There is one fundamental aspect of business that simply cannot be ignored: you need to attract customers. Attracting customers can be done many different ways depending on your budget.
You can invest in social media marketing techniques, Google Adwords campaigns, thorough SEO work on your homepage, and several outreach efforts on influential blogs or news sites.
Here’s the catch: these are effective techniques to drive traffic to your website, but not necessarily to create leads and cultivate conversions.
Much of the time, social media marketers get caught up looking at volume of traffic rather than conversion rates. While the two numbers are intimately related (higher volume usually equates to higher conversion rate), focusing on driving traffic can obscure an important part of your everyday business operations.
So, what is that intangible aspect of your business operations that gets overlooked in all the data analysis? Customer service. No matter what your business operation looks like, some fundamental principles of customer service will ring true. Here is a quick list of dos’ and don’ts when it comes to dealing with the most important intangible in your operational frame: the customer.
DO
Integrate Chatbots – Chatbots have been on the rise in the past few years. Many of the bigger companies like Facebook and Netflix make use of them to great effect, and you should, too. A chatbot can be prompted on a landing page within seconds. A simple introductory message is all it takes to familiarize the visitor with the bot. If they have a specific question they can ask the bot directly, which saves them time scrolling through the site.
A NOTE OF CAUTION: Always have a real person working customer service and monitoring the chatbot conversation with new visitors. If the chatbot is unable to answer a question, a member of your team can step in and take it from there.
Keep It Simple – Your customer service team needs to know that keeping it simple is the best strategy, always. A visitor who is curious about options is on the verge of buying. All it takes is a subtle bit of guidance from a customer service rep and they find what they are looking for. On the flipside, if a customer service rep is overwhelming in their approach, it’s quite possible the visitor will lose interest.
Be Honest – Customers can tell when a sales rep is exaggerating the truth to make a sale. The only way to stop this from occurring is to be as honest as possible, at all times, even if it means advising a customer not to buy a product.
DON’T
Think of Customers As Transactions – Your team cannot forget that every customer is deserving of the same treatment. It is vital that each new visitor feels as though they are being listened to, respected, and given solid advice. Thinking of every customer as a transaction makes it far too easy to forget the intangible aspects of customer service – like giving time for reflection and thought, discussing the pros and cons of each product, etc.
Ignore Feedback and Criticism – No company is going to have a perfect customer service rating, and every customer service agent will face critique at some point. The question is: how can you learn from the criticisms? How well do you respond to customer feedback? Make sure your team is full of confident and self-aware people that can adapt to the demands of your customers. It’s never a failure if there’s a lesson attached.
It’s All About Consistency
Following these principles of customer service will help your team become better at serving your customer’s needs. However, without consistency, your whole approach is bound for failure. What’s the ticket for consistency? Hire a team that believes in your business.
Want to learn how to implement online strategies like chatbots and the possibility of having a team to help you get more leads and close more sales? Get free resources at https://ezmetrics.com/free-resources/.