15th October 2018
By : Brijesh Tekrawala
Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company. Tony Hsieh
There is so much power in this quote and that is why we are starting our article this way. Keeping clients happy should be a company philosophy, not just a focus of one or two departments. After all, happy customers tend to be return customers.
You have spent a lot of money, time and energy to drive customers to buy and/or use your product. Now what? In theory, in order to increase customer retention, businesses need to build strong relationships, increase engagement and work on customer outreach. But, what does it mean in practice and what might be the actual actionable steps to make in order to keep our clients happy and returning? Making customers happy means paying attention to them, taking care of the entire customer experience and ensuring they have no hurdles along the way. Check out our helpful tips on how to achieve this.
Know your customers. Listen to your customers.
Understanding the needs and wants of your customers is vital to the success of any business. Creating user personas and identifying their characteristics is the first step. The second one would be asking for feedback and implementing the feedback you receive will improve customer satisfaction.
Make a personal connection.
Whether to wish them a happy birthday or simply thank them for their loyalty – sending an automated, yet customized emails is a low-cost way to make a personal connection and build a loyalty.
Make their experience flawless.
Small business, high-tech product or online service – whatever your business is, providing extraordinary experience is crucial. This involves clear communication, ease of use, customer support and similar.
We believe those three tips are the most important one we should now. The more the merrier and you can always add more effort to strengthen your relationship with your customers:
➔ Mind the quality.
➔ Be easy to do business with.
➔ Show your appreciation.
➔ Be entertaining.
➔ Take care of your customers.
➔ Keep them involved in your activities.
➔ Include special offers or discounts.
➔ Talk the customer’s language.
➔ Provide world-class support. Always.
By helping dozens of businesses all over the world, we like to think we know a thing or two about customer satisfaction. At least, we know enough to give a piece of advice on how to keep them happy and returning back.
We will end this article again with the quote which can serve as a reminder for all of us on how to run our businesses.
The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you. Derek Sivers, Founder CD Baby
Do you have any more tips to get small business customers to return?
