Here’s How You Can Keep Your Business Customer-Centric

All business owners have to answer one thing: How do I make a better experience for my customers? Keeping customers happy directly results in sales. If you don't think of customer satisfaction, you will find it challenging to keep the lights on. Several factors dictate how happy your customers are—here are questions to keep in mind.

How Accessible is Your Business?

Is it easy for customers to ask questions or voice their concerns? Customers shouldn't have to jump through tons of hoops or do extensive Google searches so that they can get a representative from your company. It's never easy dealing with displeased customers. However, it's even more unpleasant to deal with someone who had to take two hours out of their day so they can track down someone from your company that they can talk to about one of your offerings.

Do Customers Know You Understand Them?

Customers must always be happy with your business. If they don't get what they want, they should understand why. Your business should know how to make clients and consumers feel valued. Show your concern and let them know that you'll do what you can to improve things.

When speaking with your customers, you can't use "shop terms" that your employees and people working in the industry use. Insider words do not resonate with customers—you need to find the language to help you bridge the gap. Understanding their problems and providing solutions involves knowing how to approach them and seeing things from their perspective. 

Unfairly or not, customers today expect instant solutions. Ours is a fast-paced world, and people can get products delivered to them in a matter of hours. They tend to expect this efficiency from every other service.

Although most companies cannot afford to have staff employed at all hours, ready to answer questions from clients, you can make it so that they can attend to their concerns. Chatbots, knowledge bases, and FAQs should help you address common issues and ease the workload on your customer service representatives.

Do You Provide a Good User Experience?

When purchasing, people want options—they would like to see models in different styles, colors, and features. They even want options in things like delivery time and methods for delivery. When people can customize parts of the buyer's journey, it helps them personalize the buying experience, which increases satisfaction.

However, you cannot go overboard with providing options. Too many of them will create analysis paralysis, making customers want to give up even before purchasing. When you design your services, provide options—but never to the point of overwhelm.

Don't nurture your customer service only to sacrifice the quality of your product; these go hand-in-hand. If you have top-notch customer service but poor-quality products, your buyers will get frustrated. Make sure the heart of your business remains valuable to consumers, and they'll have less to bring up to customer service representatives.

What's more, when you have high-quality offerings, don't be afraid to charge higher prices. There will always be more affordable options, but as long as you know yours delivers, you'll always have an audience for it. Even better when your customer service is as good as the product—then you can justify the prices.

Do Customers Know You Value Them?

Customers want to know that you value their business. Having a follow-up procedure for saying thank you goes a long way. Things like emails, thank you gifts, and discounts on their subsequent purchases will let them know they are vital to you.

Besides incentives like these, you should also reward customers who have been around for a while. Having a loyalty program providing reduced rates, access to unique content or exclusive products and services will encourage people to stick around and keep purchasing or subscribing to you.

Humans want to feel like they are part of something bigger than them, and building a community does that. More than having a reliable product or service, you want customers to feel like your products are indispensable to their life. It is something at which big brands like Apple and Amazon excel. Keeping customers engaged, whether virtually or in person, should be one of the priorities of your customer service team.

Customer Satisfaction in the Service Industry

Some businesses don't have tangible items to sell—their "products" are the services they provide to their customers. Lawyers, CPAs, teachers, and consultants fall under this category. Professionals engaged in the marketing, events management, and wellness industries are also service providers.

Although you don't provide traditional products to people, their satisfaction is still crucial to your success. You need to be mindful of your work quality, your empathy in addressing people's problems, and showing customers that they matter to you.

Your "product" is your service, so make sure the quality is up to par. In addition, if you're stepping into customer's homes, there's a level of trust that you must build to make them feel comfortable welcoming you into their space. You'll also need to be respectful of their home and their time.

Customer satisfaction is essential to the future of your business. Not only do happy customers come back and become loyal, repeat buyers, but they also share their experiences with friends and family.

There is no better marketing than word-of-mouth from your fans. Schedule out some time to evaluate your current customer satisfaction reality, and then implement the changes necessary to keep your customers happy, engaged, and coming back for more.

Conclusion

Customer satisfaction can make or break a business. Keep your current customers happy with your products or services, and you're sure to get recommendations and positive reviews. Even service-oriented professions have to think of customer service. If you're a lawyer, accountant, or doctor, you still have to think of things like client experience, cultivating community, and being attentive to their needs.

Ranked helps you clarify your message and find your audience online. We help businesses and agencies acquire customers organically through engaging and relevant content—get in touch with the team or start your free trial today!