In today’s information age, your customers are constantly being pursued by your competitors. It may be through sales calls, social media, advertisements or news articles, regardless, they are being pulled in every direction and it’s important that you continually demonstrate your commitment to them. In order to maintain customers, it’s more important than ever that they feel fully valued and supported in their experience. This is what builds customer loyalty.
In this slideshow, Qvidian, a leader in sales execution technology, explains the key initiatives that a company should take in order to better serve their customer base and retain their business.
Improving Customer Service
Click through for seven key initiatives that a company should take in order to better serve their customer base and retain their business, as identified by Qvidian.
Offer Educational Programs
Ensuring that your customers fully understand your product’s capabilities and how to use them is imperative to customer satisfaction. Offering webinars, customer conferences and online trainings is an easy, broad stroke way to ensure that your customers are receiving the support that they need. By announcing the availability of a new feature and providing tutorials on how to leverage it, customers will be aware of product innovation and better understand how to take advantage of it.
Create an Online Community
Create a haven for users to connect and share challenges and best practices. In doing so, you’re able to facilitate brand loyalty, identify the most common pain points and provide solutions in real time. An online community can serve as an ad hoc focus group and provide incredible insights into your customer’s experiences.
Be Accessible
Responsiveness is one of the most important qualities in customer support. In today’s fast-paced, always-on world, customers must feel that their voices are heard and that their concerns are fully recognized.
Be Consistent
Ensure that your messaging is consistent across all of your channels. Providing incorrect or incomplete information on the phone, your website or through other channels like social media can be frustrating and cause confusion. When messaging is contradictory, a company can appear unprofessional and disorganized.
Communicate Regularly
Make sure your customers are aware of news and product updates. By communicating regularly through newsletters, email blasts and social platforms, you can ensure that your customers are up to date on any product upgrades, innovations or internal shifts. Just be sure to be cognizant that you aren’t spamming your followers with an inundation of content – that can have the opposite effect.
Listen
So often companies fail to listen to their customers’ concerns and instead prioritize initiatives that may not directly improve the customer’s experience. To better understand and support your customers, invite them to participate in focus groups and advisory panels to gain their insights. Customers like to feel valued and know that their recommendations are heard. By listening closely to what your customer needs instead of selling them on what you need to sell, the relationship will be stronger and more beneficial for both parties.
Be a Partner
Finally, think of your company as a partner to your customers. They have selected your product because they feel it will help drive their success; make it your mission to do just that. By understanding your customer’s industry and caring about their successes, you’ll be able to provide valuable guidance and counsel along their customer journey.
