When companies provide a positive customer experience, it helps to increase brand loyalty which results in a better reputation, more sales and increased exposure through word of mouth. There are plenty of advantages to making your customers feel more valued, but a lot of businesses tend to neglect this all-important facet of doing business.
Regardless if you’re a humble store selling baked goods or a multinational company working with clients across the world, creating a positive customer experience that makes them feel valued should be one of the very first things that you focus on. If you fail this step, then it drastically reduces customer loyalty and your brand won’t feel memorable or stand out at all.
So to give you a hand, we’ve put together some extremely simple ways for you to drastically improve the customer experience and make them feel more valued.
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Pay attention to what your customers are saying
It’s incredibly important for you to pay attention to what your customers are saying. Never leave a phone call unanswered, always reply to their emails and make sure you read their messages to you on social media. Even if you don’t have a response (or if a message doesn’t need a response) it helps to read them so you can get a good understanding of what your customers think of your brand.
This is arguably one of the best ways to get feedback from your customers since they’re more likely to share what they think if they contact you directly. Of course, this isn’t the only way to get feedback, but it does help to solidify the relationship you have with your customers.
Teach your staff to be courteous towards customers
You should also be teaching your staff (and yourself!) to be courteous towards customers. A simple but genuine “thank you” to your customers and clients can make a huge difference in how they perceive you. It can be the start of a wonderful client relationship and it can drastically change the way your audience sees you.
If you’re having trouble teaching your staff how to be more courteous, then it’s worth hiring a consultant that specialises in customer and client relationships.
Listen to feedback from customers on multiple different channels
We’ve already mentioned that you should pay attention to what your customers are saying, but it’s also important to identify the various channels that they use to give feedback and discuss your brand. For example, social media is a great example of a place where you can essentially get free feedback about your business. While some people will directly message or tag you, there are others that will only mention you briefly.
Doing a quick search on social media will help you get a better understanding of what people are saying about your business. It shows how they feel regarding your company and it could be insightful to see where they have trouble with your business, what they like and what you could improve on. Your customers are often described as your most valued consultant because they’re the ones buying your products and visiting your stores. There’s no better place to receive free feedback that can improve your business and make your customers feel more valued.
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Provide the best support you can
Providing a high-quality level of service is a great way to ensure that your customers feel valued. If you offer a product or service that can be fairly complicated to use, then you’ll find yourself getting a lot of questions about how to use those products or to help customers fix certain issues. One of the best ways to reduce the frequency of these common questions is to create a knowledge base of questions and answers. This is a simple yet effective way of helping your customers deal with their issues with your products and services.
If you want to provide a more personalised approach to support, then you should consider using the best live video chat apps available. While these are mostly used to do live video chats between employees, they can also be used to provide customer support. This is especially true for physical products that your customer wants to show you before asking questions about it.
Reward your customers for being with you for a long time
Loyalty rewards are nothing new, but they’re often neglected in modern businesses. Make sure you keep track of statistics like how long a customer has shopped with you. This will help you choose which customers should be sent discounts and rewards to make them feel valued for being with you for a long time.
Simple discounts are a great option for rewarding customers, but offering a personalised message can also be a fantastic way to make them feel valued. With some clients, you may want to give them expensive rewards or gifts as thanks for working with your company for a long time.
Be transparent and never lie to your audience
You should also be honest at all times when speaking to your audience. Did your company mess up a shipment of products, thus causing delays? If so, be open about it and discuss the problem before someone else finds out and reports it. Admitting to your mistakes is incredibly difficult, especially if you have a lot of eyes on you, but the temporary humiliation you’ll face is much better than the loss of customer loyalty.
If you’ve ever met a company that went above and beyond to make you feel valued then you’ll know exactly why you should focus on this as a priority. Customers love sharing positive experiences they’ve had with brands. That kind of news can easily spread and drastically improve your image in the eyes of your audience. It promotes brand loyalty, it attracts new customers and it ultimately improves your company as a whole. If you’re struggling to create a positive customer experience that makes your customers feel valued, then these tips should give you a great starting point.
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