5 Ways to Improve Your Customer Service For Your Small Business
96 percent of customers will stop doing business with you for a bad customer service experience.
For small businesses, providing good customer service can mean the difference between success and failure.
Customer service has changed a lot in the past few decades. Is your customer service up to par?
Keep reading to learn more about the top 5 ways to improve your customer service as a small business.
1. Be Available on All Platforms
Customer service guides have changed dramatically in recent years. First, the internet brought big changes for how customers purchase goods and services and how they communicate with businesses. Then, smartphones and social media came along, requiring businesses to optimize their customer service resources for mobile devices.
Customers now expect more than ever when it comes to customer service. Businesses have to be present on all social media platforms to be considered trustworthy. Customers also expect businesses to provide customer service via each of these channels.
Fortunately for businesses, social media presents a golden opportunity to build customer trust and brand awareness. You need to provide top-tier customer service on each channel. It's important to respond to customers as quickly as possible.
Your ultimate online presence is your website. This is how customers will find information about your business in the digital age.
Your website should be designed with SEO best practices in mind. This will help your website rank at the top of search engines results. Your website should be easy to navigate, especially on mobile devices.
Your landing page is crucial to securing new business. Remember to link back to your website from other social media platforms.
2. Invite Customer Feedback
The best way to gain an understanding of how your customers feel about your business is to ask them yourself.
Customers are an invaluable resource for small business owners. Take every opportunity to get feedback directly from customers to learn about how you can improve in their eyes. Customers appreciate knowing you care about how they feel, which can boost your sales.
The hardest part for small business owners is figuring out how to gather information from customers.
One of the best ways to do this is to conduct surveys of current customers. These can be distributed via email, following a customer service experience, or on social media. Use open-ended questions as well as satisfaction scales.
3. Be One Step Ahead
One of the top customer service tips is to anticipate customer needs and always be one step ahead.
This starts with having a thorough understanding of your products and services and making sure that your customer service personnel have access to this information as well.
Providing personalized customer experiences is another way to stay ahead of customers' needs. Arm your employees with knowledge about how additional products and services can alleviate customer problems. Use customers' names during interactions and always provide a consistent customer service experience.
4. Go the Extra Mile
The number one thing you can do to provide excellent customer service is to always go the extra mile.
When customers are having issues and reach out to you for support, how you handle the problem can determine whether you keep or lose their business. If you do it right, you'll not only gain a loyal customer, but they'll recommend you to their friends and family as well. If you mess up, you'll lose a customer and chances are good that they will share their bad experience with anyone who will listen.
Going the extra mile starts with hiring the best staff. Hire employees who exhibit exceptional customer service skills.
When a customer has a problem, you should exhaust every avenue to solve that problem as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
5. Don't Forget About Your Current Customer Base
One of the biggest advantages small businesses have over their larger competitors is the ability to really develop relationships with customers. Big businesses sometimes see customers as numbers. As a small business owner, you want to cultivate relationships with your current customers.
In fact, it costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to nurture relationships with current ones. Customer service for small business comes down to focusing on VIP customers.
So how do you do this? Incentivize your current customers to become repeat customers. You can do this by offering loyalty programs, contests, giveaways, and coupons.
Always put quality before quantity. This applies to your products and services as well as your customer service strategies. Give your best to your most loyal customers and you will be rewarded.
Finally, your customers should always be able to reach you. Make sure your contact information is prominently displayed on your website. You should also have a contact form that customers can fill out anytime they need to reach you.
When customers feel valued, they are more likely to remain loyal to your business and recommend you to others.
Are You Looking to Improve Your Customer Service?
In the modern world, the backbone of your business is your online presence. This starts and ends with your website.
If you want to provide the best customer service to your customers, you need a solid website.
We are here to help. We offer hassle-free fully managed websites for small businesses. When you can trust that your website is boosting your company's image, you can focus more on your customer service strategies.
Click here to contact us today to learn more about how we can help your small business.