Tips To Stay Connected With Your Customers
In a competitive marketplace, the way that you connect with your customers can be a determinative factor in setting your company apart from others. Fostering substantive connections with potential customers and keeping your existing customers engaged will improve your company’s image and improve the quality of customers’ experience. Here are _ tips on how to optimize your customer outreach and retention.
In a competitive marketplace, the way that you connect with your customers can be a determinative factor in setting your company apart from others. Fostering substantive connections with potential customers and keeping your existing customers engaged will improve your company’s image and improve the quality of customers’ experience. Here are _ tips on how to optimize your customer outreach and retention.
Be Continuously Accessible by Phone
While it’s understandable that you may need to put limits on when people can communicate with your customer service staff, taking advantage of a call answering service can be a very useful tool. You need to be able to connect with customers on their timetable, and a lot of people do their shopping outside of business hours.
People will appreciate the convenience of being able to pick up the phone at any hour to speak with a live body, even if it’s to leave a message. Also, you can leave instructions for your answering service about what type of situations should be relayed to your customer service staff immediately rather than the next day. This extra level of service helps to ensure that you keep your most valued customers happy and you can quickly resolve time-sensitive service issues.
Keep Your Emails Relevant in Customers’ Inboxes
When you send marketing emails to both prospective and current customers, you’ve got to take a calculated approach to grab their attention. Some people receive literally hundreds of promotional emails a day, so it’s imperative that you generate interest in a subject line rather than relying on the body of an email to relay the information that would be most appealing to the customer. Avoid teaser-tag subject lines telling people to open an email to hear about an offer or news. Summarize the offer or news that you want to share as succinctly as possible in the subject line.
While you want subject lines that stand out from other promotional emails, you also need to take care to project your message positively. A subject line that seems as though it’s shouting at people is likely to generate negative sentiment. You don’t want to seem too salesy or high-pressure in your tone; people don’t appreciate receiving a promotional email that commands them to do something right away or appears overly aggressive. Don’t go all caps; while this ploy can be somewhat eye-catching, people simply don’t like to read text that’s in all caps. Also, it indirectly detracts from your credibility. Likewise, it’s best to avoid the overuse of emojis. A lot of the emails that platforms label as spam are rife with excessive emojis. If your email doesn’t get flagged as spam and sent to the wrong inbox, a person may mistakenly dismiss it as spam or fear it’s a phishing or scam attempt.
Instead of using caps or emojis, try to grab attention by crafting subject lines that have personal appeal. Use people’s names, reference specific products, and identify a specific opportunity for saving. Including a joke or a reference to current events can infuse your email with some character that will distinguish it from other promotional messages.
Solicit Feedback
Show your customers that you care about their experience purchasing something from you by inviting their feedback and reviews. Email customers a fillable form that gives them the option to rate specific elements of the purchasing process and specific products with a numerical or star-based rating as well as a field to write in details.
Whether or not somebody leaves positive feedback, you should respond as soon as possible. Thank people for taking the time to rate their experience and your products, and remind them how much you value their input. If a person reported any type of dissatisfaction, be prepared to offer a substantive remedy or let them know about what you’re doing to improve a specific aspect of your customer services provision that missed the mark. A great add-on to a communication thanking customers for feedback is a savings offer. You can give customers a promotional code to save a certain percentage off of their next purchase. If they’ve bought something that people would be likely to buy more of, offer them savings on that particular item or similar items.