Customer Service – Carmine Cloak

Learn how to keep your clients happy and improve your customer service.

Keep Your Clients Happy & Improve Customer Service

September 20, 2021

by Carmine Cloak Customer Service Marketing

Introduction

Customer happiness refers to providing a happy and satisfying user experience to your customers. It’s when the expectations of your users are met at the right time with the right intention. Happiness is the first step towards achieving loyalty and building a truly customer-centric brand. As a result, you generate loyal and happy customers who become your brand’s true advocate. Making your customers happy can be a great goal to have in terms of understanding if your business is scaling up in the right direction.

How can you improve customer service and customer satisfaction? It happens at every stage of their customer journey, whether they are a new client or one that has enjoyed a positive customer service experience from you for years. The solution simply requires you to take a more mindful approach to establishing and maintaining customer relationships.

Here are all the steps you can take to improve your customer service:

Define your brand’s personality

Your brand needs to have a personality and identity in order to be easily relatable. Defining your buyer persona and crafting your brand voice embodies what your brand stands for. It is imperative to know your target audience persona because your personality must always be the right fit for your target audience. For instance, if your target audience consists of 70-year-old men and women, your brand cannot be youthful and cool. Furthermore, your brand personality is going to help in humanizing your brand. It will make your brand more relatable and likable. This is ideally the first step in crafting your customer’s journey and improving your customer service.

Attract the right customers

Check your website, your social media accounts, Google My Business listing etc. If your website looks outdated, you’re going to have a hard time reaching Millennials and Gen Zers. If your social media accounts don’t have content or your GMB page doesn’t exist, no one will check your website. Google is where most people search first when they want to find out about a product or company.

With Google My Business you can provide prospects with a quick overview of what you do. In addition, you can provide high-quality photos, local contact information and client reviews. Furthermore, your website, social media and legal directories give you a chance to share your mission and values. That way you can write for your ideal customer and reach more audience.

Understand Their Business

A client-firm relationship has to be a partnership if both sides are to succeed. How can you help someone accomplish their goals if you don’t understand their business, brand or market? Therefore, take time to get to know your client. Craft an onboarding process designed to get as much information about your client as you can and clarify project goals.

Be Proactive

A proactive approach applies to any area of the salesperson’s company that serves the customer. Notice all the questions that need to be answered and effectively respond to occurring problems. Solve the problem easily and fast in order to build trust between clients and your law firm. Use the opportunity to show them that what you promised in the first place is what they will get. Finally, treat each customer like they are the most important person on your list. As a result, your customer service will improve.

Communicate regularly

Whether it’s before the sale, during or after the sale, communication is the key to a healthy client relationship. Therefore, listen to your clients carefully and ask relevant questions. For example, how would they like to be contacted and how often. Also, check if your company is doing everything to serve your client well. Collect valuable information from the customer to ensure the small problems don’t turn into big ones.

This is one of the most effective ways of improving your customer service. Good communication starts with a series of conversations that help you understand a project’s scope and goals. The client will tell you what they want to achieve, and you can manage their expectations before work begins.

Once a project gets started, keep the client in the loop by using a project management solution such as Toggl Plan. By using charts and logical and easy-to-follow timelines, you can share them with the client. That way they can view all project tasks that have been completed, are in progress or haven’t been started yet. They will appreciate these real-time insights more than the end-of-week email reports.

Follow up proactively with progress updates

Always follow up on every transaction with a personalized thank you message. Also, if you tell a customer you are looking into an issue, follow up with a status update. Contact them through e-mail and offer information that would be useful to them. That way you show customers that you’re there for them even when they’re not buying. A phone call or email can make the difference between a happy customer and a disgruntled one.

Research shows that as many as 82% of customers will leave if they don’t feel appreciated. Some companies offer discount codes for the customers’ next purchase. Others send out thank you email with some suggestions of other purchases to consider. No matter your approach, always thank your customers to ensure they are happy with the experience.

If you keep your clients happy, they will tell friends and family about your company. They will post about your product to social media and write online reviews. They are, in short, priceless ambassadors of your brand. Improve customer happiness today and you’ll improve your overall business tomorrow.

Listen to your customers

The next step to improving your customer service is listening to your customers. Now that you know who your customers are, pay close attention to what they are looking for. Furthermore, what are the problems they face, how much are they willing to pay for the solution and so on. Paying attention to those details gives you a clear picture of your customer’s intention and expectations. And the best way to keep your clients happy is by knowing and meeting their expectations.

Provide a personal touch

Communication is vital to keep your clients happy and maintain a healthy relationship. Personalizing your website content, customer experience, and conversations allows your users to feel special and unique. Personalization can start with something as small as using the customer’s first name in the email or live chat conversation. However, it can also mean customizing your web pages depending on the demographics of the viewers.

RedPoint Global survey revealed how frustrated consumers are with a lack of attention to the personal data they share with businesses. In retail, in particular, customers are disappointed when:

They receive offers for something they already bought
They are shown completely irrelevant offers
Not being recognized as an existing customer

Therefore, collect details about your clients to personalize your communications with them. For instance, you should have their name and email address. One tool that can help you email your lists or personalize individual emails is Copper.

If you can infuse every email and call with a level of personalization, your customers will remember that. You’ll be the person who went to the trouble of noting down those important details, which reflects well on your attention to detail—and your business!

Keep your employees happy

Happy employees make happy customers. One of the easiest and the most effective ways to improve your customer service is to start with your employees. Align your team around customer happiness, inspire them, be nice to them and provide opportunities to grow.

Every company can win over the long run with employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it. It’s amazing the difference transparency can make when you’re rolling out team goals. Emphasize to your team that improving customer happiness will forever be important for your team, and every goal you set will be an actionable step towards achieving it.

Engage with your customers

It is important for your brand to engage your customers at the right intervals and frequency. Keep them engaged by staying in touch. Send regular updates via mail or email- for example, a monthly or quarterly newsletter. It is a fantastic way of keeping customers informed and simply reminding them of your business name.

One of the best ways to engage your customers is to have live chat messaging software installed inside your product. This makes your brand accessible and reliable as your customers can reach out to you at any point. It allows you to stay in close proximity to your customers and be there for them whenever needed.

Fine-tune your goal

To fine-tune your actions into a reasonable goal, ask these questions:

What will our team do differently each day to make this happen?
How can we track this together?
How will we stay accountable?
When will we assess the success of this goal?

Now you can put those pieces together in a single, achievable goal.

Communicate the goal to your team

Goals can only be achieved when your team understands what they’re working towards. That’s why team transparency is so important. Discuss your new goals with your team so that everyone is on the same page. At any point in time, every teammate should be able to explain your team’s goal and what they need to do to achieve it.

When you roll out a new goal to the team, tell them the information they need to feel invested in. For example, why you’re setting this goal and how important it is to your company. Furthermore, what’s expected of each individual and what you promise to deliver for them.

