The customer’s always right. It’s an expression anyone who’s ever worked in retail has heard. It’s a saying every business owner knows all too well. For those who really believe it and hope to give their customers the most customer satisfaction, it’s a lot more than a saying. To these businesses, it’s a challenge that starts with employing ways to understand their customers better.
If you’re a business owner or work for a business where customer satisfaction is a top priority and want to know more about how to hear your customers clearly, read on.
Customer Feedback
It’s one thing to say you’re interested in customer feedback. It’s a different thing to actively solicit it in hopes of incorporating the voice and wishes of customers into your brand. The great news for business owners is that new programs, software, applications, and services are making it easier than ever to improve customer satisfaction. From figuring out what your customers want to learn and how you can help improve their experience, tools like voice of the customer solutions are making it easier than ever to connect with the customer experience.
Voice of the Customer provides customer insights through survey questions customers answer about their overall experience with your business. The bottom line is that VOC data can provide priceless information about what your customers are thinking and best practice ways you could improve their experience. Because the VOC program captures the customer journey from start to finish, business owners are able to use it to establish closer customer relationships with the option for follow up contact.
Customer Service
Some might argue that the best way to keep and attract customers to your business is through word of mouth customer references and referrals. To get there, you’ll need top-notch customer service. Sometimes, this takes a little help.
Maybe you run a mobile tech company and often receive customer calls about how to fix a slow internet connection. You can spend months running speed test results and doing all you can to help your customers with their WIFI or other connection issues. You might never find out, however, that the reason you don’t get calls back is that the techs who show up to customer houses are rude or don’t take a lot of time to answer questions. With VOC solution feedback, you’d know this and be able to make staffing or policy changes to improve the customer experience.
Watching Trends and Customer Behaviors
The same way people communicate in relationships, customers will communicate with a business. They’ll respond to great customer service with great customer retention the same way two best friends hang out again and again. The great thing about data collected by apps that track customer experience is that not only will they keep you in contact with customers who want to stick around, but they will teach you the business owner a little more about consumer behaviors through the data collection tools.
Survey results will give you feedback not only on whether or not your customer enjoyed their experience and recommendations for changes but how often they’re returning, too. This type of information can be an invaluable tool as you make decisions around your brand due to customer demand.
In the end, if you’re a business owner or work for a business you value, you need your customers more than they need you. Keeping them happy and honoring their feedback can be some of the best things you do for the long term success of your business. The exciting news is that there are tools to help to make listening to them, watching their behaviors, and engaging with them easier than ever.
