15 Important Tips To Help You Keep Your Customers(SCRIPT)

According to the Harvard Business School, increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 percent to 95 percent.

This is important to consider when evaluating your own customer loyalty strategies because in the customer service echo-chamber there is a lot of “hoo rah” about taking care of customers, but little discussion on the business side of things.

In order to help you increase your own retention rates, we’ve compiled a list of our 15 favorite tips (backed by academic research and case studies) on increasing customer loyalty, divided into five easy-to-browse sections: Communication, Selling, Reciprocity, Support, and Loyalty Programs.

Let’s begin!

Communication

It’s hard to create loyal customers if they aren’t paying attention to you. Given this fact, below are our favorite bits of research on clear communication with customers.

1. Stand for something.

The quickest way to get customers to ignore you is to not stand for anything. A study by the Corporate Executive Board that included 7,000 consumers from across the U.S. found that of those consumers who said they had a strong relationship with a brand, 64 percent cited shared values as the primary reason. If you want loyal customers, you need them to care about you.

So what do YOU stand for?

2. Utilize positive social proof.

While negative social proof (“Nearly 90 percent of websites don’t use heat mapping software!”) has been proven to dissuade customers rather than encourage them, numerous studies on customer motivation have shown that positive social proof (“Join 20,000 of your peers!”) is often the most effective strategy for getting people to listen.

3. Invoke the inner ego.

Despite what we often say, most people like things that resemble them in some way. This cognitive bias is called implicit egotism, and is an important thing to keep in mind when communicating with customers. In order to attract the sort of customers you want, you need to identify your target customers down to the last detail and then craft a brand message that perfectly matches their pains, goals and aspirations. It’s easier to fill this existing demand than to create one.

Selling

If customers don’t enjoy your selling process, they’ll likely never do business with you again. Thus, selling to customers the “correct” way is an integral part of creating customer loyalty. Below are a few studies to help you improve the process.

4. Use the words they love to hear.

Not all words are created equal. Certain persuasive words encourage customers to buy more than others, in particular: free, new, and instantly. When customers hear these words (and the promises they imply are backed up), they’ll enjoy their purchases more than they would have otherwise.

5. Reduce pain points and friction.

All businesses, no matter the industry, are going to have to sell to the three types of buyers that are out there. According to neuroeconomics experts, nearly a quarter of these buyers will be conservative spenders,  or “tightwad” customers. George Lowenstein of Carnegie Mellon University recommends using bundles, reassuring words (e.g., change “a $5 fee” to “a small $5 fee”), and reframing as strategies to better sell to these conservative buyers. Read more about his advice here.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity is the social construct that makes the world go ’round… or in your case, keeps your customers coming back. The premise is simple: Go above and beyond for customers and get rewarded with repeat business. The execution, however, can be trickier, so below is a compilation of interesting research on how to improve reciprocity with your customers.

6. Realize that budget is negligible.

Giving back to customers can appear incredibly costly, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead, embrace the art of the frugal wow by understanding that reciprocity is built even with small gestures. In fact, psychologist Norbert Schwarz found that as little as 10 cents can create reciprocity between two individuals (it really is the thought that counts!).

7. Utilize surprise reciprocity.

Although reciprocity works incredibly well on it’s own, research shows that it is even *more* powerful when started by surprise. For a simple example, recall a time that someone did something nice for you unexpectedly; the gesture probably wasn’t all that unusual, but the fact that it came out of nowhere left a strong impression on you.

8. Make it personal.

In a study from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers found that waiters could increase their tips by 23 percent by the simple act of returning to tables with a second set of mints. So do mints have magic powers? Apparently not: The researchers concluded that the mints created the feeling of a personalized experience among the customers who received them. So it was the personalized service received that made them enjoy their experience so much more.

Support

This one is a no-brainer: You can’t create a tribe of loyal customers without an exceptional customer service experience that keeps them coming back. In this section, we’re going to bust a few customer service myths wide open, as well as tackle some important things you need to keep in mind when offering support online.

9. Speed is secondary to quality.

When it comes to customer service that keeps people coming back, the research shows that quality matters more than speed. According to a study by the Gallup Group, customers were nine times more likely to be engaged with a brand when they evaluated the service as “courteous, willing, and helpful,” versus the “speedy” evaluation, which only made customers six times more likely to be engaged.

