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It is no secret to anybody that running a business successfully relies heavily on keeping your customer happy. As long as you are able to keep your customers happy, you will find that your business has much more of a chance of success – and it will also making running the business a whole lot more enjoyable to do, too. But the whole question of what it is that customers want or need is something that is always going to plague business owners. If this is something that you are concerned about in your own business, then it could be helpful to step back and start to think about some of the important concerns here. In this article, we are going to try and make this a little simpler by looking at some of the true golden rules of customer satisfaction. As long as you are aware of these and you take them on board, you should be able to ensure that your customers really are as happy with your service as possible.
Every Interaction Matters
First up, let’s look at the act of interacting with your customers. There are going to be many occasions when you need to speak with customers, email them, fax them, or whatever else it might be. It could even be a live web chat. Whatever the medium, however, you need to remember that every single interaction you have with your customers truly matters, and that you need to make sure that you are taking it seriously every single time. If there are even a few times when you fail to really approach it in the best possible way, this can be all it takes to push a few customers away, so that is something that you really need to make sure that you are avoiding as best as possible.
When you are training up your customer service staff, therefore, be sure to drill this rule into their head. By appreciating that every single interaction is important, you can make sure that they work on building the best relationships with clients that they possibly can, and ultimately that will mean that the customer is going to come to respect the fact that your service is always on, and always the best it can be. This is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you are impressing your customers every day.
The Customer Is Number One
The old adage of the customer always being right does not always right true for people these days, and with good reason. After all, there might be many occasions when the customer is not right – and where the correct thing is actually more to their advantage than what they have believed. But there is a nugget of truth in this which you might want to focus on in order to improve your own customer interactions as much as possible. That is that the customer should always be considered the number one in any interaction, with the business itself being second.
What does this really mean? Simply that you need to make sure that whatever you do is geared towards the customer’s satisfaction first, and your own profit second. Whenever you make a business decision, big or small, you should step back and think about it from the customer’s point of view. Then you can ask yourself whether it is good for them, or good only for you and your business. You should find that this is a particularly powerful way to get to terms with what you should be doing for your customers, and how much you should be prioritising their needs over your business. This basically ensures that you are serving your customers, with serving being the word that most businesses need to remember well. As long as you are putting your customers first, you will find that they are always going to be much happier indeed.
People Desire Attentiveness
When you are looking at the kind of approach to communication that people tend to appreciate, one of the major things is that most customers will want you to be as attentive as possible. That means that you need to make sure that you are always there for them where possible, and that you are responding within a decent time frame. This rate of response is something that you can always work on improving, and there are a number of angles you might be able to do so. One that is likely to prove especially useful is the use of a CRM, or Customer Relationship Manager. With this kind of technology under your belt, you can collect the necessary data from many different sources at once, and use that to be much more attentive in your customer relations. That control of data is certainly important, and it is something that will crop up later in regard to something quite different.
Another way to be more attentive to the customer is to ensure that you are holding your staff to SLAs, so that they know they have to pick up the phone on a certain number of rings a certain percentage of the time. That will make for a much more complete customer service, and the number of negative responses you are going to get from customers is going to decline dramatically once you take this on board. The more attentive you can be to your customers, the more you are showing that you really do care about them.
The Way You Deal With Complaints Tells A Customer Everything
All businesses are going to receive complaints from time to time. No matter how well you do, there will always be one or two unhappy souls who give you grief. Rather than merely wishing them away, you should make a point of trying to make use of that situation, in a way which is going to enable your business to grow rapidly. How you deal with complaints is something that is very telling of your approach to customer service in general, and it is something that your customers will be paying very close attention to as you try to help them with their problem.
So what is the best approach to receiving a complaint? Firstly and most obviously, never argue with the customer. Just assume that the story they are telling you is correct, even if you suspect that details might be exaggerated or parts are missing or whatever it might be. Assume the story is correct, and be sure to listen to them fully. Certainly don’t interrupt them. Once you are aware of the central nugget of what the problem is, state it back to them. Don’t do this in a patronising way, just make it clear that you have listened and you know what the problem is. Then you can outline what it is that you intend to do, and what you think might help the situation resolve. You can then ask them if they would be satisfied with that. If not, ask them what they would be satisfied with. If it is, then make it clear that you are taking that on board and making it happen – but don’t over promise here, as it could result in further complaints when you ultimately don’t deliver. It’s then a case of politely getting on with the solution and keeping them updated. Along the way, you should apologize, and again at the end once the issue is fully resolved and they are satisfied that it is resolved.
If you can deal with customer complaints well, they will see that you really do care about them, and that you are a business they can true. The fact is that very often, those customers who complain often turn out to be your most loyal and loving customers, because they have seen how you deal with a complaint and they respect it, and they see that you really care about them. For that reason, learning to deal with complaints – and teaching your employees the same – is going to be hugely valuable in your customer relations.
The Customer Is A Person
There are many benefits to be gained in your business from taking lots of data on your customers. With enough data, you can find out what kind of demographics your customers are, what makes them tick, and what they are likely to respond to well in marketing. You can also make it so that your customer service is as tailored to them as possible. Clearly, they are all useful things, and you should aim to discover that data as best as you can. But while doing that, you should never overlook the fact that each individual customer is a human being, and that they should be treated as such. In your dealings with customers, if you can make a point of always treating them as the people they are, you will find that this is something that they appreciate greatly, and it could be the most important golden rule of them all.