marketingcustomer experience management
How Great Customer Service Is the Best Marketing Tool
Any great business needs a great customer service model that will help create a thriving base. Each industry brings its own unique sets of challenges, but there are several aspects of customer service that are still universal. The piece below discusses five tips to follow when building a successful customer service model.
Connecting to Customers
The point of customer service is to properly connect to your target customer base, and directly reaching out to them is the best way to initially accrue interest in whatever service or product you are offering. Look at what other successful businesses are doing in your industry to meet their customers, and follow that success to ensure customer connection.
The best way to improve customer outreach is to teach your employees about basic leadership skills and then to conduct rigorous research on the vertical you are attempting to enter so that you know what gap in the market you are filling. Utilize whatever methods seem most effective in your industry (e.g. social media, newsletters, blogging, webinars) with a focus on what sets your business apart.
Personalizing Customer Service
An easy way to optimize your customer service model is to focus on personalization. If you go into any company’s complaints folder, you will likely see many users angry about their feeling that their questions were not answered by a real human being or that their concerns were diverted to a foreign call center that is barely connected to the parent company. This provides an opportunity for your newer business to stand out by offering a human and deeply personalized model.
The simplest way to personalize your business’ customer experience is to make sure that any customer with a problem can talk to a knowledgeable human employee. Massive companies will often use AI chat bots and other machines or software to conduct basic customer service, but you can instead focus on clear and direct communication.
For example, a tent rental business with a personalized customer service model will likely offer a nice variety of tents that meet their customer’s needs and have human employees on the other end that can answer any relevant questions related to choosing the right tent. If customers feel that they have been heard and helped to make the best choice for them, they are much more likely to come back.
Keeping Employees Happy
Excellent customer service tends to come from happy employees, so you should build worker satisfaction into your own model. Studies have demonstrated repeatedly in the past that employees that feel happy and appreciated at work will engage more effectively with customers and commit to a higher standard of work.
After you have completed your market research and understand the exact angle at which you are cornering your share of the vertical in question, you can convert your employees into a thriving company culture. Focus on forms of praise and positive feedback so that the very best workers are rewarded. Continuous but always constructive feedback is also key to maintaining clear expectations. This combined feedback model will help your business deliver the best customer service.
To ensure employee satisfaction, you should build into your model other ways to support your staff. Provide ample PTO, promote employees that go above and beyond, use fun and collaborative team events to build teamwork, and provide holiday bonuses whenever possible.
Using New Technology
New technology can be pivotal in connecting to customers in a real and authentic way. Even though a personalized and human-forward model will help you corner your piece of the market, there is always room to integrate new forms of software and other emerging tech. Focus on both customer-facing devices as well as internal technologies as you build out your client base and employee base in equal measure.
Some simple technologies, such as new business softwares, can be used to build customer databases, surveys, and user portals while more advanced AI-enhanced models also have their place in meeting your customer’s needs. Add whatever tech you need in order to keep your customers happy and your employees satisfied.
Maintaining Brand Recognition
While you are focusing on all of these other basic facets of excellent customer service, you should always maintain a strong sense of branding. Brand familiarity makes loyal customers feel comfortable, so do some market research on trends specific to your company’s industry and use those to guide your customer service model as well as other parts of the business.
The basic concept that guides good brand maintenance is establishing an idea that is immediately recognizable but also seen as constantly developing to meet a customer’s current needs. Focus on what sets your brand apart within the current market and how your employees are actively filling specific needs. For example, a newer tent rental business can create great brand recognition by having a clean signature look with a simple form for direct info about pricing, contact, and available service locations.
Conclusion
Excellent customer service is key to the success of any business regardless of industry, and it is the easiest way to market your company. Customers will naturally spread the word about businesses that satisfy their needs, and a great customer service model will also ensure that customers keep coming back for the product or service that your company offers.