If this goal involves a significant change to your team’s workflow, develop a plan to help them make a change and stick to it. Usually, the best way to do this is with scheduled check-ins — weekly, monthly, or whatever makes sense for your team.

Ask Customers for Their Opinions

To really improve your customer service, reach out for your customer’s opinion. Ask them about their experience and what improvements they would like for you to include. This can provide valuable information on how you can improve products and your service delivery. For example, explore what would your customers change about your product to make them want to buy it. This question goes to the heart of whether a customer would invest their hard-earned money in the service you offer.

Ask for Customer Reviews Regularly

Whatever your preferred review site, such as Google Reviews, Facebook, Yelp or others, encourage your happy customers to share their positive comments. Monitor review sites so you can reply if needed and respond to unhappy customers.

Your prospects will instantly decide whether to buy from you or move on to a competitor, based on your reviews. It’s not just bad reviews that cause customers to pass on buying from you. Having no reviews is also bad. People won’t have a comfort level so they would rather skip past your business than risk being dissatisfied.

If you haven’t received positive feedback from clients, ask them if they are satisfied with your services. They will see it as evidence of your law firm’s commitment to giving them a positive experience. In addition, they will appreciate your willingness to hear their opinion. If there are any problems, use this opportunity to discuss what’s frustrating them and suggest ways of improving the situation.

Respond to all feedback

When you receive negative commentary, be ready to step up, acknowledge the mistake or reason for their dissatisfaction, apologize and try to make amends with them. This goes for anywhere you might receive reviews and includes both your negative reviews as well as positive ones.

A tool like ReviewTrackers, BirdEye or Podium would be useful for this. With a reputation management tool, it’s much easier to keep your eye on all of your online feedback. Plus, if you can save time monitoring your reviews, you’ll have more time to thoughtfully respond to all the feedback you receive.

Respond promptly to questions and concerns

In order to improve your customer service, answer phone calls immediately and reply to emails within an hour or two. Ideally, you should respond to their messages within a day. If you are busy and won’t be checking emails or voicemails regularly, arrange for someone else to support the client. You’ll come back to a happy client instead of a disgruntled one. Acknowledging your customers immediately goes a long way in improving customer satisfaction. Simple gestures show you care. Train your team regularly to make sure they show your company’s best side.

Build customer loyalty with a reward program

A proven strategy to keep your clients happy is to reward them for loyalty. Many businesses have a “buy 5 – get 1 free” card or something similar. However, you can also reward customers unexpectedly. After a repeat customer visits you a few times, give them an added service or a special discount. A tool like Candy Bar manages your loyalty program automatically and a customer can use it from their phone.

Treat Customers Like People

Establish your customer communication on trust and shared values. Be kind, responsive and genuine. Don’t see customers as a sale, instead see them as a person. Going the extra mile to care how your customer feels about your services. Keeping your clients happy is the best way to maintain your company’s revenues. Also, a happy customer will naturally spread the word about your business and become loyal to you. And loyal customers are the core of your long-term growth.

Keep tabs on your individual customers

Knowing your customer’s unique details will help you build stronger and more meaningful relationships with them. For example, you can make note of your client’s birthday. Afterward, you can plan on sending him a handwritten note reminding him that you remembered his special day. There are plenty of online tools to help you manage lots of customers and keep track of all important details.

Present Them With Relevant Data

Every client wants analytics relevant to their goals and industry. When you provide metrics and data, use information that fits their campaign. In addition, explain how everything will be tracked and measured. You’ll inspire confidence and be able to forecast project results with greater accuracy.

Design a great experience

Your service should be designed to provide a great experience and supports your customer journey. Think of all the things your customer would want to achieve with your product to complete a job. Create a journey map accordingly and design your product to provide an interactive experience.

Your design should also ensure that it stands by your brand’s voice and buyer persona. For instance, if your brand’s persona is luxury, then a black background can add more meaning than a different color. Always think in terms of offering a great experience instead of offering plain service or a set of features your customers would use.

Provide an A-class service

Customer service is a way to meet your customer’s expectations. Ensure that you are in constant touch with your customers starting from onboarding. Keep your clients happy and build a loyal relationship with them. Have a complete understanding of why they are using your product and how to make the experience better for them. Understand which problems they are trying to solve using your products. Maintain a content repository to help them attain their goals easily. Talk to them, write to them, stay connected at all times. Send newsletters and product updates regularly. Solve their queries efficiently and make them feel special.

Provide an outstanding support

Be ready to provide support if your customer needs it in all phases of your collaboration. By being empathetic to your customers’ needs and problems, they’ll feel grateful instead of frustrated or angry. In fact, after a positive customer service experience, 42% of customers ended up making another purchase. However, after a negative experience though, 52% of them ended their relationship with the business.

As your business grows, it will become difficult to manage customer details. Rather than try to keep tabs on every point of contact, it’s best to monitor and manage support through a single channel. Zendesk is a good solution for customer support, for example. With it, you can provide white-glove support to customers, even if you’re a one-person operation.

Use Data to Set Customer Expectations

Managing expectations and transparent communications are key to healthy customer relationships. Understanding and reporting your average response times upfront can set realistic expectations for your customers. Moreover, it can establish a sense of transparency and honesty early on in your relationship with a potential client.

For example, response rate data on company Facebook pages is letting customers know the average response time. And a quick response time is the sign of an engaged business. Similarly, for companies that depend on phone calls with customers, the average wait time is an important measurement. Efficient call centers are reported to have an average wait time between 15 and 40 seconds between live calls for an agent.

Provide extra value

Exceed client expectations instead of simply meeting them. If your timeline suggests that a milestone can be reached sooner than expected without burdening the team, do it! If you see an opportunity to save money without sacrificing the quality of the final deliverable, don’t hesitate. Going the extra mile will not only make your clients happier, but it will also ensure your own success because when your clients thrive, so do you.

Customers pay you to do what you do because you’re good at it and you get them the results they need. But if you really want to make customers happy, then you need to provide value beyond just your service. You can do it by providing useful information for your audience while empowering them to learn and solve problems on their own.

Content marketing is a good idea for small business owners and freelancers of all types. Digital experience is especially important as it’s one of the best ways to show off your skillset. For example, spend some time blogging. Use it to inspire or inform your clients and help them learn more about how your company works. In addition, consider filming short tutorials, preparing a webinar or posting on social media regularly.

Be honest

There’s more to being honest and transparent in business than telling your story. You have to be reasonable when it comes to setting expectations too. Pay close attention to how you communicate with your customers. Be honest about what you’re doing and transparent about your progress. Finally, set realistic expectations so you’re not put in that uncomfortable position of having to backtrack later on.

Conclusion

Nowadays, companies are making efforts to make their customers happy in addition to thinking about the product and services offered. Successful businesses now know the importance of maintaining a good relationship with customers. Customer relationships are formed with similar intentions. Building a customer relationship is all about understanding the transactional nature of the relationship. Hence, good customer service is proactively based on your customer’s needs.

