Given that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their own friends, what people hear about you or read online has an impact. This holds true whether they read positive or negative feedback. A bad customer service experience no longer impacts just a few people.
It used to be that if someone had a positive experience they told two friends and if they had a negative one they told 10 friends. Your customers now have the potential to tell the whole world about their experience with you. Make one mistake and who knows how much business you could lose.
You need to ensure that you’re offering a great customer service experience to everyone you come into contact with. Here are 4 ways to keep those relationships strong.
If you reach out to your customers via email, you should give them the opportunity to give you feedback. This keeps their feedback away from general audiences but lets you know how you’re doing from the perspective of your most engaged customers.
Take the time to incentivize filling out surveys so that you can attract customers. You can even use surveys as a marketing and promotional tool, letting customers in on new deals and products in exchange for their time.
With billions of users on social media, an increasing number of people are buying products that they learn about on social media. They’re also learning about every faux pas a company makes at lightning speed.
Social media gives you the opportunity to hear from your customers in a direct and accessible way. Create an account for every major entity and franchise related to your company so that feedback is directed at the right people.
If you get reviews on business directories or on social media, be sure to respond. Users are more likely to keep working with a company with negative reviews who reaches out to correct the problem in 24 hours or less.
Even if you feel like people are trolling you, find a way to put out the fire. The more accessible and human you are, the more brand loyalty you’ll garner.
Directing your customers to voicemail is customer service suicide. If customers don’t feel that they’re getting a unique and personalized interaction, you’ll pay for it. They will assume you don’t care about them as customers and won’t feel any kind of brand loyalty for your company.
An answering service will be better received than a machine.
If you’re looking to build loyalty for a new company or trying to recover from a recent series of issues, you need to make sure you’re offering a response. Ignoring customer service issues won’t make them go away. If you’ve had good interactions with your customer base so far, maintain that positive relationship by making sure the lines of communication are open now.
If you’re interested in finding new ways to improve customer experiences, contact us for services that every forward-thinking company needs to employ.