Every business hopes to retain its customers while also winning over new ones. A majority of businesses concentrate on regular adverts and product promotions, forgetting customer service. It refers to customers’ degree of satisfaction following their transaction with a company. Customer service forms a large portion of their perception regarding business. All businesses, regardless of the nature of their products and services, must focus on establishing appropriate customer service as part of their business activities.
Establish a customer helpline
Every business should have a functional customer helpline. Its purpose is to tend to any customer concerns, complaints, and even compliments. Businesses should insist on contracting professional answering services for their helplines. This provides access to professionals who have been trained in appropriate customer handling. In the past, there were many cases of companies that lost business either because their helplines were not available or the agents were unethical. That should never be the case. The helpline should instead play a vital role in convincing clients to work with your company.
Marketing
This goes beyond promoting a company’s product to its target market. An essential aspect of any marketing campaign should include collecting feedback from customers. Customers often have various concerns or suggestions regarding the current quality of certain products or services. Through market research, a company’s marketing team can collect and analyze such data for purposes of product development. Marketing may even result in the creation of an entirely new product line aimed at meeting arising consumer needs.
Social media interactions
Social media has provided an effective and affordable platform where organizations can interact with their customers. The effect that social media has on marketing and customer service is irrefutable. Customers, upon using a product, have been known to post about their experience with it. The experience may be either positive or negative. Businesses may utilize various social media data analytic tools to evaluate the kind of feedback they receive from their customers. An increase in the number of negative reviews calls for immediate attention to address public concern.
After-sales services
These play a vital role in gaining customer loyalty. These refer to all those services accorded to a client after they have completed the purchase of a product. Examples are the free transportation of purchased commodities to the desired destination and free maintenance. A company may also maintain contact with its clients to know how effective the purchased products are in fulfilling customer requirements. Such simple services go a long way in achieving not only customer satisfaction but also customer loyalty. No customer is going to settle for a different company that does not offer after-sales services.
Any contact between a business and its clients or potential customers must be done in a way that it leaves a positive impression on the customers. That is regardless of whether the engagement occurs within the business premises, in the field, or on the various online platforms. Every employee should consider themselves as agents of the company. They should, therefore treat customers with the utmost respect.
