Depending on your industry, acquiring a new customer can be anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining one, but that’s just one reason why customer care should be center-focus in your business strategy.
After all, with more company’s offer instant chatbot assistance, extended live chat assistance, and even social media care through Twitter and other platforms, customers have much higher expectations when it comes to customer care these days.
These five tips will help you make sure you’re giving them the best possible care you can, all while promoting satisfied customers and driving loyalty in the process.
#1 Seek to Understand
Everyone wants to be heard and understood, which is the forefront of your customer care policy should focus on simply listening. When you listen to customer feedback, you also open the doors to many future improvements and developments because customers will be the first to tell you what they don’t like, what they would like to see, and how they think you should be doing things differently. In other words, stop making costly assumptions.
#2 Interact and Engage
When a person takes the time to interact with your brand, be it a question they leave on a product page or a comment they make on a social media post, you should always make an effort to respond and engage them. Not only does being a responsive company show that you’re a responsible company, but with technology increasing the need for instantaneous responses, this policy will help reassure your customers that you’re listening and that they matter.
#3 Show Your Personality
Every brand should work to portray a consistent and strong brand persona. What’s yours? If you can answer that question, you’re off to a good start. Now you need to make sure that your business’ personality shines through in every customer interaction, whether you’re sending out a marketing email, answering the phone, or chatting with them live. Additionally, you should find ways to communicate with personality without wasting time on lengthy exchanges. Be quick and be authentic.
#4 Eliminate The Barriers
On the topic of saving time, one thing many companies have begun to do in recent years is rethink their policies. If you have paper-based processes and other hassles worked into your procedures, it’s time to eliminate them. These things only pose as obstacles for your customers, even if they benefit your business to a small degree. So, instead of having customers input their information twice, find ways to structure your database, use cookies, and empower technology to reduce their clicks. It may not sound like a big deal, but these little things can quickly irritate your customers who are just about always in a hurry.
#5 Make and Keep Promises
As a company, you make all sorts of commitments that you might not even think twice about. Whether it’s promising them that their favorite items will be “back in stock soon” or that their package is expected to arrive by Friday. Things happen that are out of your control sometimes, but it’s very important that you always do your best to keep these seemingly small promises, or you risk upsetting your customers who may very well be counting on you to come through. Promise big and deliver even better. What do you do to inspire customer loyalty?
