If you have ever doubted the importance of customer service, it’s important to understand its value to customers. 93% of people are likely to make repeat purchases from companies with great service, and 66% are willing to pay more to work with these companies. Focusing on their experience is an ideal way to improve your bottom line!
Here, we’re going to discuss some effective ways to boost your small business customer service. Read on for some tips and tricks for growing your UK business with a high-quality customer experience.
What Makes a Great Customer Service Experience?
The first step to great customer service is to thoroughly understand your products and processes. You should know what people buy and why they usually purchase it. You also need to be organised enough to pull up their information right after greeting them and hearing their issue.
Prompt and Timely Help
Consumers across Great Britain are 2.4 times more likely to keep working with a brand that has speedy customer service. This is especially important because customer retention rates have a direct impact on revenue.
If you keep loyal customers around just 5% more frequently, your bottom line will go up by at least 25%. It may even increase by 95% in some cases.
Make sure that you offer multiple channels through which customers can contact your support team. AI chatbots are useful for answering FAQs instantly. Fast-to-answer call hotlines and 24-hour live chats with professionals also are great ways to keep clients around.
Helpful and Friendly Environments
Fast service alone won’t keep customers invested in your business. You also need to actively resolve their issues during this time frame.
This means listening to their specific problems and discussing potential solutions with them. Personalise your communications by using their name and pulling up their account information. You can then discuss their issues in more detail for a better-tailored experience.
Connecting emotionally with customers is one of the most important ways to differentiate yourself from competitors. Have support workers emphasise that they relate to customer’s struggles and are sorry for issues that have arisen. This will show that you care about their feelings and frustrations.
Memorable Experiences
Retaining clients requires you to be memorable. After all, if customers forget about you due to mediocre customer service and assistance, they won’t think to come back. That’s why it’s critical to make your brand stand out in their minds.
Send follow-up emails to clients after speaking with them. Offer coupon codes and promotions for filling out surveys. You can always use feedback to improve your user experience!
But one of the best ways to stand out is by giving loyal customers branded promotional products. After resolving an issue for a high-value client, ship a free gift out to the address on file. You can also just include it in the shipment of their next purchase.
Getting and using a promotional mug will ensure that you’re always fresh in customer’s minds. They’ll remember their positive experience and be more likely to return.
How Can This Contribute to Business Growth?
Decent businesses think that customer service is a way to resolve and forget about issues. Quality businesses understand that assisting customers is about creating long-lasting working relationships with them.
This means that you’re more likely to boost your revenue with repeat customers. Regardless if your industry, this can help you stand out against your competitors as someone who cares about your clients. This quality service and the willingness to help customers means they’re more likely to work with you over others in the future.
Word of Mouth Marketing
But repeat customers and client loyalty are just the tip of the iceberg. Satisfied customers naturally become part of your branding strategy by spreading word of your services to others.
They’re more likely to give you good online reviews. Since 84% of UK consumers trust what other customers say on the web, you build a reputation for yourself with others looking into your services.
Happy customers are also more likely to talk about you to friends and colleagues. Since people tend to spend time with people who have similar interests and values, this is a great way to target your desired market. After all, those that happy clients talk to will already have the same pain points that they need to be resolved!
Surveys and Feedback
After a client has a positive customer service experience, you can prompt them to take a short survey online. If they call you and prefer to use the phone, you can have an automated machine ask questions and have people rate their satisfaction levels by pressing buttons on their mobile.
This will give you an accurate assessment of how well your customer service team is doing.
In addition to generic questions like “how satisfied are you with the help you received,” you can ask more specific ones. Inquire about the channels through which customers found you, what your communication-related strengths were, and whether they are likely to do business with you again.
This will let your support team know how well they are doing and how they can improve in the future.
Enhancing Your Small Business Customer Experience
In addition to empathy and active listening, you’ll need to greatly personalise your service.
People don’t want to interact with someone who speaks to them generically. They want to connect with the human behind the phone or the chat screen. This means making people laugh when possible, but even if you can’t, interactions need to be more than a scripted reading.
Make sure that your support professionals are willing to go off-script and deliver a human touch to their conversations.
Personalisation also means focusing support on the customer rather than on your team. You don’t want to constantly say that you’re resolving the issue.
Instead, treat the customer like a person you care about. They’re likely to be happier when they think you’re friendly and care for them as human beings.
Another aspect of personalisation is building a brand identity. When your brand feels like someone that people can connect with, they’re more likely to feel excited to talk to you. Frequent social media posts in a friendly brand voice can create customer loyalty through connection.
Use Real Data in Small Business Customer Service
However, the human touch doesn’t mean avoiding smart business strategies. Tracking customer service data and metrics can get you analytical information to assess how well you’re doing.
You’ll want to track organisational metrics to see what consumers think about your product. Some of these figures may include:
- The number of sales you make in a month
- The percentage of customers who make repeat sales
- Whether contacting your support team increases repeat sales (by comparing the number of repeat clients that have reached out vs the number of those who have not)
- Which products lead to the most repeat sales
- Which pages on your website lead to conversions (and which lead to higher bounce rates)
Understanding these figures helps you figure out what your marketing team should focus on, but it also helps your customer service team. They’ll know where to direct people and how they can best support them. This will ultimately drive more sales.
You also should assess operational metrics. This term means looking into the performance of your individual customer service representatives. You can look at:
- Which agents lead customers to shop with you again
- Whether speaking with certain agents causes people to bounce
- Who rated each agent at what satisfaction level
- The average number of complaints agents receive
- The first response time of each member of your staff
- How long each agent connects with people
This will let you accurately assess everyone’s performance. It will also let you see what people are doing right so you can train the entire team to perform like top-rated representatives.
Embrace Modern Technology
Embracing technology like chatbots and AI is a great way to keep people happy. It’s fast service. However, you can also combine physical promotions with tech-savvy digital methods for a well-rounded customer experience.
Send out promotional mugs with QR codes that lead to your website. You can direct those who scan them to top-performing items. Survey pages and contact forms are also popular.
This gets people onto your website. You’ll have more metrics to assess so that you can improve your customer service strategy.
Omnichannel customer service also helps you develop a great customer support plan. They should be able to use live chats and email as well as multiple social media platforms.
This gets rid of the need for excessive transferring between your business departments. Customers also won’t need to repeat information several times to different representatives. There’s also a lower likelihood of getting conflicting information when you embrace several different technologies for support.
Start Promoting Your Business the Right Way
Now that you know some small business customer service tips for promoting your UK business, it’s time to enhance your business growth with effective strategies. Our team is committed to offering high-quality promotional mugs that both new and old clients love.
We’re excited to offer a wide range of products including classic branded mugs and earthenware and bone china products. Reach out to Prince William Pottery to learn more about how we can help you engage with your target audience.
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