Whichever kind of business you run, whether it’s a franchise, multi-location, B2B, big, or small, it's important that your customers trust you. According to a recent survey, the number one factor that influences how well a customer trusts a company is their perception of the company’s quality of customer service.
In this day and age, customer service is more than just “Hi, how can I help you today?” when people walk through your front door, It's also about your online presence. Even if you may not physically see or meet all of your customers in person, their opinions of your business still matter. With customer review sites and social media platforms being readily available to anyone with internet access it’s so easy for people to view negative reviews about your business and judge your brand. One way to boost your online presence is by interacting with customers on customer review sites. Don't let those Yelp reviews hang in cyberspace, respond to them.
Here are some other tips to help you build a strong customer service base online:
1. Respond ASAP
The survey conducted by Dimensional Research concluded that "companies create better customer experiences when they react quickly to a customer service issue." People want to know that you're constantly looking to build off of what customers are thinking and that their opinions matter. Whether this means immediately addressing a disgruntled customer or thanking a grateful customer, it's important that you let them know you're listening now.
2. Be Personal
When responding to customers, don't respond with canned generic messages. Use the customer's name and directly reference the comment that you are responding to. Especially when responding to unsatisfied customers, make sure you are specifically addressing their complaints so they know that you sincerely care about their concerns and are not treating them as just another sale.
3. Learn From It
What did customers love? What did they hate? Instead of beating yourself up over a bad review, respond and look at it closely. How can you improve your business to avoid this same problem in the future? You can use this to make your business even better than it was before.
One of the great aspects of online review sites is that potential customers will be able to see your online interactions and watch you handle complaints and praises professionally. This will help build your overall image and gain respect from current or potential customers. Here is an example of a company that handles customer complaints on social media very well: Taco Bell.
There are a couple things to point out from Taco Bell’s response to the unhappy customer. Although Taco Bell didn’t address Sean by his first name, they still made the message personal with casual, familiar language like “that’s not cool” and “we’re on it.” Also, if you take a look at the dates of the tweets, Taco Bell responded to the complaint within 24 hours, making sure that complaints and concerns were being heard almost right away. It takes a lot of work to monitor social media and customer review sites, but as you can see, by Sean’s positive tweet back to Taco Bell, Sean appreciated Taco Bell’s efforts to make the situation better. Because this all happened on such a popular platform like Twitter, other users will be able to see the customer service efforts as well.
For more business consultation or information on how you can use the digital world to your business's advantage, feel free to contact us.
Image by via Pixabay
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Work Habits & Productivity
Jay, the CEO of StringCan, oversees strategy and vision, building culture that makes going into work something he looks forward to, recruiting additional awesome team members to help exceed clients goals, leading the team and allocating where StringCan invests time and money.
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