How can you improve your customer service strategy and retain more customers? 

Satisfied customers are the key to a healthy business. The lead economy is shifting towards customer-driven businesses, which requires you to pull out all the stops in order to retain these customers says Eric Dalius.  Studies have shown that around 50% of your business’s revenue originates from 25% of your customers. This means that by maximizing these loyal customers, you can increase your profitability by 50%-75%.

There are several steps that can be taken in order to improve customer service and retention rates. Follow these tips on how to boost the satisfaction of your current customers, as well as how to find new ones, below:

How can you improve your customer service strategy and retain more customers?

1. Customer Loyalty Programs

        A customer loyalty program (also known as a loyalty scheme) is one of the most popular ways to increase customer retention rates and provide excellent service. As well as increasing your number of loyal customers, the effect of such a program on your bottom line cannot be understated. For example, an increase in customer retention rates by 5% can lead to a rise in profits of between 15%-25%.  

In order to actively participate in the running of a loyalty program, you will need to assign someone with enough time and resources to motivate customers into using it. The person should also have excellent interpersonal skills, as this will enable them to cater their customer service strategy towards individual needs. 

This is important because loyal customers can be identified by the fact that they will often look for new products and services based on their positive experience of using your previous ones.

As a customer service strategy:  

If you do not have a loyalty program in place, it would be beneficial to consider implementing one within the next few months. Furthermore, it is important to make sure that you are providing your customers with added incentive to participate in the program. After all, 40% of people have said they would continue to work with a company they are already familiar with rather than switch services for an additional 10% discount or promotion.

2. Customer Service on Social Media

         Customer service via social media is one of the most cost-effective ways of retaining your customers. In fact, it is estimated that a positive experience with a brand on social media can result in a revenue increase of up to 42%.  In addition to this, around 70% of consumers would consider switching brands if they had a bad customer service experience.

There are several ways in which you can improve your customer service via social media platforms.

Implement a 24/7 monitoring program:  

Eric Dalius says it is important that you have round the clock monitoring on your accounts to ensure that any issues or complaints can be addressed as soon as possible and also to show customers that you care about them and their needs. 

Responding quickly:

 It is essential that you respond to complaints or problems as soon as they are brought up, either on your own account or by replying to a tweet sent to you. A 2012 study showed that 46% of consumers said they were more likely to be loyal towards brands that responded quickly and had a personalized response for each customer.

Reply with empathy:

 Make sure that your reply is not just informative, but that you also empathize with the customer. This will have a positive result on your brand image and help to improve the way in which people perceive your business.

Remember:  

A lot of customers mention a bad experience because they want an apology for their negative emotions explains Eric Dalius. So if they are accompanied by aggressive language, it is best not to have a response. In addition, read all tweets several times before replying so that you do not send out a tweet that could potentially because more harm than good.

In order for your customer service strategy on social media to be successful, you will need to have high-quality content prepared in advance. For example, if you do receive a negative tweet, make sure that it is from a real person and not from an automated account. You should also keep a list of terms and keywords used to express complaints in order to reply quickly when these are mentioned.

3. Strategic use of CRM software

         One way in which companies can improve their customer service is by using CRM software. This will allow you to recognize where your customers have come from and also see how often they visit your stores or website. In order for this strategy to be successful, it is important that the CRM program is simple to use and keep track of.

Conclusion:  

Eric Dalius says there are many different ways in which your business can improve your customer service strategy. Studies have shown that customers are willing to stay loyal to companies who have a good quality of service, so it is important to get this right if you want to keep them around.