Do you know how much it costs to lose a customer? Generally, acquiring a new customer costs five times as much as retaining an existing one.
Finding new customers is time-consuming and costly. You need to market to them, persuade them to convert, and then woo them into becoming repeat buyers. This time and money could be spent retaining your existing customers and making them fall in love with your brand.
Good customer service is not expensive, but it has an exceptionally high return on investment. Optimized customer service ensures satisfaction, and the more satisfied a customer is, more likely to become a loyal and repeat customer. This experience is not defined by a single moment, but by the sum of all interactions with a company. Long-term customer loyalty – i.e., customer retention – is based on various key factors that influence the customer experience. Following are the five easy methods to take your customer service to the next level.
- Individually reach out to customers
Over the past decade, the marketing industry has emphasized workflow automation and artificial intelligence. Automation helps in sending personalised and contextual emails to customers at the right time, without any manual effort while AI tools can launch chatbots to manage basic inquiries. While these technologies serve as a conduit for delivering value, fostering engagement, and enhancing relationships, there is a new push to bring back human interaction.
86% of consumers prefer to interact with a human agent; 71% said they would be less likely to use a brand if it didn’t have human customer service representatives available.(Source : FORBES)
Build truly personalized customer outreach into your service plan. This could mean connecting with customers who have not used your services recently or calling people about orders and products. These small steps could have a significant impact on your loyalty, and therefore, profit and revenue.
- Make it easy for customers to contact you
Customer service is a two-way street. Not only should you proactively reach out to your customers to offer help, but also, you should make it easy for them to reach you.
However, some companies seem determined to prevent, or make it difficult for their customers to contact them. Whether through missing or hard to find contact details on their website, charging for customer service calls, or taking weeks to reply to emails. These companies think they are saving money or easing pressure on customer service staff by doing this, but they are annoying their customers.
44% of website visitors will leave a company’s website if there’s no contact information. (Source: Clique Studios)
This shows that customers need to establish trust and credibility with companies as soon as they arrive at the website. Contact/Customer Service information needs to be up-front, visible, and easily accessible.
- Listen to what your customers want
Listening is one of the most powerful tools for customer care. It allows you to find unique solutions to customer problems and identify ways to adjust your business to meet your customer needs.
You must know how your customers really feel about the product or service you deliver and use it to make changes to improve your operations. The best business decisions are based on concrete data, not guesses or estimates.
Your customer’s opinion of your product is incredibly valuable. They can analyse your product and help to uncover hidden issues that you never knew existed. And if you’re tweaking your product to keep your customers happy, you’ll end up attracting even more customers who want the same features.
Afterall, Customers are among your best critics. And genuine listening will go a long way in holding onto your customers and improving the way they perceive your business.
- Train your staff regularly
Informed employees are valuable employees. Help your team learn the best practices surrounding customer care and train them on the details of the products and the industry. Such trainings can build confidence in dealing with customers and helps in getting everyone on the same page. These training must be supported by good CRM system and processes to make sure that it ‘sticks’. Professional training ensures both employees and customers are more satisfied with each interaction and thereby improves your bottom line. Happy, delighted customers come from excellent service and are your best advocates — even better than your most talented marketers.
94% of people recommend a company with “very good” service, and buyers are 92% more likely to buy after reading reviews. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
Training your staff to provide top-notch customer service is essential for gaining an edge over your competition. Ultimately, a great customer service training program can help you create a strong reputation, and your company becomes the obvious choice when people are looking for options in your niche. They can even go on to recommend your business, products, and services to their friends and colleagues.
That is why customer service training is so important. You are training your employees to deal with some of the most influential people in your life: your customers. (Sorry, family.)
- Let customers contact you on the communication channel of their choice
By providing customers with omnichannel communication option for getting in touch and addressing their concerns, businesses can make it easier for customers to interact with them and resolve issues, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.
The strategy should execute a channel-less experience where the website, direct sales, and the contact center work together to create a cohesive customer service experience. (Source : IBM)
Customers believe that they should be able to engage with a brand through the channel they want to, at the time they want. Omnichannel communication helps companies meet customers’ expectations by storing key client data across channels, so that it’s accessible and up-to-date no matter the channel team members use to connect with consumers. It prevents consumers from having to constantly repeat their issues to multiple representatives, which is one of the frustrating and major concern.
Support staff can access key information like order history, previous interactions, account information, and more from any channel, providing more personalized insights and support based on the current products used, past purchases, and even from notes written by other agents. This personalization makes customers feel valued, prioritized, and emotionally connected to your business, regardless of how “important” or high-value they actually are.
Businesses that choose an omnichannel customer service strategy have gained an 89% increase in customer retention and a 9.5% year-over-year increase in annual revenue. (Source: Reve Chat)
Final thought
Customer service is one of the most important departments of a company, it establishes and maintains customer relationships and is responsible for successful customer retention. Thus, it is important to develop a customer-centric culture that does not end with customer service but runs through the entire company.
The best customer experiences are achieved through the interplay of (human) interactions, smart and automated technology, and data analysis. All the above elements combine to produce great customer service.
It’s great customer service that keeps your customers loyal to you and your business – and in return earns you a reputation for being helpful and a pleasure to work with. Ridge Tech Corporation helps you achieve your organization’s full potential by providing you a customer service platform/software and associated technical expertise to implement new technology and excel in your business.
Sign up today to streamline communication across all the channels and deliver a consistent experience.
