An essential requirement for your company to succeed is to maintain a solid customer base. Without customers, there are no sales and without sales there will be no money to maintain your business.
However, once we get them, something equally or more complicated comes: Keeping them. And to achieve this it is vital to know how to improve customer service.
Clients, like the people we deal with on a daily basis, have infinite ways of being; one day they may dawn positive, the next all ideas seem bad to them and perhaps the next day they don’t want to hear from anyone or anything.
According to Forrester, only 37% of companies (out of 160 surveyed) provide excellent customer service, while the remaining 63% divide into good, bad, and very bad.
For this reason, we must do everything in our power so that our customers not only buy once but also continue buying and become advertising for the company.
A happy customer will bring new customers. What can we do? Apply the 3 “R” and learn how to improve customer service.
3 R’s How to improve customer service.
1. Reply on time.
Communication is usually by email. So it’s important to reply to emails as soon as possible; in order to let the client understand that we are aware of their needs.
In case you have to give a long answer and you don’t have time to do it; As soon as you receive the email, send another saying that you already received it and that you will give an answer as soon as you can.
If a customer contacts your company, it is because they have a concern, or more importantly, a problem. The faster you respond, the higher the customer satisfaction will be.
2. Solve with confidence.
The client sought you out because you are the expert. So it doesn’t matter that other companies have more experience.
To the extent that you know the client’s needs well; as long as he asks you questions about what’s best for him, you can’t hesitate! It is vital that you anticipate any concerns and show confidence in what you know.
The key is to make the customer feel that your product or service is exactly what he needs to solve his problem or satisfy his need.
3. Be Realistic.
Who doesn’t like surprises? It is always better to create less expectations and appear with better results.
This way you project more professionalism and you will not disappoint anyone. According to the US Office of Consumer Affairs, on average, a satisfied customer tells 3-4 people about their positive experiences, while a dissatisfied customer tells 9-15 people.
Promising and not delivering is almost cheating, so be careful.
Many tips seem obvious, but if it were, there would be no dissatisfied customers. For this reason Roi online shares other tips to know what to do and what NOT to do. They will surely be useful to you.
How to improve customer service (14 things you should do)
- Have your work on time and always be aware of deadlines.
- Have fun with your clients.
- Encourage your customers to think differently. Introduce them to methods and strategies that are simple and effective to understand and implement.
- Subtly lead them towards your ideas and explain why you took them or are going to take them.
- Transparency is essential throughout the entire project. Make him a team member and collaborate.
- Always be clear about costs and everything they include.
- Make them feel at home and make them enjoy each meeting.
- Show them results of what you are doing.
- Come up with new ideas that you think can help your client’s business.
- Celebrate with them their new successes. Identify the causes and use that knowledge for future projects.
- Do your best to get to know them; what they like, what they don’t, who is their family.
- Constantly ask questions and learn to recognize what is important to them.
- Help the client understand that they really have a voice in the project.
- Be proactive when it comes to fixing bugs or damage.
What NOT to do:
- Making silly excuses to postpone project delivery dates.
- Being “business” all the time.
- Overstimulating the client with unnecessary information and making them feel foolish when proposing ideas.
- Exclude them from the process.
- Overcharging and not delivering. Quality and price go hand in hand.
- Being extremely formal in meetings and making them feel like you want them to leave quickly.
- Talk to them using “very technical” words and pretend that they understand everything.
- Make them waste time talking about things that are not important to them.
And remember, if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can read our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