In other words- a happy customer is a key to long-lasting success. A happy customer isn’t just someone who makes a purchase with you today. A truly happy customer is one who will be loyal to you and your business for a long time to come. Plus, customer loyalty and happiness have a tendency to spread. When people find businesses they trust, they want to tell their friends about it too. On the other hand, if you continually fail to meet your customers’ expectations, don’t be surprised if word spreads even faster.

Check out all the types of customer service.

Types of customer service you should know about

August 27, 2021

by Carmine Cloak Customer Service Marketing

Introduction

Effective customer service is a key part of any successful business strategy. Recently, customers have started using digital communication tools to give companies feedback about products. As a result, numerous new customer service tools have been created. Therefore, it has become a necessity for companies to offer multiple channels and types of customer service.

Customer service is the support a company offers to its customers. Support begins during the purchasing process and usually extends past the purchasing date. During the purchasing process, companies provide customers with information about their services to help them make informed decisions.

Customer service is important for businesses looking to grow their brand loyalty and maintain their customer base. Successful companies create an environment where customers feel comfortable coming for assistance. When customers are confident that they will receive the help they need, they’re more likely to repeat purchases. Furthermore, they will probably become advocates for your company and recommend your brand to others.

Nowadays, companies have started offering types of customer service support on various platforms. Besides telephone, customers can now find support via email, webchat, text message and social media. There are many tools to help companies provide customers with the help they need. However, there are two basic types of customer service: proactive and reactive.

Proactive Customer Service

This is one of the types of customer service that identifies and resolves issues before they escalate. It focuses on customer success and for that reason, the majority of consumers prefer proactive support. In fact, about 68% say that proactive customer service improves their perception of a brand.

Advantages of Proactive Customer Service:

Higher customer loyalty and a better service experience
Lower volume of issues and requests
Trust and strong customer relationships

Disadvantages of Proactive Customer Service:

Annoying to some customers

You can deliver proactive customer service by solving an issue in advance. The other way to do it is by providing self-help resources.

Proactive Types of Customer Service:

Self-service
On-site
Live chat
Chatbots

Reactive Customer Service

Reactive service comes after a customer files a complaint, experiences a problem or feels generally dissatisfied. It is usually more stressful as support agents are dealing with negatively charged people. It also makes a less positive impact on the customer experience and brand perception.

Advantages of Reactive Customer Service:

Helps to identify frequent issues
Can help with customer retention

Disadvantages of Reactive Customer Service:

More workload for support agents
May increase the churn rate

Types of Customer Service

Walk-in service departments

This type of customer service is usually slow and inconvenient. Especially for people who have to visit the physical storefront to get their concerns addressed. However, one-on-one interactions can be practical when it comes to building a rapport with your customers. You get the opportunity for a meaningful conversation, know a customer better and get feedback in real-time.

However, in-person interactions can sometimes require offering a solution to an angry customer right away. In fact, a single customer case can take up the majority of your time. Ultimately leading to a delay in the work you were scheduled to do.

Advantages and Disadvatantages of Walk-in Service Departments

Advantages of Walk-In Customer Service:

Have face-to-face interactions with customers and understand their problems better
Win the trust of your customers as well as prospects
Get the opportunity to recommend other similar products and increase sales
Get non-verbal cues from customers (eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, etc.)

Disadvantages of Walk-In Customer Service:

Maintaining a separate in-house customer service section can be time-consuming and expensive
That space can be instead utilized for selling more products
Having an “only physical help section” makes your business appear outdated

Telephone support

Telephone support is a classic way of offering customer service. Moreover, it is probably the oldest customer service type. However, a phone conversation remains a powerful way to solve problems. In fact, around 61% of US customers prefer phones as their go-to channel to resolve customer service issues. To receive telephone support, customers call agents on the phone to ask questions and explain their problems verbally. This allows them to describe complicated situations with ease. Furthermore, support agents can resolve complex issues faster and deliver detailed, personalized support.

However, there are some challenges in telephone support processes. For example, poor cellular service can lead to dropped calls. Moreover, limited staff availability can lead to long wait times. Furthermore, it can be expensive when it comes to customer service. However, with the right software, you can get valuable insights. For example, the number of calls, full customer history, call recording and other time-saving tools.

This type of customer service works great for online businesses. Also, for companies who value personal connections with customers. It also works for businesses and institutions that handle complex cases. The phone will allow them to instantly answer all the questions the customer may have. In addition, it is ideal for B2B or B2C sectors that deal with high-priority or sensitive requests.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Phone Customer Service

Advantages of Phone Customer Service:

Deliver a personalized experience to each customer
Customers can interact with an agent and get the right solution in real-time
Improve your chances of First Contact Resolution (FCR)
Offer automated call back feature to interact with customers at their convenience
Takes less time than typing or email exchange
Easy to use for different generations
More natural human-to-human interaction

Disadvantages of Phone Customer Service:

Long hold times can decrease the customer experience
Customer service agents cannot handle multiple calls at the same time
Phone support requires intensive agent training
Heavily dependent on the quality of reception
Possible high charges for international customers
Time-consuming and frustrating operator transfers

Self-service support

This support is ideal for customers who want to access information easily and answer questions on their own. Furthermore, this type of customer service is inexpensive and requires zero wait time from a customer. However, information should be well organized including videos, images and step-by-step procedures. In addition, it should be kept up-to-date with the terms and policies of the company.

Self-service is a great fit for businesses that get common service requests. For example, refund and exchange requests, questions related to product configurations, billing requests etc. Self-service support primarily exists in the form of frequently asked questions (FAQs) published on a company’s website. Furthermore, it can include chatbots, knowledge base articles, product guides, video tutorials and more.

Self-service is ideal for customers who wish to get relevant help with minimum effort. Over 60% of US customers prefer an automated self-service portal for simple queries. For example- websites or mobile apps. By letting customers help themselves, you can reduce customer friction while improving efficiency and delivering faster resolutions. Taking that into account, every business should include some sort of self-serve customer service solution.

To make the most of this type of customer service, your team members need to be informed. For instance, your support agents need to know your customers’ needs and typical questions they have. You’ll also need to ensure a great SEO and UX of your self-service sites. The goal of such a customer service solution is for your customers to find your blog easily. Customer self-service works well for any industry. However, it could be more useful to companies that offer a wide range of services or complicated products. It’s also a good option for public institutions that deal with many regulations and formalities.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Service Support

Advantages of Self-Service Knowledge Base:

Be available to both existing customers as well as prospects 24×7
Reduce your support ticket volume significantly
Allow agents to focus on more important customer issues
Create a multilingual knowledge base to cater to customers from different parts of the world
Combines various resources
Customer-friendly
Low maintenance (in case of infrequent product changes)

Disadvantages of Self-Service Knowledge Base:

It might be difficult for customers to locate relevant information
You will have to update your existing help content or add new pages constantly
Impossible to cover solutions for all customer problems or requests
The different writing styles and knowledge of contributors can lead to inconsistent documents
High maintenance (in case of frequent product changes)
Labor-intensive in case of a complex product

On-site support

This type of customer service is provided in person, at home or customer’s workplace. Companies use on-site support to provide repairs and troubleshooting services to customers with technological issues. The biggest advantage of this support is that it allows interaction with customers on a more personal basis. Consequently, it can help build stronger customer relationships to make repeat business more likely.

