When you analyse any industry, it always boils down to the customer experience. How the consumer feels about the service you are offering is obviously important. In this article, we offer a few ideas on how you can make the customer experience something to remember for all the right reasons.
- Accurate customer feedback – In order to determine how good (or bad) your customer service is, why not create a customer survey? Design a short questionnaire and email it to all of your customers. This will reveal any shortcomings, if there are some areas that need improvement. Once you know the issues, fixing it is easy.
- Staff training – Hire that Sydney business coaching expert to put together a program focusing on the customer experience. If you’re not based in Sydney, there are also business coaching experts in other cities that you can find with a quick Google search. The program could either be delivered virtually or at your place of work and could include telephone dialogue, dealing with issues and negotiating. The business coach can identify weak areas and develop these using role-play and other strategies. This is a very wise investment if customer service is important in your eyes, while the business coach can help in other areas, such as admin, support and sales. Invite an experienced business coach to carry out a needs assessment and you will find out what the expert thinks of your operation.
- Do a self-review – You could ask someone to make a purchase and rate the service from initial contact to final delivery and after-sales service. Of course, you need to keep this confidential and after a while, you’ll have an honest assessment of your customer service. If you run a restaurant, for example, invite a good friend from out of town to dine with their partner, in return for an honest assessment.
- Revamp – Whether virtual or real, the customer experience might be lacking in change. People become familiar quickly and perhaps a web revamp might be in order. Check your web stats and if users are leaving the site quickly, this tells you they are not impressed with your platform. If you run a retail outlet, perhaps it’s time to get the fitout team in and totally transform the store.
- Arrange a sales workshop – If a quick look at sales conversion rates tells you something is wrong with your team’s approach, arrange a workshop to look at ways to close a deal. A team of direct salespeople should have regular sessions with a business coach to sharpen their closing techniques and learn new approaches. Great salespeople don’t just happen. It takes a lot of training and hands-on experience in the field to create a high-flyer; someone who closes 8 out of every 10 prospects.
The customer experience very much determines the long-term success of any business and there is a constant need to assess and evaluate, correcting when necessary. The successful business is always customer focused and if there are no problems, you can expect to see sustained growth.
