Clients are responsible for the existence of a company. Without customers, you will struggle to have cash flow. But more and more clients are looking for a good buying experience rather than price. This is also more relevant as more markets get flooded by services and products. So how do you make the experience for your customers the best?
The first step is to identify where the interaction lies. There are three areas of interaction according to Shopify. They are:
- Friction interaction: This is the least favourite of any interaction with a company. These interactions occur when there might be a billing problem, or a product defect problem. You need to solve these interactions quickly and thoroughly.
- Low-value interactions: These are confirmations and clarifications that you may have with your client.
- High-value interactions: This is when the customer is happy with the information they have received about your company and want to make a purchase. They may also be enticed into your cross-selling if you have read them right.
With the knowledge of these interactions, we can develop easy-to-implement customer support strategies which will encourage brand and product loyalty in your market.
1. Hire for attitude
Skills are easy to obtain but having empathy and patience is hard to teach. Therefore when choosing an agent ensure they enjoy helping to solve people’s problems and have the patience to work through problems with even the most tedious or arrogant of customers. When you have hired your agent then you need to ensure you have good skills development courses in place to teach excellent communication skills and a course which gives the agent a thorough knowledge of the products or service your business offers.
2. Use the channels your customers are comfortable in
It is important to give your customer a few ways to contact you if they are experiencing a problem. This could be a phone call, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, email, Instagram Messenger to name a few. When using these platforms, you should ensure that you send the same message across each platform. By having one programme which amalgamates all the communications you receive from various channels, you will ensure you are able to assign the request to the correct person and you will be less likely to miss or duplicate a reply to your customer.
3. Ensure your FAQ page is up to date
Many people prefer to solve their problems on their own before asking for help. Therefore it is important to have a comprehensive FAQ page that addresses the most frequently asked questions in your business. You can identify these questions by looking at what is commonly asked in your emails or other messaging platforms. You should review this page every quarter to ensure it is up to date and if you have changed your product or platform in any way, the images on your pages should reflect those changes.
4. Scale your support with the growth of your company
When starting out, you may have been the go-to person when people wanted support but you must scale the support as you grow. This will ensure that you will be able to work on your business rather than in it. By having good processes in place on how to deal with customer support issues, you will be able to hand over the issues to your employees as you grow so that you can focus on building your empire.
By following these four strategies you will be well on your way to giving your customers the service they want to remain loyal to you.
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