10. Customers enjoy businesses who know them.

Telling your employees to spend more time with customers might seem like folly, but smart entrepreneurs know that isn’t the case. Numerous behavioral psychology studies have shown that everybody views their service experience as more positive when they don’t feel rushed or ignored. Don’t spend time idly, though; have employees attempt to find out key customer traits, just like Derek Sivers did with his employees at CD Baby.

11. Choose the right platform.

The best way to improve your online customer service efforts is to utilize the channel your customers most prefer. Although recent research has shown that a majority of people still prefer and use email more than other services (including social networking), you need to pick the channel that makes the most sense for your business. Hosting companies know that online chats are critical when their customers’ sites go down, but other businesses may have customers who are just fine using email as their primary method of contact.

12. Make it a communal effort.

Countless case studies have made one thing clear when it comes to creating an efficient support system: You need to keep everybody in the loop. At Help Scout, we use tools like Campfire to access real-time notifications of what’s happening on the customer end; we were able to improve our response time by 340 percent by enabling a support room that all employees can access. Read more about how we did it.

Loyalty Programs

The key to creating customer loyalty programs that work is to know why customers use them and what gets customers to keep using them. Below you’ll find consumer research that answers these questions.

13. Get people started.

Consumer researchers Joseph Nunes and Xavier Dreze are known for their studies on The Endowed Progress Effect. Their results have conclusively shown that the biggest wall that prevents customer loyalty programs from sticking is getting people started. They’ve shown through their notorious “car wash study” that people are twice as likely to finish loyalty cards if they are automatically started (or rewarded) as soon as they sign up. Read more about this process here.

14. Get ideal customers to be VIPs.

Additional research by Nunes on loyalty programs has shown that people just love being VIPs or gold members of programs. There is one caveat, though: This only works when people know there is a class below them on the totem pole. Speaking to human nature, Nunes saw a notable increase in gold members’ participation as soon as he implemented a lesser silver class.

15. Label your customers.

A research study on voting patterns conducted by Stanford University conclusively showed that people are more likely to participate in something if they are labeled with a positive trait. Our friends at Bufferrefer to their premium customers as “awesome” members, and even label their upgraded payment plan as the “Awesome Plan”—a much easier phrase to embrace than “paid member.”

Customer Service Basics

Ready for a little customer service calisthenics? As customer support professionals, it is a best practice to re-examine our basic service skills every now and then, and do some customer service jumping jacks. Let us take a look at what market research tells us about what customers desire from a service provider, and make sure that our skills match their needs.

What do customers really want when they contact your support center? Exactly what you want when you are a customer, but have a hard time verbalizing. Research done by Dr. Leonard Berry and his colleagues at  Texas A&M University (1994) indicate that there are five main service factors that contribute to customer satisfaction and loyalty. They are:

Reliability: This is providing dependable and accurate service. In technical service, this means providing consistently accurate answers and doing what you promise.

Responsiveness: This is the willingness to respond to customer needs. From an operational point of view in the contact center, this translates to answering the phone or electronic requests quickly. From an interpersonal stance, it means being willing to do what it takes to respond effectively to a service request.

Assurance: This is providing well-informed, knowledgeable service, performed with competence and confidence.

Empathy: This means providing caring and personal service. Service providers convey empathy when they listen for the hidden meaning in what a customer is saying, acknowledging the emotion, and offering caring assistance.

Tangibles: This translates to the professional appearance of communication materials, buildings, or service providers. This has to do with image of your organization and your personal image.

These factors are what customers expect when they interact with a service provider. Let us look at each one and determine how we, as support center professionals, can provide what the customers want.

Reliability

In the support center, what does providing reliable service mean? It means that the customer gets the same courteous, pleasant and knowledgeable service every time they contact you.

Have you and your colleagues adopted the reliability motto that states, “Under-promise, over-perform”? This guideline simply reminds you to set expectations with your customer at a reasonable level, but one at which you can consistently exceed their expectations. That means giving yourself, and your colleagues, a little wiggle room in your promises to customers. For example, if you need to research a problem for a customer, and you think you can call them back in two hours, discipline yourself to tell the customer that you will get back to them in four hours. This helps you account for those unexpected emergencies that might come up, yet still meet your customer’s expectations.

