Often times, what seem like the most obvious ways to improve customer care can be the most challenging to implement. How do you ensure that real customer care is inherent in every department within your business?
We all know that we should be leaving our customers with a great impression of our business, but have you really put thought into how, when and where you are doing this?
I would like to challenge you to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes. Take the customer’s journey through your business. Start from the very first touch point you have with your customer – your advertising, your marketing, your website.
What impression do these touch points leave on your customers?
Continue on that same journey looking at every touch point from the moment the customer enters your business, to the staff they are dealing with, to the level of service offered, the efficiency, timeliness and the follow up care.
Customer Care does not begin and end with the face to face meeting with your customer, but is an ethos that is engendered throughout every department and every touch point in your business.
Here are five tips to consider when looking at the customer experience with your business.
- You never get a second chance to make a first impression.Take the journey of your customer into your business and view it through your customer’s eyes. Walk up to or into your business or make that first call to your business. What kind of impression are you left with? A customer’s perception is his reality and it is important because it lingers in the customer’s memory.
- Last impressions Are Just As Important as First Impressions
The last impression is often overlooked because we are in a rush to move onto the next customer. It is so easy to finish an interaction or a project and think it is completed. Not so! You actually need to give your customers a ‘kiss goodbye’ so that you don’t erase all of the good will you have built up throughout their interactions with you.This could be as simple as a follow up call or email or a token gift to let them know you appreciated their business.
- What Happens Before The First impression?
Ok, “before the first impression” is not exactly accurate. But think about the very first touch point a customer has with your business. Your website, your marketing, your advertising, your social media. What impression are you sending out there into the world about your business? This may even be the entry to your business, your grounds, your carpark etc. these all make up part of the ‘pre-first impression’ of your business.
- Are You Easy To Use?
In taking the full customer journey through your business, ask yourself, are we easy to use?
Are we easy to find?
Is your website user friendly?
Are we responding to enquiries quickly?
This might even be as simple as parking near your business and walking through your own front door.
Could this experience be easier, smoother etc?
- TimelinessWhat are your time efficiencies like? Do you respond to enquiries on the same day? This is a big deal for customers. In an age of instant communication and mass-convenience there is no excuse (in the customer’s mind) for delayed response times. Are you considerate of your customers time? Remember: A perfect product or service, delivered late is a defect in your business!
