As a business of any size; you’ll understand the importance of customer and client satisfaction. And, as the year comes to an end, there’s no better time to reflect on your company, its processes, and your customer’s experience with you. It’s crucial to keep your target audience happy so that they return to invest in your business, and you can keep growing. Therefore, in order to remain motivated and to build momentum in your brand; it’s time to implement some improvements and changes so that you’re creating the best customer experience you possibly can. By doing so, you’ll have an immediate edge over any of your competitors, and people will choose to come to you for your product or service, over anyone else.
Take the chance now to list each area of your customer’s journey and start a thorough assessment of your business and what it provides at every stage of its experience. You’ll have ample opportunity as the new year arrives, to begin going through your list and making the changes you feel are necessary. By putting some energy and effort behind your plan now, over the festive period, will ensure that you hit the ground running into 2023, and you can begin to grow and thrive. They are an array of things you can do to give your business a boost, especially in regard to those who shop with you. So, what are you waiting for? The following are some ideas, tips, and inspiration for entrepreneurs who are ready to focus on those who ensure their business is able to exist, and ensure that their customers always leave having had a positive experience.
Ensure Communication Is Clear
Without strength in your communication with your customers; it’s going to be extremely difficult to give them any information at all, let alone encourage them to come and shop with you. Therefore, it’s worth going over every line of communication between you and your customers so that you can ensure you’re clear and consistent at all times. This may start with your branding; it may be time for a refresh, or a complete overhaul so that it can speak volumes about your business and provide cohesiveness across each area of communication online and physically. Invest in the help of an agency, or graphic designer, to ensure that you have a strong brand identity that can be implemented wherever you choose to put information.
Your branding needs to work across all your social media, website, and marketing assets; it needs to be easily recognized so that your customers are quick to notice you if you pop up on their feed onto the side of their internet search in the ads box. This clear form of instant recognition will immediately give current and potential customers confidence in your business, and a positive association with your brand. Your strong brand communication then needs to be coupled with great content and posts.
You want your customer experience to begin straight away, and be a positive thing from beginning to end. Therefore, after they notice it’s you with your great branding and style identity; ensure that your posts are pleasing to the eye, state any call-to-actions clearly, and make them tempting. Your customers will appreciate a straightforward and smooth action towards your website and products, along with having just seen something they can appreciate, and you’ll benefit from more traffic and sales conversions.
Make Customer Care Your Priority
Leading on from clarity in your communication; it’s worth thinking about when and where your customers come to you for help, questions, comments, and any assistance they may require. If you get plenty of social media engagement, you may want to think about how to respond to individuals in the tone of your brand identity or pin a comment that will answer a majority of questions, or thank them for the engagement. If you feel like you can’t reply to every direct message on these platforms; ensure you’ve set up a polite automated response, full of information and directing them to the best lines of communication with you. This will ensure they feel cared for as soon as they attempt to make contact.
You can look into how your website functions; ensuring people can have a smooth, easy, and straightforward shopping experience online is another great way to look after their needs and make sure that leave happy. Look into the best website chat tool for your business, so that your customers and visitors always feel like they can get a response and some sort of information; do all you can to ensure that they never feel ignored.
Send a follow-up, thank you email so that they understand the care hasn’t completely ended just because they’ve bought their product. These little things make all the difference in customer satisfaction and how likely they are to recommend you to others.
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Encourage Customers To Return
Aside from giving great customer care when they shop with you; it’s important to ensure that they keep returning for repeat sales and custom. Therefore, you’ll need to consider what is going to hit your target market and appeal to them enough to return at that moment and shop. Incentives are an excellent way to tempt people back to your online store and to make sales. If they’ve bought something from you; offer them a discount for a limited time, if they come back to buy again. This will encourage them to return within a specific time frame so that you can build a steady, consistent, and increasing flow of traffic and sales.
Creating a rewards scheme is another great way to keep people investing in your business, and not looking elsewhere for a better deal. Therefore, set a loyalty program where customers can build up points for rewards, or get a treat every time they hit a certain milestone. This will keep encouraging their repeat sales and give them something to smile about and share with others. You could also create a VIP status so that people feel like they have something to shop towards; offer discounts, early access to sales, and throw in bonus gifts or vouchers on special dates, like birthdays and holidays.
You want to build up your target customers like a large community so that they feel part of something when they shop with you. You want them to find confidence and comfort in your business so they never question where they’re going to head for the items you sell, or the services you provide. Extra emails and marketing on these dates are another great way to encourage repeat sales. The most you invest in them and their experience, the more they’ll spend with you, again and again.
Go The Extra Mile
No matter what size of business you run; it’s worth remembering that every customer likes to feel special and treated as an individual, rather than one of the masses. Therefore, it’s worth thinking about the ways you can do a little extra here and there to make their shopping experience positive. Consider your packaging; your target patron may appreciate ethical and environmentally savvy businesses. If this is the case; invest in recyclable packaging wherever possible, and ensure you let them know that by purchasing from you, they are helping to do their bit for the environment. This is a subtle and thoughtful way to make them feel good about investing in your business.
Add a little thank you note to a decorative postcard in each parcel; make the postcard something they can enjoy displaying or leave it blank so they feel like they’ve had an extra gift they can use at a later date. Make sure that your marketing materials, like your email direct marketing, contain their first names, or however they prefer to be addressed. Be mindful and utilize how they’ve shopped previously to tailor your marketing to them so they feel like they have something curated to look at and click through to, rather than just spam.
As a repeat customers; give them login details so they can shop your site with their personal account. You can communicate with them through chat boxes, using their names and a nice greeting to welcome them each time. Try to treat each person as if they wherein a physical store with you so that they have plenty of positive associations with your business and good things to say about you to others.
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Make Changes When Necessary
As a growing business; you must always be open to change and improving things regularly. The best way to do this is to gather feedback and comments from your customers, and the people who won’t shop with you for specific reasons. This will give you the best chance of making the right changes when necessary, and pleasing the right people. Try to ensure you encourage feedback on a customer’s overall shopping experience; take criticism as a good thing, as it gives you the chance to improve and ensure your business is providing the best experience possible for everyone who invests with it.