A good time to use the “under-promise, over-perform” rule is when dispatching a deskside technician to a customer’s office. If your service level agreement dictates that the technician will arrive within four hours, by all means, set that expectation with the customer. However, if the response time is less rigid, be sure to set expectations at a level that the deskside technician is sure to meet. If you think that he or she can get there in two hours, set expectations for three hours. Again, this allows for unexpected emergencies that might arrive that would not allow the technician to arrive in the usual amount of time.

Responsiveness

The second factor for customer satisfaction and loyalty is responsiveness. Responsiveness is adopting a can-do attitude, and a willingness to go the extra mile for the customer.

Much recent research supports the theory that soft skills (such as listening, empathy, courtesy and creating rapport) are more important than technical skills in the career advancement of any employee. This is especially true in the support industry, where most managers have realized that they must hire people who have a good attitude or approach to serving customers plus an aptitude for technical knowledge, and that the rest can be taught. A positive attitude is the first step in building good soft skills.

You have control over your attitude. Just like you can choose what clothes to wear in the morning, you can also choose what attitude to assume every day. You can choose to see the glass as half empty, or half full. Your approach, or attitude, toward life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your attitude is “Everyone is out to get me!”, then you will interpret everything that happens to you as part of a conspiracy. On the other hand, if you approach your job and your life in a positive way, positive experiences will be yours. That is the law of attraction, expressed as “what goes around, comes around”. What you put out will come back to you.

So, what is your choice?  A positive or negative attitude? How is your can-do attitude?  Here are a few questions to assess your attitude. Rate yourself on a scale of 1-5, where:

1= never, 2=rarely, 3=sometimes, 4=frequently, 5= all the time

1. Do I take ownership of a problem and see it through to completion?

2. Am I willing to help both customers and co-workers?

3. Do I consciously assume a positive outlook with customers and co-workers?

4. Am I respectful and courteous to the customer?

5. Do I speak and conduct myself confidently with customers?

6. Do I treat everyone with respect and courtesy?

7. Do I put myself in the customer’s shoes?

How did you do?  If you scored 30 or better, you should congratulate yourself on your can-do attitude. Below that, some soul searching is in order to see if you can choose a better attitude each morning.

Assurance

A good technique in providing customers with assurance (providing well-informed, knowledgeable service that is performed with competence and confidence) is to tell a customer what you are going to do, before you do it. This technique is called headlining, in the sense that a newspaper article’s headline tells you what you are going to read before you read it.

As a customer, it is very frustrating to be dealing with a service provider who does not tell you what he is doing. The silence that ensues confuses the customer and does not assure the customer of the service provider’s competence. On the phone, you know you have not done a good job of headlining if, after a period of silence, your customer says, “Are you still there?”  The customer does not feel cared for if she has to guess if you are still on the line.

Headlining is the mark of a professional service provider. It is easy and quick to do, and pays off handsomely in satisfied customers.  A good instance in which to headline is when you need to spend a moment looking up some information in the database.  You can say, “It will take me just a minute to look that up in our records.” This gives the customer the assurance that you are working on their behalf.

Another way of providing assurance to customers is to build their confidence in your ability to help them. These can be done with a hero statement, delivered once you understand and have confirmed the customer’s problem. A hero statement simply tells the customer that you can help them solve the problem.

Examples of hero statements:

“Yes, Mrs. Customer, I can help you with that problem.”

OR

“I’m glad to help you with your printer problem, Mr. Customer.”

A hero statement makes you feel good about yourself and builds your own self-confidence!  That is why we call it a hero statement – you feel like a hero!

Empathy

Empathy is the fourth factor in providing outstanding customer service. This skill is especially important when dealing with a customer who is irritated, angry or emotional.

When we are emotional, it is difficult for us to act rationally. This is because of the way our brains are structured. Our emotional brain, which is a relatively primitive part of the human brain, in essence “hijacks” the rest of our more rational, analytical brain and takes control. To get someone out of the grip of the emotional brain and pass the power over to the analytical brain takes one of three things:  1) the intervention of a skilled listener or customer service professional, 2) a concerted effort on the part of the emotional person or 3) the passing of time. It is important to understand this as we deal with emotional, upset or angry customers, and indeed anyone in our lives.

