Fostering good customer relations is a crucial aspect of growing any business. If you fail to focus on how you relate to your current customers, you may find that customers choose another business in the future. You may also begin to develop a bad reputation in your industry.
While most business owners know the importance of good customer relations, it can be a little tricky to make long-lasting changes to your company culture. If you’re hoping to improve customer relations at your company, now is the perfect time to make some customer relations New Year’s resolutions that will help you achieve your goals. Here are a few New Year’s resolutions ideas to get you started.
Explore the latest customer relations technology options
Customer service options are constantly evolving with new technologies. Once upon a time, customers had to email or call a company to receive support. These days, other options are usually available, often using AI technology.
If your current system is a little outdated, do some research into what options are out there so you can update your customer service appropriately. We recommend starting with AI technology that allows you to have a fully functional help desk running through social media channels, 24/7.
Aim to personalize each customer’s experience
One of the best customer relations New Year’s resolutions is to focus on catering to the individual. It’s important to remember that each customer’s needs are different. Focus on using data to drive your customer relations strategy.
Send targeted follow-up emails based on this data and offer a range of customer service options to ensure that each of your customers gets exactly what they need rather than creating a one size fits all system. While this may sound like one of the broader and more difficult New Year’s resolutions given here, any steps you can take towards a more personalized experience for your customers will likely reap good rewards.
Focus on the employee’s experience
Placing the focus on the employee before the customer is one of the top New Year’s resolutions you could set for your business. If your employees aren’t satisfied or happy at work, they won’t be putting in their best efforts with your customers. When employees feel appreciated, they will be proud to represent the company and, in turn, will give their full attention to your customers. As Gardner found in a study, companies with good scores in employee engagement have an average of 10% stronger customer satisfaction levels.
Offer 24/7 customer service and self-service
When customers have an issue, their top concern will usually be resolving the issue as quickly as possible, without wasting too much of their personal time. Nothing is more frustrating than seeking out help from a company only to find that you’ll need to try again on Monday or during business hours.
While you may worry that offering 24/7 customer service will come at an expense to you, it turns out, 90% of customers use customer service quality to decide whether or not to continue using a service or a company—so, it’s important to invest in customer service that doesn’t disappoint.
Self-service is another important technological development that can help you refine your customer service. While some customers will benefit from speaking to an employee, others will simply want to find the information they need to resolve their problem on their own. Self-service is a great option—plus, once it’s set up, it’s actually pretty cost-effective.
Ask for feedback
Make this the year you make listening to your customers a priority. While you may think that your customer relations are on track, it’s impossible to know where you’re going wrong without seeking out feedback. This year, try implementing customer feedback forms and questionnaires, and use the data you gather to make specific, considered improvements on how you deal with your customers.
Focus on updating the training
While it’s important to offer high-quality training when your employees join the team, it’s also important to offer ongoing training sessions as your company changes, grows, and develops. Spend some time developing a training program for your current employees this year to help them refine and hone their customer-facing skills.
Keep it simple
Finally, the key to building successful customer relations is to keep things simple. Focus on what matters—serving your customer to the best of your ability and doing it efficiently and effectively. While all of these customer relations New Year’s resolutions will help you to perfect your company’s customer service, the key to success really is going back to basics. Make sure your customers can reach you quickly and that your employees know how to help them.
Sources:
https://www.nextiva.com/blog/5-new-years-resolutions-with-your-customers-in-mind.html
https://www.cgsinc.com/blog/5-new-years-resolutions-to-improve-your-customer-experience
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/eight-new-years-resolutions-for-social-customer-service/459869/
https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/4-new-years-resolutions-to-make-for-better-customer-relations/
http://www.homeenergy.org/show/blog/nav/blog/id/512
https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-service-stats