6 Ways to Take Care of Your Customer

Customer Service

Everything about doing business with a company can potentially affect the customer’s attitude. Customers who feel valued and appreciated stay longer and spend more with a company over time.

There are many ways to improve the typical customer’s experience. This is where training enters the picture.

Leading Customer Care

As a manager, director, or even an associate; training in sales and customer service will improve the quality of your communication both within your company, and your customers.

It is often said that it is much easier to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Research shows that people are more likely to continue doing business with a brand that provides great service because they attach service to value. When businesses invest heavily in the idea of taking care of their customers, retention improves. Here are sixways to do just that.

6 Ways to Take Care of Your Customer

1) Customer Appreciation

Customers should feel appreciated and valued. Individualizing the customer experience is one way to accomplish this. Each interaction should be sincere in nature and should inspire trust with each interaction. Consider the many ways you could establish goodwill with each customer you serve. Customers are very insightful and know whether or not you value their business or not.

2) Customer Service

Great customer service is the cornerstone to customer appreciation. It is important to always serve a customer in any way you can. Approach business with a mindset of “yes” when dealing with customer requests. Be sure to always commit to finding all ways to fulfill any of your customer’s needs. Being easy to do business with keeps customers coming back repeatedly.

A great example of this is shown in the auto industry. When an auto manufacturer has determined that a part or a specific vehicle is potentially unsafe, they will announce a recall. Often they will compile an automobile mailing list that is personalized and targeted towards their audience. They will then try to contact them directly before they make a general announcement via the news or any other medium.

Although this is a negative situation, they can turn it into a positive one by demonstrating concern through customer service.

3) Adding That Human Touch

Take the human touch one step further in providing handwritten notes. A handwritten letter can go a long way in showing appreciation. The quick, thoughtful gesture can make quite the impression with the average client. Customers are often pleasantly surprised by this.

4) Check in Periodically With Customers

This is incredibly important during the initial stages of them doing business with you, and it’s a really effective way to retain patronage over the long term. Remember that your are building a relationship, so communication is key. There are many ways to do this. Using consumer mailing lists for direct mailing, emails, and surveys.

5) Share Your Expertise

Most customers want to feel like their decisions are made from a thoughtful and informed standpoint, and they want to believe that the good and services they purchase are solving problems, or filling needs in their lives. At the same time, people grow tired of the endless stream of ad copy and sales pitches they are exposed to on a daily basis.

Some studies estimate people are exposed to more than 5000 advertisements per day. Your business is your area of expertise, so you have a credible and authoritative voice on the subject, which your customers want to tap into without feeling like they’ve entered into a transaction. Many buyers like to reserve the decision to enter transactions until after they’ve gathered some necessary information.

Knowledge is power. The way to address this is to publish your expertise across communication channels that will reach your customers. A few examples would be, a company blog on the website, various social media platforms, and printed newsletters sent out to a mailing list. If you take the time to participate in the conversation with your customers outside the context of business transactions, they’ll feel like they’re doing business in a relaxed environment with a trusted friend.

6) Simplify Their Experience

Don’t let red tape get in the way of providing a solid customer experience. Some companies have policies that eliminate every aspect of the customer service process in order to avoid any semblance of red tape. Others honor coupons past the expiration date or honor the prices of competitors to eliminate red tape and woo their customer base.

Customers that feel taken care of continue to buy from the brand. They tend to spread the word about the brand and create more sales opportunities for the company. The easiest way to set a company apart from its competitors is to distinguish their brand from others by providing wonderful service.

**********

Never miss an issue of Linked 2 Leadership, subscribe today!
Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders

———————
Robert Cordray

Robert Cordray is a freelance writer with over 20 years of business experience
He does the occasional business consult to help increase employee morale
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web

Image Sources: blog.zopim.com

L2L Contributing Author

1 Comment

  1. ramakrishnan6002 on November 7, 2014 at 7:41 am

    Reblogged this on Gr8fullsoul.



Categories

Subscribe!