true entrepreneur is the one that understands the situation and learns to work their way around the obstacle to keep the customers happy. This does not mean that you should compromise on your profit and give in to the unjustified demands of the clients. Instead, we are just asking you to adopt a flexible approach.
For instance, if your customer is struggling with paying your product’s fees, then you could amend your existing payment policy just for this specific client. Make it flexible in a way that it keeps your client happy and does not ruin your profit margin at all.
6. Add a human touch
Most businesses shy away from private contact and would rather get back to their clients through a message or email. Although both of these mediums are professional enough, sometimes, a human touch is needed to assure clients that you value them. So, it would not hurt to pick up the phone or respond to the live chat feature on your website.
Local clients like to connect with the companies before hiring them which is why the human touch is important. This phenomenon holds for businesses from all industry verticals. For example, you own a business of cleaning and a customer who has searched up carpet cleaning London wants to ask whether you employ green solutions via live chat. If the replies are predefined, then the potential lead might look elsewhere but if it is an actual person responding then chances of you acquiring a customer will be higher.
7. Do not be afraid to admit your errors
Human nature is to provide multiple reasons to justify their mistakes but they will never find any reason to correct their errors. The point is, everyone will make mistakes but the bigger person is the one who will admit their mistakes and work towards finding a solution. So, refrain from making excuses or blaming other people for your shortcomings. Instead, apologize for your mistakes and work on them to make them right. Your customers will appreciate this gesture.
8. Create a team to plan and execute customer experience
Customer experience is never a one-man job. To execute a memorable experience, you need to bring in your entire team, take feedback from everyone, and create a solution that is an amalgamation of everything. Besides, your employees are always on the frontline and nobody knows the customers better than them. So, it is better to take suggestions and feedback from such workers as it will considerably improve customer services.
9. Learn to give back
The best way to make your customers feel valued is by learning to give back. Since you have all the customer data, you should be aware of their special days as well. So, start from there and surprise them with cards on their special occasions. If that is too much for you, then you can resort to personalized emails or messages. Make their special day even more special by offering freebies, gifts, discount codes, and much more.
10. Go the extra mile
Try hard to go the extra mile. Customers are quick to recognize when companies are putting in the extra effort because such gestures are currently missing from various setup due to the onset of automation. Also, putting in extra efforts can transform an ordinary experience into a memorable one. So, highlight your business’ ability to empathize with the clients and work on bringing changes that will make it easy for you to put in extra efforts.
The Bottom Line
Customers are not an alien race that is difficult to comprehend. All you need is a little bit of patience, knowledge, and expertise to transform your services to provide a better customer experience. Also, you will need to use the above-mentioned tips to score your goals. Once you have everything in place, you will be able to cultivate strong customer-centric relationships that will only strengthen with time!
