Customer satisfaction is an important metric that businesses can use to gauge how well they are doing in their quest to enhance user experience and increase sales. Indeed, the better the experiences you create for your customers, the higher your rates of acquiring and retaining them will be.
Here, we show you five simple methods for optimizing your customer service process (even when they’re angry with you) to set your business up for success.
Use social media to deal with negative feedback
Social media is here to stay and the earlier you appreciate this fact, the better you’ll use it to enhance how your business deals with prospects and customers. An effective way to leverage the power of social media is to use it to deal with disgruntled customers.
Usually, most angry customers today take to social media to air the bad experiences they’ve had with brands. What this means is that if you’re active on these platforms, then it becomes easier reaching out and probably sorting out complaints before they can get out of hand.
Facebook, unlike most other social sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram is in particular very effective when used for customer support. The reason for this is that customers can see your availability and average response time while the platform also allows you to use auto-responder bots to improve your interactions.
Optimize your website for seamless customer experience
When looking to enhance your customer services and support, one key area you have to focus on is your website. This is probably the first point of interaction with your clients and prospects and as such, it pays to have a platform that loads smoothly and comes with useful features for enhancing user experience.
For starters, you need a speedy host for your site to ensure visitors are not abandoning it due to slow loading speeds. You might want to consider going with this HostingFoundry’s recommendation if you’re looking for a good provider. In the same measure, make your site mobile responsive to accommodate mobile users who now make the majority of web surfers today.
For the features, try to add a live chat function for visitors looking for instantaneous responses from your company. In addition to helping you enhance your user experience, the software should also help you store and track valuable customer data.
Focus on building trust with your clients
Customer satisfaction and trustworthiness are inseparable when running a business – and the reason you should always strive to build both simultaneously. A good place to start is to ensure the products and services you are offering meet your customers’ needs and help to solve their problems. In addition, try to improve how you communicate with them – giving timely and useful responses while also maintaining an enthusiastic tone when communicating with clients.
You can also build trust by educating your customers on the topics of importance to them. For example, you can add a blog to your site and create detailed and highly actionable guides that visitors love to read. This will help to position your brand as an expert in your field and somewhere your customers can turn to when they need advice or useful information to their queries.
Actively collect customer feedback
Customer feedback and especially negative feedback (complaints and concerns) is something you have to learn to live with given that it’s inevitable in any business. Never take for granted or frown upon customer feedback (unless of course, it’s those spiteful ones propagated by your competitors). Instead, consider it a gift to help you improve your products and user experience.
There are a number of effective ways you can collect feedback – interacting with prospects and customers on forums in your niche or Facebook groups, using feedback surveys, or even relying on data from your competitors. Worth mentioning here is that customer feedback is most useful when acted upon in a timely fashion. You don’t want to act when it’s too late and after all your existing clients are long gone.
Create a profile of your ideal customer
They say that when you become a jack of all trades, you become a master of none. This applies quite perfectly to customer support and management in an online business.
If you don’t have a clear picture of how your ideal customer looks like, it could prove very difficult meeting their needs and this shows in your interactions with them.
To deliver memorable and personalized customer experiences, take time to know your customer. A few relevant customer traits you can use here include age, gender, geolocation, and purchasing power.
What steps are you taking to improve how you interact and deal with customers in your online business?
We’d love to hear your feedback.