There is a remedy for calming an emotional person, and it is called empathy. Empathy simply acknowledges the emotion that the customer feels. Its power can be summed up like this:

Empathy absorbs emotion.

If you want to be able to deal rationally with an emotional customer, or if you simply want to ensure that an interaction does not escalate into an emotional one, remember to use empathy. If sincerely applied (and sometimes you need to empathize more than once), it works like a charm in most instances.

Here are some examples of empathy statements:

“I can hear how frustrated you are.”

“I can see how that would annoy you.”

“Gee, I understand how time critical this is.”

“I would be unhappy if that happened to me, too.”

Tangibles

The last factor in providing customers what they seek is called tangibles. This encompasses the professional image that you project to your customers. Here is how you can project a professional image to customers on the phone.

Smile

A smile on your face affects how your voice sounds on the phone. Smiling creates more pleasant resonance in a phone voice and is the first step in conveying a professional image. Salespeople often use the adage, “Smile and dial!” Other professionals who use the phone place mirrors at their desks so they can check their smile before talking on the phone.

Approach each interaction with a positive attitude

We know how a positive attitude is self-fulfilling. Your customers deserve a cheerful approach on every interaction. Support analysts must perform extreme self-care in order to approach each phone call positively. If you feel you cannot be positive on the next phone call, ask your manager for a few minutes to take a walk or get a bite to eat. Your customers will be grateful that you took a break so you can return with a fresh attitude.

Speak clearly

Mumbling conveys a lack of confidence. Enunciating and speaking in a clear, moderate tone of voice conveys confidence and professionalism.

Mirror the customer’s communication style

Mirroring is a subtle way to conform your behavior to match the behavior of your customer. It is the earnest search for areas of similarity between you and your communication partner, and its purpose is to make people feel comfortable with you. There are several auditory ways to create rapport through mirroring on the phone. Among them are conforming your rate of speech and your tone of voice to that of the customer, using the same verbal expressions and repeating or paraphrasing what the customer has said.

If the customer is speaking slowly and you normally speaking very quickly, moderate your normal rate of speech. If your customer is using a loud voice, speak up just a bit. Remember, you do not want to mirror the  aggressive behavior or anger of a customer. If the customer uses an incorrect technical term, use the same language at first and then gently educate the customer by saying “We also call that the monitor.”

Repeating or paraphrasing is an excellent way to mirror the customer’s communication style. It is also a powerful listening technique. A good time to use paraphrasing is when you are asking a series of questions while troubleshooting. You can repeat or paraphrase a few key words of the customer’s answer to confirm your understanding.

Avoid slang, colloquialisms, profanity and terms of endearment

People from other parts of the country may not understand some of the terms you may use when speaking casually to your friends. Support analysts should always use professional language in speaking to customers, and that does not include profanity, terms of endearment such as honey or sweetie, or slang. Exceptions to these rules are with customers with whom you have a personal relationship, but a wise support analyst will still exercise caution when communicating with any customer.

Conclusion

Now that you know what customers want from a support analyst, it is up to you to provide those five factors of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles.  Each of these represent the jumping jacks of providing great customer service. Enjoy your work out!

reference-kr consulting

5 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service

1) Let Customers Get to Know You – If you’re running your business from an unknown (or internet-only)  location, it makes you more anonymous. This is common nowadays, but adding a “face” or an address to your business could help assure customers that you won’t disappear overnight. You don’t have to rent office space if you don’t really need it; just be upfront about where you operate from and consider ways of contacting customers aside from email. A little personal information can go a long way, and could minimize concerns of accessibility, trust, or safety.

2) Be Available – If a customer can’t get hold of you when they need to, you could lose them forever. We recently changed both our insurance provider and web developer, and the decisions were based on availability and accountability. With the new companies, we get the owner on the phone every time, and they’re there day or night if a catastrophe happens. In our own business, we value face-to-face interaction with customers, which is often a rarity these days. Whether it’s traveling across the country for trade shows or taking time for a quick coffee or Skype session, our strongest relationships are with the customers we know personally and keep in contact with regularly.

