In the end, your customer service personnel is the face of your organization, and their skills and quality will define their experiences. A powerful company already has amazing customers. Good customer service is about being attentive to your clients’  needs and wants. Furthermore, your connections will stagnate if you don’t always look for ways to improve customer service.

Here are some customer service tips to help your team improve:

Tip #1. Improve customer service abilities.

First, make sure your customer care crew has the capabilities to handle consumer requests. No amount of CRM software can make up for this. But what abilities should a customer service rep have?

• A sense of humor. Customers may be enraged. Others will be perplexed. Others will simply chatter. Your team must be able to handle them all and deliver the same level of service.
• Adaptability. Every consumer is unique, and some appear to change from week to week. Therefore, you should be able to handle the unexpected and adjust to the customer’s mood. Good customer service requires a constant learning process.
• Excellent Communication Skills Make sure you say exactly what you mean. No one wants to think they’re getting 50% off when they’re actually getting 50% more merchandise. Furthermore, never finish a conversation without confirming that the customer is satisfied.
• Work Ethic. Customers appreciate a rep that will follow up on their issue. At the same time, you must be able to manage your time well and not waste it on one customer while others wait. Therefore, focus is necessary in order to strike the correct balance.
• Knowledge. In the end, your customers rely on your product knowledge. Therefore, know enough to answer most questions and know where to go if the questions are too difficult or technical. However, don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know. Your customers will appreciate both your diligence and your candor.
• Thick Skin. Accepting blame or negative feedback is vital. Customer satisfaction is paramount, whether your team interacts directly with clients or solicits input via social media.

2. Examine each touchpoint.

A poor customer experience at any point in the lifecycle of your relationship can be damaging. Therefore, you must have the right skills available at the right time. In addition, focus on critical touchpoints. However, also ensure that you have a complete picture of the client experience in order to avoid costly service gaps.

3. Improve customer interactions.

It helps if your personnel has the right skills. However, they must still relate to your customers. Here are some customer service tips for providing the best service:

• Ask salespeople to find common ground with the people they assist. This knowledge helps resolve conflicts by humanizing the relationship and endears clients to your rep and ultimately to your company.
• Actively listen to your customers. Ask questions to clarify and restate what customers say. Encourage them by saying things such as, “I understand how you feel” or “I understand your frustration.”
• Admit your faults, even if you find them first. This restores confidence and trust.
  It also allows you to regain control of the situation and fix the issue.
• After-problem follow-up. Make sure there is resolution and that your consumers are happy. Sending a follow-up email or feedback survey shows the customer you are still on their side.

4. Expand your customer service strategy.

Your employees may be able to interact with your clients. However, how do you please customers as an organization? Therefore, make your customers happy with you before they have a chance to complain. How do you do this?

• Be Persuasive. Your customers want to talk to real people, not bots or FAQs.
  Therefore, make use of social media and make comments to your consumers’ posts. In addition, publish images and bios online. This demonstrates to your clients that you are human.
• Show up. Providing a personal touch includes being accessible. Always be flexible, especially if your clients are in different time zones.
• Cater to your clients. Ensure you thoroughly satisfy your customers. Therefore, consider assigning salespeople to individual clients to foster relationships. In addition, show your appreciation by giving your finest customers VIP treatment.
• Form groups. Treat your consumers like valuable members of a community. You can connect customers via webinars, social media, interactive websites, trade exhibits, or conferences.

5. Reps who are engaged are more effective.

The best customer service skills and training in the world won’t matter if your reps are less than enthusiastic. Improving employee engagement also benefits customers. Employees that are unhappy are unlikely to speak up. Therefore, consider an anonymous tip box or an employee engagement survey.

A supportive staff is one of the best customer service tips. Sometimes that means huddling up and encouraging yourselves before a long day of work.

6. Allow customers to submit feedback.

No matter how proactive you are, you can never anticipate every client’s concerns. Therefore, create an easy mechanism for customers to provide feedback. That way, you can learn about their experiences.

Furthermore, having a way for customers to provide feedback makes it easier to learn what needs improving. Additionally, it keeps angry consumers from venting on public forums like your social media platforms. Your customers will always notice your commitment to offering top-notch, proactive customer service.