This type of customer service is very convenient for customers as it’s delivered to their door. A customer service representative arrives at the customer’s site to deliver a service in person. However, this type of customer service is not convenient for the company, though. It requires close collaboration between the customer service team and an on-site service representative.

Furthermore, on-site customer service is usually very expensive. You have to worry about aspects such as hiring remote professionals, their training, travel expenses and more. However, certain products require the physical presence of an assistant when something goes wrong. For example- installing a product at the site, annual maintenance or product repairs.

Advantages and Disadvantages of On-site support

Advantages of On-Site Customer Service:

On-site customer service acts as a more convenient option for customers
Real-time service can lead to better problem resolution
Serves as the last resort when all other channels have failed
Customers can check the authenticity of parts being replaced
Field expertise display
Natural face-to-face interactions

Disadvantages of On-Site Customer Service:

Visiting the customer’s location can prove to be time-consuming
On-site service is quite expensive and cannot be offered to all customers
Agents have to be trained in multiple customer service areas such as technical support, etc.
Agents can get frustrated due to unpredictable working hours and location
Requires an on-location support team

One-on-one customer service makes sense only when an on-site presence is necessary. For example, appliance repairs and inspections would be hard to deliver over the phone or any other medium.

Live chat support

This tool is very popular because it satisfies customers’ need to get their issues quickly resolved. For instance, customers usually reach service agents within a matter of seconds with live chat. Furthermore, the instant and web-based format usually means customers can multitask when wait times do occur.

Customers can use live chat support to instant message a service agent on a company’s website. As a result, agents provide them with solutions and answer questions. Moreover, customers can search within the chat widget to find answers to their queries. One way to provide this type of direct customer service is by implementing live chat on your website.

According to this research, customer service provided by live chat is 17-30% cheaper than a phone call. The reason is simple – the phone doesn’t allow you to manage multiple customers simultaneously. When you compare the various customer service options, live chat offers the fastest response times to customers.

This service is greatly appreciated by users who avoid human interaction. A customer can make queries and get responses in the middle of a purchase. Customers from a different time zone can report an issue anytime because live chat offers round-the-clock accessibility. You can add live chat to your online store by downloading plugins, such as Zendesk Chat, Pure Chat and LiveChat.

Consider live chat for your customer service if you:

Have an online business
Prefer to stay closer to your customers
Want cost-efficient but premium customer service

Advantages and Disadvantages of Live Chat Support

Advantages of Live Chat Customer Service:

Assist customers in real-time when they are shopping and increase sales
Agents can handle multiple customer chats at the same time
Easily integrate upselling and cross-selling opportunities
Canned responses to automate repetitive replies
Webchat conversation archive
Customer-friendly
Proactive customer service
Website integration and high customization
Integration with various third-party apps
No frustrating operator transfers

Disadvantages of Live Chat Customer Service:

Chat replies can often feel scripted and robotic to customers
You are required to offer a solution to the customer almost immediately
The use of emoticons or slang by customers can prevent a meaningful conversation
Faster than email but slower than a phone chat

Chatbot Support

Chatbots are useful virtual assistants. They can answer customers’ questions, collect feedback and much more. If a chatbot is unable to resolve a customer issue, a customer is routed to relevant agents. However, despite the popularity and cost-saving benefits, conversations with chatbots lack a human touch.

The most significant benefit of chatbots is that they can receive support 24/7. Customers also don’t have to interact with anyone to get their issues solved. Businesses love messaging for the same reasons as customers: it’s fast, convenient, personal, and secure.

Lately, all sorts of businesses have been adopting chatbot technology, including B2B and B2C ones. The real estate industry is one of the top five industries profiting from the use of chatbots (28%). But chatbots will also work incredibly well for other businesses.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Chat Support

Advantages of Chatbot Customer Service:

Be available to customers even when your team is offline
Schedule meetings with customer service or sales teams
Automatically share links to relevant self-help articles, videos, etc.
Improve your chatbot function over time by adding more questions and answers
24/7 customer support
Zero customer wait-time
Cost-effective
Reduced number of queries to solve

Disadvantages of Chatbot Customer Service:

Chatbots can offer only limited responses to customers
Robotic responses can frustrate customers and force them to speak with an agent
AI-powered chatbots can be expensive for your business
Limited in independent query solving
Conversation design requires logical thinking
Chatbot conversations often lack empathy and personalization

Email support

Email is the classic and common way customers communicate with companies. With the right email management software, email can be one of the easiest ways to organize customer support interactions. While email support is often slower than live chat support, it still provides customers with numerous options. For example, to contact service agents through a text-based format without directly interacting with another human.

This helps customers document important information, explain clearly and avoid time-consuming efforts to receive support. In fact, customers consider email as a more trustworthy and professional channel. In addition, it’s an inexpensive way to communicate to your consumers. Furthermore, your agents get more time to respond. However, after a point in time, it becomes difficult to keep track of every single email. In such a case, you can adopt customer email management software to ensure their proper tracking.

Nowadays, 4.3 billion people all over the world use email and send 269 billion emails every day. Accordingly, your customers choose email customer service because they believe it’s the fastest way to resolve their issues. Email customer service is a good option for companies with a large pool of foreign customers. That’s because their customers can send their queries at any time of the day or night. In addition, it is appropriate for companies that deal with risky or sensitive issues.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Email Support

Advantages of Email Customer Service:

Record and document customer conversations over a period of time
Add a professional touch to your customer service using email signatures
Automated email notifications to update customers about the status of their issue
Easily attach relevant images, videos, docs, or other files
Canned responses for repetitive customer questions
Customized email designs

Disadvantages of Email Customer Service:

Delayed email responses can make customers feel frustrated
Keeping track of emails can get challenging
Typing long replies can be time-consuming
Lack of real-time human-to-human interaction
Difficult to personalize experiences
Difficult to read emotions
Easy to miss

Social media support

Social media is no longer limited to social interactions between friends and families. In fact, it is one of the most popular digital tools used for communication across the globe. And companies have adapted it to serve as a powerful channel for customer service.

To make use of social media you have to constantly monitor all of the available channels. The best way to do that is to have an employee dedicated to resolving social media queries. Moreover, use proper social media monitoring software that will notify you whenever someone mentions your brand or product.

Social media is an excellent choice for online businesses as they can interact with their audiences in various ways. To respond faster to direct messages, they can integrate live chat with the platforms like Zendesk. According to statistics, around 20% of US customers demand an immediate response to their social media questions or complaints. And live chat integration, coupled with chatbots, will speed up chats, bookings and orders.