3) Specials Services / VIP – Are there special discounts or services you can offer that your competitors don’t? Can you offer something special for existing customers only? Could your services be considered “luxury”? Offering special treatment to your customers will help them to feel taken care of, and it’s also something they might be willing to pay more for. There are so many “bait and switch” offers and promotions “for new customers only”– reward the customers that have been with you the longest.

4) Offer Knowledge – Building strong relationships with our customers is great, but we also get to offer and  trade knowledge with them. In our trade, a customer can compare several competing copies of a book online, but they won’t get a conversation about the title’s complicated printing history. When we’re speaking with customers, we spend the majority of time talking about the merchandise itself, trends in the market, and the customer’s own collecting habits. Afterward, we negotiate a deal. A customer can even know more than you do on a particular topic! Take advantage of this opportunity to learn more.

Trade shows are another great way you can offer knowledge to your customers. Organize seminars with expert speakers to draw potential customers interested in your product or services.

5) Offer Community – Bringing face-to-face interactions, special services, and knowledge together could help you to create a unique community for your customers. This could be an interactive part of your website, a weekly or monthly webinar, or an open house at your physical location. Better yet, organize with similar or local businesses to set up an event, street fair, or convention that could draw a large crowd.

Creating a community is also possible when you’re on the road. Our professional organization works hard to make trade shows part of a larger destination for attendees. We collaborate with other institutions and events, and even plan the location of shows according to the weather (who doesn’t want to go to Southern California in February, when there’s also an exhibit at the local museum?) Not only will traveling make it easier for customers to find you, but coinciding events could be a bigger draw for their attendance and encourage them to spend more time with you.

These tried-and-true methods could improve your relationships with your customers. Have other ways to engage them? Comment here, or join the conversation on social media:

reference-forbesmagzine

Customer Service Skills: A Non-Response is NOT a Good Response

 

We all know that good customer service is important. Good customer service keeps customers happy and eager to do business with our company or organization. With happy customers who are eager to do business  with our company, we are assured of a paycheck. It’s a simple equation:

Happy customers = more revenue for the company = job security

In support centers that deal with customers who call seeking help solving an issue, we sometimes forget that providing excellent service involves more than just fixing the problem. Outstanding service includes making the customer feel good about their interaction with us, and quickly creating a human bond with that customer.

I visit many support centers every year and have opportunities to listen to analysts talking to customers on the phone. A common situation in phone conversations is a “non-response” from the analyst or service agent. It happens when we get too accustomed to hearing the same questions from customers, and don’t take the time to connect with people. We do a good job of fixing the problem, but not of making the customer feel good about it.

The Non-Response

How does the non-response situation play out? Here is a dialogue that demonstrates the non-response:

Customer: “Hi, I’m having trouble getting my reports to print out.”

Analyst: “Can I have your customer number?”

Customer: “Sure, it’s 123456. I’m wondering – is it me or the computer that is causing the problem?”

Analyst: {long silence} “What module are you looking at?”

Customer: “Well, it’s the A/R module of the financial package. I’m running the aging report and I can see it on the screen, but it won’t print. I’m really beginning to wonder if my computer is jinxed!”

Analyst: {long silence} “OK, it’s fixed now. Why don’t you try it and call us back if it doesn’t work?”

Customer: “OK, well, I guess that’s OK. I’ll call back if it isn’t working. Bye.”

Analyst: “Good bye.”

Notice that the analyst fixed the problem, assuming that he/she successfully re-set the printer queue remotely. Congratulations on a job well done, right?  Not so fast – there were several lost opportunities to connect with this customer, opportunities to turn a mundane interaction into a special one. The analyst appears bored and disinterested, as indicated by long silences, ignoring the customer’s question and the lack of acknowledgment of the customer’s leading statements. The customer asked, ““I’m wondering – is it me or the computer that is causing the problem?”  and the analyst replied with an unrelated question. Leading statements such as “I’m having trouble with…” and “I’m really beginning to wonder if the computer is jinxed!” beg for a response. The analyst responds with either silence or by ignoring the comment or question. Neither silence nor a non-response will create a bond or cement a relationship with a customer.