Image Credit: Andrea Piacquadio; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 6 Ways to Help Your Team Improve on Their Customer Service appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

However, there is one thing that your sales team alone cannot cure. And that is customer churn. If customers don’t return, no amount of new customers can help achieve a steady growth rate for your business.

Yet many sales and marketing leaders in organizations are always busy looking “out there” for new customers instead of introspecting and improving customer retention. In fact, a paltry 40% of businesses are equally prioritizing both customer retention and acquisition.

Don’t let your company fall into the same trap. You should find ways to delight and generate more revenue from your current customers than relying solely on acquiring new customers. Below, we’ll look at the top reasons why.

Why You Should Prioritize Customer Retention

There are several benefits that make customer retention critical to your company’s bottom line.

Every loyal customer presents an opportunity to develop a brand advocate, get more referrals, and encourage word-of-mouth marketing. Let’s take a closer look at each key advantage, one by one.

Get positive word of mouth.

75% of customers loyal to a brand will refer their friends and family to the same. And this desire to spread the word comes from the customer retention efforts of the brand.

A decision to prioritize customer retention initiatives has the power to convert customers into brand advocates, increasing your likelihood of gaining referrals. A recommendation from a third party can be the final nudge that moves a prospect to action and persuade them to buy from you.

When customers are happy with your brand, you can even launch a referral program to realize their full potential in promoting your business. Ellevest is a great example. The company rewards both the referrer and the referee for each successful transaction.

To launch a similar program, you can use a tool such as Early Parrot. It lets you create referral marketing campaigns. These can seamlessly integrate with any of the major website builders in the market.

However, you can’t expect such an initiative to work without a focus on retaining customers. Disengaged customers are less likely to tell others about you, even if you reward them for doing so.

Boost conversion rates.

A customer who has bought from your business twice is 9 times more likely to purchase again than a new buyer, as per a study by Adobe. In other words, current customers help you get more conversions and make more money.

CVS Pharmacy is great at targeting present customers, for example. The company sends customers personalized email messages with deals and coupons based on what they have purchased before.

An email campaign is not the only way to target current customers. You can also insert Google Ads or Facebook pixels within your website’s code. These snippets can be used to run advertising that targets people who have already visited or purchased from your website.

Since the customers are likely to need similar products again, a retargeting campaign allows the company to bring customers back and sell more in the process.

Increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

In case you’re unaware, customer lifetime value is the total monetary worth of a customer during the period of their relationship with your business. And it’s an important metric that speaks to the overall financial health of your company.

A recent study suggests that 37% of buyers will shell out more money on a business if they’re loyal to the brand. So repeat customers are not just more likely to buy from you as we discussed above, but they are also inclined to spend more.

The result? High CLV and low cost of marketing, which brings us to the next benefit of prioritizing customer retention.

Reduce marketing expenses.

It is widely agreed that customer acquisition costs more than customer retention.

When you acquire customers, you also get to learn about the best ways to reach them. And you have the contact information to reach them again and again in a cost-effective manner.

Acquiring new customers, on the other hand, requires you to allocate a dedicated budget to sourcing new leads, advertising your website, lead nurturing, and customer onboarding. No matter how careful you are, you are always left with a huge dent in your pocket.

Get predictable revenue.

Running a business is a game of risk and uncertainty. But that doesn’t mean you can overlook ways to minimize them as much as possible. And that’s another aspect where customer retention shines more than customer acquisition.

As we discussed above, happy and satisfied customers will keep buying from you again and again. As a result, your overall revenue is more steady and predictable.

In fact, annual subscriptions — a recent business model that has taken the world by storm — relies solely on a business’s ability to retain customers as the main source of growth.

When a customer pays for the annual subscription, the business has a certain amount of assured income for the whole year. And at the end of 12 months, customers renew their subscription based on their needs and level of satisfaction with the product or service.

The global SaaS market (subscription software) is projected to touch $437 billion in 2025, at a CAGR of 12.5%. So you can imagine the kind of growth possible with retaining customers for the long-term.