The social media platform is used by many companies to advertise their businesses. Besides, it helps them make people aware of their services. However, it is also used to provide support to the customers. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram are the most famous social media platforms. By providing timely help, you can show your potential customers that you genuinely care for them.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Support

Advantages of Social Media Customer Service:

Customers can reach you right from their most-used social media apps
Share proactive messages to update customers about downtime
Allow customers to help each other by creating community pages
Share customer service success stories and enhance brand reputation
Integration with live chat apps

Disadvantages of Social Media Customer Service:

Negative customer reviews or comments can impact brand reputation
For large businesses, it becomes difficult to track every single social media mention
In most cases, the solution has to be shared on another channel
Customers can share tweets or posts at any time of the day, even when your team is not available

IVR Support

Interactive voice support is an automated telephone system. It interacts with customers through a dial pad, keypad or voice requests. Based on the customer inputs, IVR systems can understand their problem and offer the correct information. It is a great way for companies to support customers with very simple questions without the agent’s presence.

IVR can handle basic customer requests with ease. For example, when a customer calls to confirm an appointment. The IVR might ask for the customer ID and offer the requested information. In fact, a thoughtfully created IVR can improve the customer journey. However, improper implementation can spoil the whole purpose and lead to frustrated and unhappy customers.

These systems can be updated frequently to store relevant information that customers are looking for. Hence, support agents can focus on resolving issues that voice support can’t handle. The fundamental challenge of using interactive voice systems is that customers aren’t interacting with an actual human. That means they will sometimes be redirected or put on hold many times. However, this can be avoided by designing IVRs that allow customers to request help from an agent when necessary.

Advantages and Disadvantages of IVR Support

Advantages of IVR Customer Service:

IVR is available 24/7/365 to assist customers with their queries
It can make your business appear more professional
It can improve the call traffic flow by routing customers to relevant agents
Your agents get the time to focus on more pressing issues

Disadvantages of IVR Customer Service:

Limited IVR options can be frustrating for the customers
IVR requires a heavy upfront investment
Complex customer issues cannot be solved using IVR
Frequent changes in the IVR menu can confuse customers

Video Customer Service

Video is becoming one of the most powerful types of customer service. Live video sessions can help with technical support, product demonstrations or understanding the challenges faced by a customer. However, videos don’t have to be live. For example, you can record tailored walkthroughs and demonstrations. Afterward, you can share them via social media, help center or other channels.

This will allow customers to access the support videos anytime. Moreover, to replay segments in order to apply the troubleshooting steps better. Furthermore, you can use it for personalized customer service. For example, record thank you videos for customers to appreciate them for being loyal to your business.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Customer Service

Advantages of Video Customer Service:

Schedule online video meetings in seconds
Uploading support videos online can help you reduce your ticket volume
Personalized, one-on-one interactions
Easily share recorded videos on social media, help center or other channels

Disadvantages of Video Customer Service:

Not suitable for an audience that isn’t tech-savvy
Low internet speed or poor connection can decrease the support experience
Creating interactive videos for every common issue can prove to be expensive
Live video sessions are prone to distractions

FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

This is one of the types of customer service that requires the least amount of investment. The FAQ page can be created on the official website or App as well as on social media platforms. A person who prepares FAQ must have deep knowledge about the company’s services and the company’s policies. In addition, the FAQ page is also helpful to convert potential customers.

Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC)

Annual Maintenance Contract is one of the modern ways of providing types of customer service to customers. It is the best way to maintain customers’ loyalty to the organization. Many organizations provide free of cost or at a minimal charge AMC to the customers who buy their products. This way, they can stay in touch with customers. AMC can be provided to the customers free of cost before their warranty or contract expires. After the contract expires customers can be asked to renew the contract or get the paid services.

Conclusion

As seen above, there are various types of customer service your business can offer. In reality, the type of customer service you offer should be empowered to deliver proactive service on any channel. Nowadays, proactive engagement is becoming a crucial type of customer service. It means identifying your customers’ issues and resolving them before they reach out. This can be done through FAQs and self-service pages to email your customer about a specific matter.

The types of customer service you choose will depend upon numerous factors. Such as the demographics of your target audience, their interests, your company’s budget, team size and more. It’s best to mix speed, convenience, personalization and self-service to create excellent customer service for your brand. For example, start with live chat. It’s economic and gives you the flexibility of scaling in accordance with your business requirements.

To choose the best types of customer service for your business, you can always directly ask your customers. Find the channels that work best for them and build the types of customer service around these channels. In addition, keep an eye out for emerging channels. Adopt those that gain popularity among new customers and save the company’s time and money. in short, strive to be proactive and solve issues before they escalate. As a result, it will improve your brand reputation and customer satisfaction metrics. Consequently, you will gain more loyal clients.

Types of Customers and How to Handle Them

August 26, 2021

by Carmine Cloak Customer Service Marketing

Introduction

Customers play a significant role in any business. Research shows that there are different types of customers that require a different approach. Hence, you should strategically segment your customers and handle them accordingly. As a result, you can make a huge difference in your revenue.

To understand customer behavior, it is necessary to identify and segment different types of customers. By understanding the different types of customers, businesses can be better equipped to develop successful strategies.

You can convert more visitors by understanding how each of them typically engages online. Here is how to adjust your approach to best deal with different types of customers.

Types of customers: Before the Purchase

These are the customers that are in the awareness stage of your sales funnel. Therefore, your focus for such customers should primarily be to make them aware of your services. In addition, to win their trust and lead them towards their first purchase with you.

The Lookers

Lookers are the customers who are just browsing through your services. They’ve shown some interest, but they don’t intend to purchase anything yet. They could be looking for the best deal, which means they checked your competitors as well. Very often they want to pay the lowest price for a very specific product.

Some of them might have landed in your shop for some inspiration. They more or less know what they want and hope to find the answer in your online store. Hence, it’s essential to catch their attention and convince them that you have the right solution to their problem.

For example, make your website look intriguing and attractive. Write a compelling copy on your web pages and keep the design innovative. Remove any obstacles or objections on this initial stage. Furthermore, provide a proactive customer experience. Even small elements such as intrusive pop-ups, disturbing ads or difficulty navigating can turn them away.

Therefore, make sure your eCommerce site is easy to navigate and search. Give them a reason to give you their contact information to build a relationship with a nurturing campaign. Cart abandonment emails can be a great way to captivate the interest of a looker. The goal is to guide the looker’s attention to the right places on your website. In addition, it is also important to keep them engaged.

Discount Seekers

Discount seekers are usually looking for the best deals possible. This customer type has an interest in your product only because you reduced its price. It’s quite unlikely that the discount seekers would buy it at the regular price. These customers are analytical and good researchers. They could buy a product they didn’t plan only because they found a bargain. Discount-seekers can be tricky to approach. But you can convince them to stay if you handle them the right way.

For a start, they would want to understand your offer and terms in detail. Help them understand that by buying from you, they are saving money and getting real value. You can talk to them in real-time and boost conversions with live chat or chatbots. Discount customers are usually the least loyal segment of customers. They generally move on when better offers are available elsewhere. However, they play an important role in turning over a company’s inventory. This customer rarely makes purchases on impulse. Thus, advertising sales is the best way to appeal to these customers.

