Be all ears to your customers and let them boost your sales because of your ace customer services.
The earliest that you grasp this message, the better it will be for your company’s growth. Happy customers not only come back to interact more with your brand, but they bring loads of other customers too.
Look at these figures that indicate how customer experience and better services can impact a company’s growth;
- 77 % of people are likely to recommend your products or services if they love the experience.
- 86% of customers will spend more for a better experience and service.
- Companies that make $1 Billion yearly can earn $700 million more in the next three years by investing in crafting an unparalleled customer experience.
Internet-savvy customers are looking more than just products and services from companies. They want a customized experience and something that they can talk about in everyday interactions with friends and colleagues.
Customer support forms the primary touchpoint with your users. Time and again, we tell customer support to be more human and concise. But the story doesn’t end there.
When a customer calls support, it is to get solutions for the problem. Although this can be one of the greatest opportunities to pitch your products, the priority must be to resolve the issue.
Once your team has successfully helped the customer with the query, know if they need anything else.
One of the good upselling models could be to offer the try something for free (limited time). For example, a user called you with a problem that something is not working for him.
One scenario if the user did not understand how it works. A completely different case when there was a bug in the system.
Here comes a good upselling option. Depending on your saas pricing model, you could offer the user a temporary up his package like a compensation (for example, for 2 days). Using a large set of functions, then it is more difficult to switch to a smaller one.
When can you upsell/cross-sell?
Just bombarding your customers with your product catalog will vex them, and this can be bad for your brand. Before telling them about your products, make sure that you ask them about their needs. Understand that and then with the right tone and message, ask if they would like an upgrade on their purchase.
Rather than having an FAQ page where customers have to scavenge for answers, ask them to email you when they face problems. FAQs don’t have a touch of personalization, and you won’t be able to keep track of the widespread issues.
Instead, prompt your users to email their queries. This way, your support team can know if the error is widespread and report it to the product development team. On the front-end, craft emails addressing the pain points of customers to appease them by empathizing.
This method of error solving is time-consuming, but it can be the best solution for the long run to improve the customer experience through flawless products.
As humans, we tend to return what we get – a good experience for a good one and a mean step followed by an even meaner response.
Applying this to your customer support, have your team go that extra mile for the customers who reach out to get a corresponding response. This can be a free eBook guide to your services or a discounted entry for your next webinar or just extra credits in their account.
Once you show how much you value your customers, they will reciprocate the same with acts like referring your company to their friends or family or continuing with your brand for a longer duration. A little incentive provided this way can result in reduced customer churn.
Customers are not just looking for a product that fulfills their requirements, but they want something that is personalized just for them. The need of this hour is to keep yourself updated with what your customers are talking about and the brands that they like the most.
It’s time to invest in analytical tools that can keep you abreast of all you need to know about customer interactions. After knowing this, you can segment users to provide a seamless and personalized experience.
Tracking customer metrics not only helps you serve better but can also result in boosting your sales through improved customer experience.
Customer support will be the first level of communication that customers have with your brand. The support team must address the problems of users as humanely as possible. You don’t want your customer support to be just an IVR.
Having a friendly yet responsible tone for interacting with customers is ideal for taking forward conversations. Empathizing not only mellows the angry customers but helps in gaining their trust that your team wants to help rather than just the big talks.
Some of the phrases that can be used are:
- “I understand, and I am sorry.”
- “Happy to help you.”
- “I’d be frustrated too.”
- “Thank you for bringing this to our notice.”
- “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
One mistake that you can’t afford is not having all your teams on the same page when it comes to serving customers. Time is critical when a customer calls for support. And if your team fails to fetch the right information at that time, customers will lose their faith in your services.
Empower your customer interactions by having a sound CRM system in place. This ensures that all the information about the customers is available to the team members that interact directly with customers.
Few benefits of CRM system:
- It helps you serve customers quickly.
- Your sales and service teams are aligned with homogenous information about customers.
- It is easy to access from anywhere, so your team can provide customer support on-the-go.
- It improves customer interactions resulting in smooth customer relationships.
A person will be checking out your products on your app at one moment and then, after a while, may switch to social media or your website. In today’s world, users are looking out for information everywhere.
Providing an omnichannel experience is, therefore, essential to give a seamless transition from one touchpoint to the other.
Best practices for crafting an omnichannel service:
- Mobile-first approach – As mobile is the most widely used medium of internet surfing, ensure that your customer support pages are optimized for mobile searches and are responsive.
- Social Media – Users now openly approach companies by tagging/mentioning on Twitter or Facebook to get solutions. Be quick in responding to your users across social media platforms.
- Newsletter & update releases – Provide users with detailed information about the products and services that they are using through newsletters. This not only solves their queries but adds value to the user experience.
Technology is changing rapidly, and so are the interactions with customers. Knowledge scaling is as crucial to enhance your brand as the scaling of other resources.
Provide appropriate training time and again to your support staff, this includes knowledge of the latest customer support tools and communication skills too.
What can you do to empower your customer support?
- Invest in customer support software that eases the task of your support team.
- Check out the latest market trends and craft your customer communications using slang that customers can relate to.
- Provide incentives and motivate your customer support team to give their best through employee reward programs.
- Give credits to your team to encourage them.
Customers will share their experience with your products and services in their network. Sometimes, this can be customers recommending your brand.
But, when the customer has faced difficulty in using your services, they are bound to voice it out.
Be active in listening to feedback, but be super active in listening and responding to negative feedback.
Have your support team monitor comments on social media platforms and respond quickly to solve their problems. You can also offer additional services or increase credits in the accounts of grieved customers to compensate for their bad experiences.
What is better? Customers reaching out to you or you put yourself in front of the customers in their hour of need? Of course, the later one! This shows how much you value your customers.
Track customer interactions to know their preferences and requirements. After gathering this information, design a strategy by taking that extra mile to serve your customers the right way with what they are looking for.
With push notifications, inform your customers about your offers and remind them to use your products or services through personalized messages. But, make sure that you don’t do this often because you don’t want to interrupt the normal flow of their day.
Summing up
Serving your existing customers can not only bag you loyal brand followers but help you in getting newer ones too. Be all ears to your customers and let them boost your sales because of your ace customer services.