MightyRecruiterWhat would your business be without customers? Not much. Customers are the backbone of any company, and you spend a lot of time trying to get new ones. But what about those who already are patronizing your business? Keeping customers is easier than finding new ones, so it behooves you to improve your customer communication any time you get the opportunity. Here are five important steps on the path to better conversations with your valuable clients.
Just Do It
As a business owner or manager, you just cannot afford to neglect your customers. They not only expect helpful responses from you, they want to receive them in a timely manner. If fact, you should take it as a good sign that they care enough about your products or services to even offer feedback about them. Make sure the rest of your staff or team understands and appreciates the important role that customer communication plays in the success of your business. Many companies take the proactive approach of creating a communications plan. These guidelines may create deadlines for responses, policies for dealing with complaints or standard messaging that provides basic information. You can cut down on a lot of customer follow-up time simply by having an effective communication policy in place from the outset. Don’t forget to make sure all employees have access to the plan.
Simplify the Process
Taking the time to respond to customers is vital, but it doesn’t have to take a long time. By creating templates for email responses or scripts for telephone conversations, the work time spend to sharing information can be reduced. Your company likely gets the same inquires over and over each day, so having a standard response can be very helpful. Of course, you must be sure that the standard responses include all the pertinent information a customer might be looking for. If you get feedback that indicates you’ve missed a key topic in the standardized response, be sure to modify it as often as necessary. Let your employees know they have the power to address customer comments with authority.
Use Your Website
Your company website is likely to be the first interaction a potential customer has with your business. It should reflect the tone and ethos of your company as well as provide valuable information to site visitors. In fact, you can eliminate a number of customer interactions simply by having a well-rounded, educational website. Your online space should be configured to meet the customer’s needs, not just tell them what you want them to know. Anticipate the problems they will be looking to solve using your services or products, and show them how you can provide the best solutions. The navigation should be simple and clear so that visitors can find the information they are looking for. They will appreciate the ability to do research without struggle.
Tame Email Jungle
If your business gets a lot of email traffic, contact from customers is at a risk for being lost. Make sure all team members are working to improve your customer communication by making client inquiries a priority in their inboxes. Customers appreciate quick responses, and the templates mentioned above will have accomplish that in your workplace. All email responses to client questions should be positive, informative and free from typos. Take special care when writing on mobile devices to proofread your messages before sending them.
Explore All Platforms
If you haven’t already entered the world of social media, now is the time. It is OK to start small as long as you are strategic. Not every social media platform will be ideal for your business model or for targeting your ideal customer. Social media is very helpful when it comes to responding quickly to customer complaints and questions. It is worth the expense to devote an employee to actively posting new information and monitoring customer comments on social media. Clients love to interact with businesses that are active on these platforms, so you can build customer loyalty at the same time you are answering questions. Improving your customer communication takes vigilance and effort, but it’s vital to retaining the customers you have and finding new ones. There are tools make the process easier, so empowered employees can embrace your messaging approach without taking up a lot of work time. In addition to learning how to make a plan to improve your customer communication, you can learn how to make solid hiring decisions and improve your companies using the resources at Mighty Recruiter as a guide.