Consider including a “coupons and discounts” page on your website. Often, you can get the prospect’s attention with a discounted item. Next, address specific needs that require an upsell. They often look forward to special events like Black Friday or Christmas. Hence, you can segment and target them with personalized email campaigns. Moreover, highlight the sale products and make it easier for the visitors to spot them.

Researchers

Researches are highly informed customer types with a strong analytical personality. They compare products like the lookers and hunt for bargains like the discount-seekers. But, unlike any of them, they focus on the value rather than price alone. They have already compared you with your competitors and are looking for the best possible option.

These customers need to feel they’ve adequately considered the options and made the right decision. Help them do that by providing plenty of dimensions, instructions, details, data. In other words- make it easy for them to access needed information which will lead to an informed decision. Add wireframes, white papers and feature comparisons to your website to help them understand your services better.

Focus on your value proposition. Make them realize that you’re offering something that no one else is going to provide them. Ecommerce researchers especially enjoy sizing guides, high-quality photography, and videos. On the other hand, B2B researchers often appreciate downloads and white papers. Have in mind to provide proof that you have a more effective way of solving their issue.

Highlight your credibility and provide plenty of social proof such as testimonials, reviews, case studies. Those customers will look into every detail to be sure they can trust your brand. Therefore, add information such as product details, high-quality pictures and customer reviews. Furthermore, insert feature comparisons to help them understand your offer better.

Impulse Customers

Impulse customers act on impulse and purchase products spontaneously. These shoppers are simply browsing services with no specific purchasing goal in place. They have not really planned on purchasing your products, or any products for that matter. However, they are receptive to recommendations on products. Moreover, they have the potential to become loyal customers if your services meet or exceed their expectations.

These customers are second to loyal customers in the generation of sales revenue. Hence, try to remove obstacles and make their purchase journey effortless. Time-sensitive offers work best with these kinds of customers. Therefore, offer them time-bound deals that create urgency. Keeping these customers in the loop on new product offerings goes a long way in improving a company’s profitability. Furthermore, keep your website copy engaging and compelling.

Impulse customers tend to contact support centers with questions about product use cases, warranty, or return policies. Therefore, it can be helpful to have a short on-brand script prepared for these situations. Consider automated responses when triggered by certain questions to keep those customers engaged.

Unsure Customers

These types of customers are similar to lookers but are more confused about which direction to move forward. Convince them to stay with you and handle them the right way with the following steps. For a start, focus on your value proposition and support. Present unique solutions, provide amazing customer service and guide them through every step.

This way, the unsure customers can grow confident that your company is the right choice. In addition, offer different types of customer service. Make all your contact channels such as chatbots or live chat options easily available. Furthermore, make it easy for unsure customers to reach you.

Need-Based Customers

Need-based customers are driven by a specific need. In other words, they scan your services quickly, purchase what they need and leave. These customers buy for a specific need or occasion and are hard to upsell. Furthermore, they can be easily drawn to other businesses. Therefore, it is important to initiate positive personal interaction with them in order to retain them.

Converting need-based customers to loyal customers is attainable with proper positive personal interactions. They often have practical questions or concerns that can be addressed with proactive customer service. Therefore, strive to achieve positive personal communication to build strong customer relationships. These customers want to be sure you’ll be there to help them whenever they need it.

Wandering Customers

Wandering customers are somewhat related to impulse shoppers, but much less likely to make purchases. They draw the largest amount of traffic to the company while making up the smallest percentage of sales revenue. They have no specific need or desire in mind but are attracted by the specific factor.

For example, these customers enjoy the social interaction of the shopping experience. Therefore, spending too much time trying to appease this segment can draw away from the more profitable segments. However, providing insightful information about products can stimulate their interest and ultimately result in a purchase.

Types of customers: After the Purchase

The next category of customers are the customers who are new acquaintances to your brand. They have already made the purchase, so you have to focus on retaining them. Hence, the best way to do that is by adding specific value.

New Customers

A new customer is a person who bought something from you for the first time. Their needs most likely involve looking for guidance through a simplistic issue. Therefore, guide them through each step and provide them with comprehensive guidance. As a result, your support will make a lasting first impression that will strengthen your relationship.

Try to make the extra effort by providing options such as live chat, video chat and co-browsing. Include educational resources such as onboarding emails, videos, tutorials or blog posts. By providing such options, your customers will know that you genuinely value them. As a result, there is a great opportunity to create brand loyalty and turn them into repeat customers.

New customers need to feel they made a wise decision and that you’re glad they’re your customers. Hence, build the relationship with a nurturing campaign. Greet returning customers, extend special offers to them, acknowledge and thank them at every turn. Then, continue educating the customers with email newsletters.

Active Customers

Active customers are the ones who are actively using your services. However, they’re not your loyal customers yet. This means, if offered a better deal by your competitors, they are likely to switch. Hence it is crucial to nurture them the right way.

Exceptional customer service, continuous engagement and interactions will make those customers attach to your brand more. Make them feel confident about you caring for them. Take the extra effort to lead your customers towards success. As a result, it will make them stick with you for a long time.

Lapsed Customers

Lapsed customers are the ones who stopped using your services for some reason. For example, they lost interest or switched to your competitors. Perhaps their goals have changed, so they no longer need your solution. Or, they experienced poor service at some point.

Identify lapsed customers as soon as possible. You can identify this type of customer through specific behavior. Typically, they don’t click through your emails or haven’t used your services for a long while. If you don’t activate and recover them, latent customers will become churned customers.

After segmenting these customers, find out why they left you. Get in touch with them to find out why they haven’t been using your services lately. Reach out to them with personal emails as part of your re-engagement email campaign. Have in mind that they are familiar with your services and that you still have an advantage over your competitors.

Therefore, proactively take steps to convince them to purchase from you again. Next, fix issues immediately and let your lapsed customers know that you’ve fixed them. Reach out to them, apologize and inform them that you’ve resolved all their pain points. As a result, you have the opportunity to convert them into loyal customers.

Unhappy Customers

Unhappy clients have made purchases but are unsatisfied with your brand or your services. It’s important to identify these customers as soon as possible and investigate the cause. Track them based on customer service complaints, stopping auto-renewals for subscriptions or negative reviews. Segment those customers and find out why they left.

Furthermore, it’s crucial to handle these customers the right way. Follow up with them through different support channels such as live chat and ask them for feedback. Once you’ve identified these customers, talk to them, understand their complaints and objections. Most importantly, apologize for the inconvenience and offer a solution. If you can fix them, you can turn dissatisfied into loyal customers. Finally, let them know that you’ve handled the source of their dissatisfaction.

Loyal Customers

These customers are the best kind of customers to have for your business. They keep coming back to you for different services and seem to be impressed with your brand. However, they may be expecting an even higher standard of service.

