5 Ways to improve customer experience
In times like these, when the competition is intense, and new businesses are popping up everywhere, having a strong customer base for your company becomes immensely important. So, ask yourselves, is your company working hard to improve customer experience? Providing them with the best customer service should be a priority of every company. You cannot hope to retain your customers if you are not making sufficient efforts to provide them with support and after-service. Their experience is paramount to your company’s success.
While having a dedicated staff of trained employees handling your customer’s queries and troubles through phone calls and emails is essential, you need to go further and beyond to get their vote of confidence in your brand. You need employees with the best of knowledge and people skills dealing with your customers to guide them efficiently through their issues. Ensuring your service staff is sufficiently trained, comprehends your product, possesses exceptional communication skills, and has a patient and empathetic nature is the first step. But there is so much more you can do to improve the customer experience overall. Below, we share five such ways with you.
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Live chats
It is a simple yet effective way to help out your customers. Being available to your customers in real-time is a proactive approach that is highly appreciated. There are times when browsing through your website or social media that customers have some questions. Having a live chat option available ensures that the problem is addressed immediately, increasing the chances of the customer making a purchase. In such instances, delayed communication can result in the loss of lead conversions. Now, there are even options to have a chat-bot if your employees are not always available to help. The bots can be customized as per your requirements, providing appropriate responses and information links to your customers to give them answers. Not only is it a way to provide quick assistance to your customers, but it also helps in increasing conversions for your company.
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Automatic callback system
Please don’t keep your customers waiting when they try to get in touch with your customer support. It can be infuriating and might give your customer the impression that you don’t value their time. Instead, use an automatic callback system for your call support. If the lines are busy, any customer who calls your company’s support lines can leave their phone numbers and are then called back soon as an operator is available. It helps the customers to avoid the unnecessary waiting period and keeps them in good spirits. So, if your company doesn’t already have this system, you might want to consider getting it.
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Self-service knowledge base
Each customer varies from the other. While some of your customers may prefer to call up your support lines when in need of help, some customers would rather try themselves to solve the problem first. Make sure your company caters to these customers as well. Establish a detailed ‘self-service knowledge base’ for such customers. It is a hub of information you provide to your customers that has solutions. It can be in the form of FAQs, articles, guides, videos, and infographics. A company that analyzes its customer services is usually aware of the common questions asked and issues faced by their customers. Accordingly, they can provide relevant answers and solutions to them, or any other general questions, on their websites and social media accounts in advance. It is also an efficient way to decrease traffic to your customer support lines.
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Customer portals
Improve customer experience by having customer portals for your business. It is a perfect way to personalize the experience for your customers. Whether it is services or products, or clients, partners, or customers, having a portal allows you to build an individual relationship with them based on their history. Using their accounts, a customer can get access to all the information regarding their last purchases and get suggestions and recommendations based on their browsing history. You can also include premium offers and perks to your esteemed customers. A customized experience through portals is convenient for customers and thus keeps them more interested in your brand.
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Surveys and feedbacks
Surveys are an effective way for your customers to relate their experiences to you, good or bad, and for you to make the necessary changes to improve and grow. No matter how well you try to cover every area of customer service, sometimes it’s just not enough. You can’t please every customer, but based on their feedback, you can certainly make changes where changes can be made. So, include surveys where possible. Keep in mind that customers don’t like to spend too long on forms, so keep them short but meaningful. It lets the customers know that you value their opinions and helps you to gain insight into your system and improve your customer services.
These are five simple ways through which you can make your customers feel valued. It can help improve customer experience and don’t forget, happy customers tend to come back for more.