Use Techniques that Avoid the Non-Response

Silence on a call is problematic. Because customers can’t see what the phone analyst is doing, they assume that the analyst is ignoring them. The analyst could be typing, searching the database, waiting for a response,  or just thinking, which are all valid activities, but the customer has no way to know that. When I was a phone analyst, I would sometimes be silent as I was thinking through a problem, and then I would hear the customer say, “Are you still there, Kristin?”  I immediately knew that I hadn’t told them what I was doing. I’d respond  jokingly by saying, “I just don’t seem to be able to two things at once, like think and talk!” My quip would create a chuckle and a connection. In addition to using humor to diffuse a situation, I quickly learned that I needed to tell customers what I was about to do. That technique is called headlining.

Headlining is telling the customer what you are going to do, before you do it. It is the same concept as in a newspaper, in which the headline gives readers a synopsis of the article before they read it. If you need to look up the customer’s number in the database, headline by saying, “One moment while I look up your record in our database.”  That way, the customer doesn’t have to wonder why there is silence on the line.

Another technique to combat the non-response response is to act as if you are looking the customer in the eye, even though you are on the phone. In some of my customer service skills class, we role-play a scenario in which one person tells a story and another is the listener. Unbeknownst to all, I instruct the listener to act bored and uninterested in what the other is saying. All students instinctively know how to do that: they don’t make eye contact, they don’t respond to what the other is saying, they look at their watch, they yawn. I always think of that role-play exercise when I hear a conversation like the one above, because the listener is obviously bored. To counteract giving the impression of being bored or uninterested, you sit up, look the person in the eye (figuratively, if you are on the phone), listen intently and respond appropriately to what they say.

The last technique to consider is empathy. Empathy is the act of putting yourself in the other person’s situation. Responding with empathy can be very subtle, but it creates an immediate connection between people. When you use empathy, you demonstrate your similarity to the other person, which creates the feeling of partnership. To empathize, you acknowledge the other’s thought or expressed feeling. For example, if a customer says, “I’m confused by this instruction,” you could respond with “Yes, I can see how it might be confusing”, or “I sometimes get confused by directions myself.”

The Attentive Dialogue

Looking at the same dialogue as above, let’s replace the non-responses with some of the techniques we’ve described:

Customer: “Hi, I’m having trouble getting my reports to print out.”

Analyst: “That’s strange. I’d be glad to help you with that problem, and I need to start with some basics. Can I have your customer number so I can look up your record?”

Customer: “Sure, it’s 123456. I’m wondering – is it me or the computer that is causing the problem?”

Analyst: (chuckling) “Well, I sometimes wonder that same thing about my car in the morning. Could you tell me what module you are looking at?”

Customer: “Well, it’s the A/R module of the financial package. I’m running the aging report and I can see it on the screen, but it won’t print. I’m really beginning to wonder if my computer is jinxed!”

Analyst: “I doubt that the computer is jinxed, because I can see that the printer queue is stalled and it looks like I can start it from here. OK, it’s fixed now. Why don’t you try it while I’m on the phone to make sure it’s working?”

Customer: “OK, well, here goes. Oh my gosh – here comes the report!  Wow, that’s great. You’ve been a terrific help. Thanks.”

Analyst: “My pleasure. Is there anything else I can do to help you today?”

Customer: “No, I’m all set. And thanks again.”

Analyst: “You’re welcome. Please don’t hesitate to call us again. Goodbye.”

This formerly mundane conversation suddenly became an outstanding customer interaction. By using humor, headlining, empathy and filling in silences, the analyst made a connection with the customer. Moreover, the customer responded with gratitude and excitement. That kind of customer response is immensely gratifying. When I was a phone analyst, I looked forward to the customer’s excitement and gratitude at the end of the call. That made my day.

 reference-krconsulting

How to Make Your Customers Feel Welcome

We’re all customers. Whether you’re a business owner or not, I know you’ve been through it. You shop at the shopping mall, eat at the restaurant, or check in at the hotel. You know how it is to be treated as a customer. I, myself, as a customer, have already experienced both bad and good things when visiting stores and offices where I go to buy the products or services I need. Unfortunately, I have more terrible experiences than good ones. A disrespectful salesperson, a timewaster manager, totally poor services, these are only some of the awful things I’ve encountered as a customer. Business establishments that have those kinds of services will not surely make you feel welcome. And when you don’t have the feeling of being welcome as a customer, you will likely wish not to return again. I know that every business owners, who are  also customers, understand what I’m saying. Thus, if you want your customers to keep coming back on your doorstep, you should learn how to make your customers always feel welcome.