Loyal customers are those who have made a commitment to your service. Moreover, they are also the most likely to generate the majority of your income. In addition, they are likely to recommend your services to others. Therefore, it’s important to meet their needs by providing them with a personalized experience.

For a start, connect with them to understand what made them your loyal customers in the first place. Learn how your product helped them resolve their problem. Use their experiences and try to replicate the same for all your other customers. Afterward, feature your loyal customers on case studies or get their testimonials and reviews. Consider adding reward programs and interactive social media to keep them coming back.

It’s essential to keep these customers involved, engaged and valued by your company. This will make them feel respected, and you get more social proof for your website. Consequently, these customers can become your brand advocates and strengthen your brand awareness.

Lifetime Customers

Lifetime customers are your loyal customers. They have opted for a lifetime subscription to your service. While focusing on converting other types of customers, don’t forget about them. These customers types are going to bring you tons of new customers and good PR. Hence, create value for them and make them a part of your community. In addition, educate them about your referral programs. Ultimately, provide them with some incentives for referring you to other people.

Referring Customers

Referring customers are happy with your services and willing to refer you to new customers. However, they are rarely going to refer new customers themselves. Hence, take the first step by identifying those types of customers. For example, ask for feedback from your active customers. If you receive positive feedback, ask them if to refer your services to other people. You can also provide them with some incentives for referring new customers to you. As a result, it will motivate them to refer more people to your brand.

Advocate Customers

Advocates are the most profitable clients of yours. Apart from being loyal or lifetime customers, they are also your brand’s loyal advocates. They talk about your company and they’ve already referred a bunch of customers to you. Thus, put your advocate customers in the limelight at every chance possible.

Use them for your case studies, put up their testimonials on your home page. This will encourage them to advocate for your brand even more. Make sure that you never disappoint them with any bugs or customer service issues. Always be there for them throughout their journey striving to lead them towards customer success.

Referral customers

Referral customers have been referred to your brand by one of your loyal customers. Some of them will have no issues with using your services while others will require guidance. Hence, consider tailoring your onboarding process for those customers you acquired through referrals. Referral customers may be interested in some specific services that your loyal customer told them about. Thus, it’s best to interact with such customers. Give them all the support they might need to succeed. Get in touch with them and ask about their expectations from you.

Conclusion

No customer is the same, they differ on many levels. Moreover, each consumer buying behavior requires different marketing approaches. Identifying and getting to know them will help you convert and keep them happy. However, it is unlikely you’ll meet customers who perfectly fit a single type of customer. Most of them will be a mix of different types. That’s why it’s important to understand the types of consumers as well as their type of online behavior.

As a result, you will be able to craft an effective and profitable marketing strategy. Each customer who lands on your website or in your store has their own needs and goals. Discover them and tailor your communication and support. Finally, provide them a personalized experience, world-class customer service and clear product value. Only that way you can convert regular buyers into loyal customers.

How to identify and meet customer needs successfully

August 25, 2021

by Carmine Cloak Customer Service Marketing

Introduction

Customer needs are defined as the influential factors that trigger them to purchase your service. They are generated when they come in contact with your business, your competitors or when they search for the solutions you provide. Identifying customer needs is important for businesses looking to create a product that truly speaks to their customers’ problems.

In order to identify customer needs, it is important to understand the reasons behind their decision-making. And for that to happen, it’s very important to know who your customers are. By defining your target audience, you will find out who they are, what they buy and why they buy it.

The more you know about your customers, the more effective your sales and marketing efforts will be. If you’re selling to other businesses, you’ll need to know which individuals are responsible for the decision to buy your service. If you know the challenges that face them, it’s much easier to offer them solutions.

Being customer-focused help in understanding customers better and aligning services to create great value. In fact, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers. Identifying and meeting customer needs should be the focal point of every business to build a solid customer base. Once you have a clear knowledge of your target audience, you can further use it to persuade your customers.

10 things you need to know about your customers

Who they are

If you sell directly to individuals, find out your customers’ gender, age, marital status and occupation. If you sell to other businesses, find out what size and kind of business they are. For example, are they a small private company or a big multinational?

What they do

If you sell to individuals, it’s worth knowing their occupations and interests. If you sell to other businesses, it helps to have an understanding of what their business is trying to achieve.

Why they buy

If you know why customers buy a service, it’s easier to match their needs to the benefits your business can offer.

When they buy

If you approach a customer just at the time they want to buy, you will massively increase your chances of success.

How they buy

For example, some people prefer to buy from a website, while others prefer a face-to-face meeting.

What makes them feel good about buying

If you know what makes them satisfied, you can serve them in the way they prefer.

What they expect of you

For example, if your customers expect reliable delivery and you don’t disappoint them, you stand to gain repeat business.

How much resources do they have

You’ll be more successful if you can match your offer to what you know your customer can afford.

What they think about you

If your customers enjoy your services, they’re likely to purchase more. And you can only explore problems that customers have if you know what they think about your service.

What they think about your competitors

If you know how your customers perceive your competition, you can stay ahead of your rivals.

Types of customer needs

Customer needs are about delivering a better experience by exceeding their expectations. When you anticipate what your customers want, you can create relevant content. Furthermore, you can expand your services to meet those needs early. Customer needs can be classified on the basis of customers of the market demographics:

Product needs

Product requirements are associated with and around the product. If your product matches your customer’s needs they become your potential buyers. The main attributes of product needs can be:

Price – Customers generally set their budgets for any product purchase.

Features – Customers look for features that would solve their problems and reliability in functioning while using the product.

Effectiveness – The product should be effective in order to save time.

Service Needs

Service needs refer to the emotional needs of the customers. Being able to provide the customer service needs can give your business a competitive edge. The key attributes of good service can be:

Empathy – Customers stay loyal to brands that serve them with an empathetic attitude.

Clarity– Customers look for transparent information from the brand related to pricing, refund policy, etc.

Information – Customers need information from the point of interaction until the end. Educate them with FAQ pages, Knowledge base, How-to videos and more.

How to Identify Customer Needs

Method 1: Create a Survey

Surveys help you find out more about your customer base and your target audience. They allow you to get into people’s minds and discover the reasons why they buy from you. Ask questions that help you see the attitude people have toward different aspects of your brand, such as:

Individual products
Customer service experiences
Purchase or shipping
Information
Guarantees

For example, set a list of positive and negative adjectives and ask customers to select all that they feel apply to your customer service. Include questions that compare your services to that of a competitor. Try to understand why your customers have chosen you over other similar products offered by other brands.

Use surveys to understand the usage trends of customers. For example, is there a time of the year when customers purchase a certain product more? Are customers using your products in the way you were expecting or to accomplish other goals?

Method 2: Use Social Media & Review Data to Discover Sentiment

Social listening allows you to monitor online conversations about your products or brand by following certain hashtags or even searching posts by keywords. That way, even when people don’t tag you in their comments, you still see what they’re saying about you. Use a social listening tool, such as Hootsuite, in order to monitor conversations and see what people really think of you.

