Five Tips for Customer Happiness and Retention

When looking to improve customer retention as well as gain new business experts say it starts with your people. Studies from the U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have found that acquiring new customers can cost as much as five to seven times more than just retaining existing customers. Businesses of all sizes find themselves at odds with how to keep their current customer base and acquire new ones.
There are five simple ways that any business can accomplish this:
1.      Actually listen to your customers:
Too often the employees that deal with customers on the front line have had little to no training in assisting customers. Whether the employees receive active listening, or empathy training, or simply empowering them to make decisions, they are the face of your company and should be armed with what they need to help them achieve success
While the first place to start is to have your employees listen to customers, it also contributes to hear to customers; this can be done through surveys. Allowing customers to provide you with honest feedback contributes to improving your business.
2.      Be the best, then go one step further:
Being the best is not sufficient, if you actually want to have top customer satisfaction scores, and retain customers you need to go above and beyond for every customer. When a customer has an issue, don’t just do the bare minimum to make them happy, go one step beyond that. Such as when Zappos overnighted a pair of shoes to a best man in a wedding. Customer happiness is Zappos’ number one goal, outside of sales, but happiness equals sales.
While each company will have their limit on what they can do to make a customer happy, even small things can often please a customer and help you retain them.
3.      Use technology:

There are great apps, and services available these days, and many are very cost-effective. Automate as many processes as you possibly can allowing your team to have more time to assist customers. There are software options to do many of the minute tasks that may distract employees from making customers happy. While the costs may seem high, they will pay for themselves in growth from satisfied customers.
4.      Anticipate customers desires:

Problems arise, but preventing them and predicting what can happen is essential to customer happiness. Anticipating problems is as simple as checking in with your customers. Have employees call, text, or email them just to see how everything is going. For a company to be successful, they must have continued growth, and it is easier to sell to current customers than acquire new ones. Simple acts such as showing that you care by “checking in” can set you apart from competitors.
5.      Build relationships online and in person:
Many companies sit around waiting for customers to contact them, this goes back to checking in, encouraging customers to connect on all social media platforms, have live video sessions on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc., utilize ways to help customers see your company as a living being, not just a soulless corporation. Customers are 71% more likely to shop with a brand that their friends suggested. By utilizing social media you are building brand awareness, and helping your current customers and their connections see that you are trustworthy.
While there are more aspects to building customer retention, and increasing satisfactory customer service, these five tips for customer happiness are a great start.

If you want to see how you can help your employees learn to have more positive interactions with customers, and turn that unhappy customer into one your biggest marketing tools contact me for more information.

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