Any good business owner knows that good customer service is the most important thing in any company. If a customer gets good service from your company, they’ll tell a couple of people, but studies show that if they receive bad service, they’ll tell more people. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and it has a huge negative impact on sales. It’s even more damaging these days because people won’t just tell their friends face to face, they’ll also post negative reviews online for the whole world to see.
Good service during the purchasing process is important but you need to be careful that you don’t neglect them afterwards. A lot of companies have a tendency to forget about a customer once you’ve got their money, but that’s never a good idea. The way that you handle a complaint is one of the best ways to prove to a customer that you care about them and encourage them to use you again. Any issues with your product can be forgiven if you replace them promptly, or refund money without making it difficult for them. If you put up a lot of hurdles, they’ll tell everybody they know to steer clear of your company.
Implementing good customer service can be quite expensive but it’s an investment you need to make if you’re going to be a success. Luckily, new technology can make it a lot cheaper for you, as well as improving the experience for the customers. If you’re still just using a call center, you should think about updating. These are some of the ways that you can use technology to improve your customer service department.
One such success story, The Teehive, which launched in 2009 by Steve and Cindy Clough, who started Just For Kix in 1981 and helped build it into the multifaceted business that it is today. With the growth of Just For Kix came a growing demand for custom apparel, and soon The Teehive was born. Using the latest technologies, which enables the manufacturing of custom tshirt by the Tee Hive, they offer comprehensive printing capabilities including silk screening, dye sublimation (dye sub) printing, embroidery and automatic hotfix sequin motif.
Question And Answer Section
Call centers are a huge frustration for customers because it usually means calling you up, going through a frustrating menu before then being put on hold for ages until they can finally speak to a real person and get an answer to whatever question they have. If you speak to the people that work in your call center, they’ll probably tell you that they’re constantly answering the same questions all day, every day. That means you’re paying a lot of people to do something that you could do for free with a question and answer section on your website. Customers can post their questions and you can respond with an answer. In future, other customers with similar queries can simply go to the website and find the information they need right away, rather than going through the whole process of calling you up. It’s easier for customers and you don’t have to pay a large staff to repeat the same task over and over again. It also frees up call center staff so they will be quicker to respond to more complex queries that cannot be answered on your website.
Build An App
These days, people want everything at their fingertips. A good website should be easy to navigate but even that is too much effort for a lot of people. If you get a mobile application development team to build you a dedicated app, your customers can easily browse your products, find out about offers and do whatever else they might do on your website with ease. By including a chat feature, you can also give people real time responses to any queries that they might have. Having an app is also a great advertising and brand building opportunity. Every time a customer opens their phone, your logo is staring them in the face.
Customer History
Using software that tracks customer interaction and keeps a log of any dealings you’ve had with them in the past is a brilliant way to create a far more personal experience which is always a big concern for customers. One thing that customers hate more than anything is speaking to a different person each time and having to explain the problem over and over again. You can avoid that by keeping track of any phone calls or emails in one place, as well as noting who they’ve been speaking to previously. Having the same person deal with them creates a more personal experience and saves them a lot of hassle.
Analyzing Customer Trends
If you’re trying to target customers with advertising, they’ll get frustrated if they’re constantly bombarded with loads of pop-ups that are of no interest to them, they’ll see your company as irritating. Using software to analyze customer trends helps you to learn what they’re buying and build a profile of who they are. Then you can use fewer adverts that are more specifically targeted at them, meaning they’re more likely to buy the products and they won’t get annoyed by a constant barrage of advertising.
Round-the-Clock Availability
Before online communication, customers knew that they could only get in touch during daylight working hours and they accepted that but now, expectations are a lot higher. Online chat, social media interactions, and email allow customers to get into contact with you whenever they like. You need to make good use of those technologies and respond to customers quickly, regardless of what time of day it is. People often think that it’s going to be expensive to have people available around the clock but that doesn’t take into consideration all of the other changes you’ve made. If you can massively cut down the amount of full-time staff you have answering the phones during the day, you can allocate those resources elsewhere and have those staff members answering online chat messages through the night instead. You won’t be spending that much more money but you’ll be offering a far better service.
Implementing all of these new technologies benefits your company in so many different ways. It streamlines your customer service processes so you can offer a far better service with quicker and more helpful responses. It also saves you a lot of money because you can cut down on the number of customer service staff that you need to employ. However, it’s important to remember that you shouldn’t get rid of the call center completely. A lot of customers, particularly the older generation, would rather speak to a person directly instead of chatting online so it’s worth keeping a small call center staff.
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