Furthermore, collect the data. See what adjectives people use to describe your brand, and the ratio of positive to negative comments. This will help you see where your brand is doing well and where you need to put in some extra effort.

Method 3: Keyword Research

One of the earliest ways to determine your customer’s needs is to conduct keyword research. For example, what do you do first when you have a question about a product? Probably use Google to search for the answer to your question. Therefore, your customer’s needs can be found in how they search for your company or your services online.

For this reason, keyword research will give you the earliest insight into the needs of your customers. Understanding customer needs is at the center of every successful business, whether it sells directly to individuals or other businesses. Once you have this knowledge, use it to persuade your customers that buying from you is in their best interests.

How to meet customer needs successfully

Meeting customer needs is crucial for any business looking to retain and attract new customers. Once you have knowledge about your customer’s needs, integrate that knowledge into existing processes. Your brand can only grow if you meet your customer’s needs in all areas. This can mean updating an entire marketing campaign or modernizing existing product features. After you’ve identified what your customer needs from you, analyze the data you’ve collected. Finally, make sure to deliver what customers are asking for.

Deliver quality customer support

Customers prefer brands that offer real-time support. In fact, 66% of customers believe that valuing their time is the most important thing in any online customer experience. Therefore, focus on providing exceptional customer service and resolving their problems.

How can you enhance your customer support quality?

Provide real-time support. Connect with your customers with live chat to deliver real-time assistance for sales and support queries.
Use live assistance solutions. By using tools like co-browsing and video chat, you can provide faster solutions by reducing the number of touchpoints.
Automate your customer support. Use a chatbot template to engage with customers 24/7 and answer their simple queries promptly.

Map your customer journey

A great way to meet customer needs is by understanding the different customer touchpoints and how they interact with your business across these contact points. You can map your customer journey to get a visualization of the process they go through when engaging with your services.

Mapping journeys include multiple phases and touchpoints the customer goes through, right from prospect to loyal customers. It helps you detect efforts and identify opportunities for improvement. Identifying and meeting customer needs in the whole journey are all about providing a delightful experience that will further cultivate loyalty.

Measure customer satisfaction regularly

To know how happy your customers are with your overall business, measure it on a regular basis. Choosing the right communication channels and customer satisfaction metrics is crucial. The key KPIs are customer satisfaction score (CSAT), net promoter score (NPS), and customer effort score (CES). They help in measuring performance, monitor, and analyzing satisfaction levels in the overall customer journey.

Measuring customer satisfaction provides deep insights into your overall business performance. Based on that you can improve on the areas you are doing well and have loopholes. Based on the CSAT scores, you can restructure your services in order to reduce customer churn by boosting the satisfaction rate.

Be consistent in customer communication

Meet your customers’ requirements and make the right efforts to understand the goals and capabilities of the company. Use every possible strategy for effective customer service communication:

Focus on building a multichannel customer service strategy to deliver consistent support across all channels.
Train your support team with customer service etiquette to meet customer needs effectively.
Provide real-time assistance to your customers with live customer engagement tools.

Develop a customer centric culture

Another way to meet your customer needs is to create a company culture that is focused on customer experience at every touchpoint. The customer experience (CX) is the major differentiator for every business. It includes visualizing interactions through every touchpoint from the customer’s perspective.

Align your company culture to focus on the customer experience first. Your employees make or break most customer touchpoints, so be clear on your brand’s values and what makes the experience delightful. Empower your support representatives to be proactive, thoughtful, and creative in making it practically happen.

Enhance the USP of your product

Every business needs a reason for its customers to buy from them over their competitors, which is known as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP can change depending upon the changes in your business and for different types of customers.

The USP of your product can be effective to differentiate your brand when the customers are making their buying decision. If your products are built across helping customers to resolve their issues faster, it will attract them and keep them coming back. Implement the following tips:

Conduct customer research on identifying customer needs and analyzing them in order to improve your services.
Ask customer feedback and categorize it further to improve brand value to match with customer needs.

Require customer feedback

Customer feedback is a vital ingredient for the success of every business. It helps to enhance your services to better suit the needs of your customers. This will then raise the chances of the purchase of your improved services. Choose the right time to ask for honest customer feedback. For example, after the chat session of a successful transaction. Afterward, analyze the feedback to generate valuable insights and recreate better products as per their needs.

Essentially, once you receive customer feedback, follow certain steps that give opportunities to know your customer needs. Analyze the data according to internal & external customers’ needs and expectations and enhance it. Figure out the gaps between your business and customers. Set new plans and strategies to reduce the gaps.

How to make sure your services are meeting the needs of your customers

Price

Customers are more concerned than ever about price. Are they getting the best deal? Is this comparable to a competitor? Are they paying for convenience or getting the premium services available? In fact, 60% of customers consider price before anything else, and 81% say that it’s essential to compare prices between different sellers.

Especially if you’re competing against companies with similar products, the price could be a big factor in a customer’s purchase decision. Considering offering the right kind of discount to customers who are cost-conscious could help you win more business.

Reliability and Risk Reduction

People want to know they’re not at risk of losing their money or time. They need to rely on your product’s ability to function properly for a reasonable amount of time. That’s why your product return policy and guarantees are so important. This is an essential factor that you’ll need to cover if you want to meet your customers’ needs.

Usability & Convenience

For your products to meet people’s needs, they must be useful and convenient. Find out exactly what your customers use your services for and why they like them. Once you understand the different uses that customers have for your products, you can adapt to better fit their needs.

Transparency

People need to know exactly what they’re paying upfront and without hidden fees. That’s why companies need to be transparent about what customers are actually going to pay at the end. Furthermore, transparency can result in generating conversation online and creating more brand loyal customers.

Other brands promote transparency through the voice of the customer. By enabling customer feedback through ratings and reviews, questions and answers and visual content, businesses leave less room for consumers to second guess buying decisions.

Control

Another common customer need is having some control over the product. This could mean a number of different things. For example, subscription-based brands can offer control over the terms or the length of the subscription. Ecommerce brands can offer different options for delivery, especially during busy holiday seasons. Also, control could mean customization of the product itself.

Empathy & Friendliness

When it comes to customer service, people need to feel that a brand understands and cares about them. In fact, 51% of people who are faced with a bad customer service experience say they’ll never do business with that company again. On the other hand, customers in the U.S. are willing to pay 17% more for a company that offers excellent customer service. Consequently, you need to provide outstanding customer service if you want to meet your customer’s needs.

Information

Sometimes, people may be unsure of what suits their particular needs. In this case, they need further guidance. You can provide it to them by being available to answer their questions or include a live chat on your website. Next, produce informational content. Try to include knowledge bases for software, instructional blog or video content.

Conclusion

When you start prioritizing customer needs, implement them successfully in your services. Being able to deliver a great experience grows your customer base of loyal customers. Having good knowledge of customer needs and wants helps you level up overall brand recognition. Furthermore, it gives your business a competitive advantage to stay a step ahead in the market.