By retaining customers, you can say goodbye to your day-to-day sales worries and focus more on the future vision of your brand.

Shield your business from the competition.

The more customers connect with your business, the more habitual they get in terms of preferring your brand. They do not get easily swayed by other brands as long as your product or service is working fine for them. And this is a huge competitive advantage to have in a fickle world.

A brilliant example of a brand that builds customer loyalty with an authentic connection is Bombas. The company openly communicates its philanthropic mission of donating to the needy, which plays a big role in customer retention.

When customers are served with stories that help them connect with a brand’s mission and values, they experience a strong sense of loyalty.

Improve business operations.

82% of consumers agree that they would move to another brand if they experience poor customer service from the brand they were loyal to. As scary as it seems, the truth is that it takes just one bad experience to push buyers away from your business.

That means you must do everything in your power to ensure that your business operations are aligned with customer preferences. And that’s another area where customer retention can help.

Loyal customers give you a valuable source of feedback that helps improve your products, services, and overall customer experience.

Case in point: Southwest Airlines. The company quickly follows up with customers who voice a negative experience or a piece of feedback, even on social media platforms. In doing so, it gets insights straight from the customers instead of relying only on internal research and development.

Wrapping Up

The value of acquiring new customers can’t be denied. However, it’s equally important to level up your customer retention strategy. If you’re focusing only on empowering your sales reps while your customer success team is grasping at straws, then you’re compromising your organization’s potential to succeed.

The solution? Give equal weightage to customer retention. As we discussed above, customer retention is crucial for the long-term sustainability of your business. Moreover, it gives you new opportunities to leverage the trust you have built with current customers to take your business to the next level.

After all, customer retention is what differentiates one-hit wonders from strong and stable brands that dominate their industry for decades.

The post Why You Should Prioritize Customer Retention Over Customer Acquisition  appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

If you’re still looking for marketing ideas to try (and master) then this is the Smart Hustle Recap for you! Today we will be featuring a number of marketing strategies that work for small business owners, including developing a return on relationships, designing personalized products, creating a stunning business logo, and using hashtags to your benefit.

Marketing Strategies that Work #1: Return on Relationships

You have likely heard of ROI, or return on investment, but what about ROR? ROR stands for return on relationships, and in this Smart Hustle interview, Ted Rubin (who coined the phrase) will tell you what it is, how you can grow ROR through social media, and how ROR will impact your bottom line.

Click to read Ted Rubin on How to Maximize Your Return on Relationships (ROR)

Marketing Strategies that Work #2: Personalized Products

In this second Smart Hustle interview, we hear from Gustav Reyes, who has found success creating wooden rings. In addition to inspiration, the article will teach you about the benefit of creating your own niche, including personalizing the customer experience with customizable, intimate gifts that are sure to draw the customers in.

Click to read How to Pursue Your Business Dreams – An Interview with Gustav Reyes

Marketing Strategies that Work #3: Business Logo

Your business logo gives your company a visual identity. It sends a message about what your business is about, and it helps customers recognize your brand when they see it. Certain elements of the business logo, (like meaning, color, representation, design contrast, and a timeless appearance) should be planned out in advance to get the biggest impact. If you’re just starting out (or looking to rebrand with a new logo), this article has the essential design information you need.

Click to read 5 Essential Elements of an Eye-Catching and Memorable Business Logo

Marketing Strategies that Work #4: Hashtags

Hashtags were made popular on Twitter almost a decade ago, but now they are a staple of all social media sites. Used correctly, hashtags can help categorize and publicize your social media messages to reach a wider audience, but if done wrong, they can scare your followers away. If you’re still struggling with hashtags in your small business, this article offers 3 simple ways to use them effectively.

Click to read Hashtags Can Help Your Small Business Be One of the Big Guys

Marketing will always be somewhat of a mystery because it is not an exact science, but if you take the time to do your research, you can create a solid marketing plan for your small business. Explore the above articles to learn about these marketing strategies that work, and for help with other marketing and business questions, check out the Smart Hustle homepage.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Marketing Strategies That Work Including Return on Relationships, Hashtags, Logos & More appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.