To make your customers feel truly welcome and appreciated, and not just for the sake of some sort of marketing or PR obligation, learn on the following ways to WELCOME your clients or customers.

W – Warm welcome

The quickest way to make your customers feel welcome is to give that warm welcome right at your doorstep. There are simple and tiny ways to do that. Unfortunately, most business owners ignore those tiny things that can actually make a big difference when it comes to attracting more loyal customers, as well as more sales and profit. Check out the following easy things you can do to welcome your customers right at your doorstep:

1. Train your receptionist, security guard, and all your staff to smile and greet their customers when they first see them.

2. Make your parking space inviting to clients.

3. Put a happy welcome sign at your doorstep.

4. Put enough chairs in your reception area for clients.

5. Provide magazines and other reading materials for clients while they are waiting.

6. Put a jar of candies in the waiting area to compliment your clients’ visit.

7. Keep away signs that can make your clients feel like outsiders. For example “silence we are working”.

8. Keep your business system organized. For example the system you are using for accepting payments at the counter or the system for making customers fall in line. A chaotic business system surely drives away customers.

 E – Enthusiasm

If your customers will feel that you and your staff are happy when they visit your office, they will surely keep themselves coming back. On the other hand, if your customers will feel that their visit on your office seems to be a burden to you and your people, they will surely be hesitant to do business again with you. Therefore, all I can say is that you and your staff should learn how to enjoy how you do business with your customers. Be thankful that customers are visiting your business establishment to buy your products or services. As the boss of your company, you should teach your employees to also be grateful to their customers. One way to effectively make them grateful is to give them incentives or bonus when sales are increasing. That way, they will realize how important customers are to their job. Make them realize that the customers are the ones who are paying their salaries and bonus, and not you. You should also realize this first… as the employer.

L – Lead

Customers expect direction when they visit your place. And since it is your place, you or your personnel should act as the host that will guide your customers to the right directions. Therefore, don’t let them get lost inside your office or inside your store. Make sure that your place is visitor-friendly. If you’re running a grocery store, organize your goods by grouping and labeling them. If you’re in a service office, make sure that your clients will know whom they will approach. Put clear signs, such as the way to your different departments and the way to your comfort room. Don’t leave your customers without any idea what to do inside your premises. That’s not how to make them feel welcome, but it is instead the opposite. So be a good leader by acting as a good servant who lights up people.

C – Care

Customer care should not only be implemented by business owners to increase their sales and profit. Well, that’s not real customer care – that’s profit care. Care is something you do for others and not for yourself. This is very important to making your customers feel that they are welcome since care shows your sincerity and true feelings towards them. Real customer care involves ensuring that your customers will not only be happy when they enter your premises, but will also be happy when they leave your place. In other words, strive to build up a lasting relationship with your customers through consistently providing them quality, excellence, protection, extra services, and everything that can make their lives better.

O – Openness

Even if you’ll open your door too wide if you don’t open your mind for your customers, that won’t make them really feel welcome. That is why you need to give them truth and honesty. Remember that honesty is the best policy. It also makes customer relationship closer and stronger. Therefore, don’t ever try to fool them and lie for the sake of gaining more financial profit. So make your price tags clear and keep your terms and conditions apparent.

For online businesses that make money online from their online customers through their websites, transparency and disclosures are essential. Yes, customers should not only feel welcome when they visit a physical place of business, but also when they visit a virtual office like a website. That is why business or corporate websites should always include pages, such as company profile, terms and conditions, privacy policy, and other important pages that will increase customers’ understanding, trust and confidence to their business.

M – Meeting of minds

Misunderstanding breaks relationships, and it can also happen to your relationship with customers. That is why you should ensure that they are not only the ones who understand you, but you also understand them. So put the right people who fully understand their jobs. Don’t assign a salesperson who doesn’t know what he or she is selling to customers. That will only result to chaos. Who wants to buy something from someone who doesn’t know what he or she is selling?

To ensure that your customers and your personnel understand with each other, you should start the understanding between you and your personnel. In other words, train and coach your staff to let them become fully oriented and knowledgeable about their jobs, responsibilities, and about your whole company. Meeting of minds should begin within your organization.

