The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
In order to increase brand loyalty it’s vital that you work on your customer service. Competition is so fierce online; your consumers will swap to a new brand if someone is able to provide a better service than you. Therefore customer service is one of the areas that need to be constantly worked on and improved. We have some tips that will help you to retain customers and attract new ones, so let’s dive in.
Aim to Surprise Your Customers
Customers expect you to be polite, to deliver on time and to deliver on your promises, what they don’t expect is to be pleasantly surprised. You can surprise your customers for very little cost; you just need to come up with something your customers will appreciate. It could be adding free gift wrapping, throwing in a free gift, offering a great discount for their next purchase or delivering quicker than promised. In order to be a surprise it needs to be kept secret so don’t mention the treat anywhere on your website.
How you deal with queries and complaints plays a vital role in building a great reputation and retaining your customers, even those who may have experienced problems. You need to deal with all problems as soon as possible, if you cannot deal with it right then and there at least contact the customer and let them know you’re dealing with their problem and you’ll be in touch within a set amount of hours.
Have multiple channels for your customers to contact you through, including a toll-free phone number, email address, online contact forms and social media. If you do use social media make sure you have someone in the company keeping an eye on messages and mentions so they can be dealt with within half an hour.
Train Your Staff
You can’t expect everyone to have excellent customer service skills; you will need to train everyone on how you expect them to deal with communications with all types of customer. Train the people on the phones, people in administration and your social media team on the correct responses. Give everyone a range of options on how to resolve issues so they don’t have to put the customer on hold while they consult with their managers. The aim should be to listen, understand and resolve as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Improve Your Deliveries
Aim to deliver orders within one day if possible; it’s very common for next day deliveries to take place online, all over the country. You need to find a suitable third party courier service that’s able to deliver on your promises. If you’re unable to commit to such speedy deliveries it’s worth offering free delivery or free deliveries for all orders over a set amount. We offer excellent courier services that will compliment your business and leave your customers happy, follow the link to learn more about us.
Take a look at the way your competitors serve their customers and where they’re going wrong. You need to make sure you’re doing more than they are if you want to avoid losing your consumers.
About the Author The author, Mark Jones, is a journalist and blogger, he specialises in topics such as small business, retail, HR and recruitment. During his ten year career he has produced thousands of articles and is happy to share his advice and experiences on respected blogs. His work is currently available to read on hundreds of websites.