E – Execute

Accomplishment, this is the reason why your customers visit your place. They want satisfaction and fulfillment. The last piece of truly welcoming your customers is to try your best to give them what they have come for. Thus, it’s important that you always have the available merchandise in your stock or the available account officer to accommodate your clients’ needs. Business owners should walk the talk. If they cannot walk the talk, they better not talk. And if they have talked, but can’t walk the talk, they should honestly tell it to their customers and give them security.

Conclusion

To make your customers feel welcome, you should not only welcome them inside your premises, but also welcome them inside your heart and mind. It may sounds cheesy, but it is how it works. If your clients don’t feel welcome, then perhaps you don’t have a heart for them. Furthermore, you should also ensure that all your personnel will also have the heart for your customers. There are many simple and small ways to make your customers welcome as we have discussed above. All you need to do is to pay time, attention and respect to them.

reference-businesstips.ph

 

However trite, the customer is the most important person in your business! Why? It’s simple: If there were no customers, there would be no business.

As with any service establishment, it is very important to portray a favorable first impression with your customers. It is important for the survival of your organization to have as many favorable first impressions as possible. Did you know that, on the average, it takes approximately six favorable impressions to overcome one unfavorable impression?

If you’re looking for ways to improve your organization’s reputation for service, I would like to provide you with some proven customer service guidelines that I have found particularly beneficial. They are as follows:

1. TREAT THE CUSTOMER THE SAME WAY YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED! Provide the customer with the same level of service you would expect if the roles were reversed.

2. ANTICIPATE AND ACCOMMODATE YOUR CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS! A nation-wide study asked people what they wanted most as a customer. Approximately 70% indicated that they wanted their needs and desires met prior to having to ask.

3. MAKE THE CUSTOMER FEEL AT HOME! Make your customers feel at home by being courteous and allowing them to feel comfortable and appreciated for doing business with you.

4. ALLOW THE CUSTOMER TO GET THE BEST VALUE FOR THEIR MONEY! Customers look for two things: The quality of the product and the quality of the service.

5. ACT TO SOLVE ANY AND ALL COMPLAINTS AND PROBLEMS TO THE CUSTOMER’S SATISFACTION! It is not the fact that the customer has experienced a complaint, but the way the complaint was handled that will determine if they will return or not. Handle each complaint in a courteous and  professional manner and to their satisfaction.

6. ALWAYS BE WILLING TO DO A LITTLE EXTRA! Go that extra mile to satisfy a customer by always providing excellent service at all times.

7. ALWAYS SMILE, BE FRIENDLY AND COURTEOUS, AND MAKE EYE CONTACT WHEN SPEAKING TO THE CUSTOMER! This shows the customer that you care about their needs and are glad that they are doing business with you. By providing these services to the customers, they will be more likely to do business with you again.

8. NEVER ARGUE WITH THE CUSTOMER! Remember: The customer may not always be right, but the customer will always be the customer. There may be times when the customer is wrong about a certain situation. It is important that you never tell them that they are wrong, but to apologize for their inconvenience and assure them that you will do everything in your power to accommodate them. Again, it’s the approach that is important more than the actual incident itself.

9. LISTEN AND HANDLE ALL CUSTOMER PROBLEMS IN A PROFESSIONAL MANNER! Listen with not only your ears but also with your eyes. Make good eye contact so that they are assured that you are listening and care to solve their problems.

10. IF YOU CANNOT ASSIT A CUSTOMER, DIRECT THEM TO SOMEONE WHO CAN! Never leave a customer unattended. If you don’t know where something is, find out!

Let me share what I believe is the perfect description for organizational success. If the customer decides to do business with your company; and if you provide the customer with excellent services and/or products; and you are able to “exceed” their expectations; and as a result, the customer returns to do business with you again in the future; then your organization is successful. In the end, an organization will succeed as a result of “return business,” It’s return business that will make or break your establishment, not the first timers.

Handling customer complaints is another issue to be tackled. As mentioned earlier, it’s not the fact that the customer may have experienced a complaint, but how it was handled that will determine if the customer will return again.

In summary, excellent customer relations in business and industry today is vital. All other establishments offer nice products. It’s the service that will make the difference.

 reference-http://www.selfgrowth.com/