Creating a profound and enduring relationship with your loyal customers can give your business the edge over your competitors; it can also improve your bottom line. However, good customer service is rarely seen as a priority to many businesses, especially those who are just starting out.
To entrepreneurs in the making, turning a profit and employing reputable employees is viewed as great importance, and although they are optimal to the success of your business, building rapport with your customers could be what makes your company more successful in the long-run.
75% of startups fail; the failure rate of US companies after 5 years is over 50%, and over 70% after 10-years of business. Out of the top 20 reasons why startups fail, ‘ignoring customers’ is listed at number nine. Therefore, how can businesses improve their customer relations and reduce their failure rate? The answer is to become more empathetic to their qualms and feelings. For those who are new to business and are willing to learn, here’s how to build rapport with your customers.
Understand Your Customers
To help your customers and improve their experience, you must first understand them. Most businesses target certain demographics; therefore, the importance of learning about your clientele is mighty. By learning more about them, you humanize your company. You become more trustworthy, as customers are comfortable buying from you or using your services.
However, to connect with your customers, you must collect data on them first. You need to collect as much of the following as possible:
1. Name and contact details
2. Age, gender, profession, hobbies, etc.
3. Birthdays
4. Transaction and browser history
5. Spending habits and past purchases
Once you know the relevant information you need to collect, you can start to plan how you’re going to collect it from your customers. There are many ways to do so, however, you need to be wary of your approach. Customers do not want to feel harassed, and they need to believe their submitted information is private.
For a more off-hand approach, you can collect data from a customer’s orders. You can obtain contact details and begin building a transaction history. Once you know what brands or products they’re usually interested in, you can send them relevant emails every now and then. However, refrain from sending too many emails, as this can be construed as spam and cause annoyances.
Other ways to collate data is through online surveys, competitions and vast amounts of research. Although collecting data is time-consuming, it will cause a sense of worth and make your customers feel valued.
Say Goodbye to Empty Content
Google’s algorithms have made sure that content must be relevant and offer substance to its readers. With Google countering such ‘spammy’ content, published copy must be informative, user-friendly and only practice white-hat SEO. Therefore, keyword stuffing, empty content and biased copy is no longer effective and will be penalized.
Although curating good content can be time-consuming, it will build a reputable repertoire for your customers. Pay for content marketing, but ensure your brand is only mentioned in concise and enlightening pieces. If you have a blog and write your copy in-house, then follow these tips:
1. Create bespoke content
2. Have strong headlines and sub-headings
3. You must provide answers to questions, or solutions to problems
4. Your information must be accurate
5. Consider adding images and video
6. Upload content regularly
Hiring a whole content agency can be expensive, and you need to ensure your content is all of the above. If you produce overly biased or irrelevant content, then your business and Google ranking will suffer. To ensure your company is offering the best information possible, hire the help of digital marketing agencies in Chicago, and utilize the services of companies such as Be Found Online. Nowadays, your content must be reputable, informative and offer something of value to your readers. To show you care, listen to your customers, and if there’s, for example, a common issue arising, write a blog post relating to the problem.
Tap Into Customer Problems, Not Your Own
When problems arise, it can be hard not to solve them for yourself, thinking that if it’s no longer an issue for you, then it won’t be an issue for everyone else. However, you need to take yourself out of the equation. When you’re starting your own business, you can no longer focus on your own needs; although this was the case when you were an employee, as an employer, you need to listen to your customers as they’re going to be behind the success of your company.
Therefore, go straight to the source and ask them for their opinions through vox pop surveys and social media. Through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, the opinions of your customers are going to be both brutal and honest. However, to improve your company, you need to listen to everything they say without taking it personally. Engage, find solutions for them, and your own problems will slowly diminish.
Convert to ‘Real Time’
Nowadays, the younger generations are focused on finding and getting a solution instantly. Rather than send an email and wait for a response, they take to social media or phone the company directly. As a young businessperson, you’ll have the very same trait and understand the importance of addressing any issues urgently.
Include ‘Real Time’ video chats and customer support on your website. Train your staff to listen and reply as soon as humanly possible. Although your staff won’t want to use their real names or pictures for a chat box, create profiles so your company seems human. If you use video, then showing the face of a bright and vibrant individual can create a bond, break down barriers and put a face to your company.
By building rapport with your customers and becoming more empathetic in your approach, your company is humanized and more trustworthy. Nowadays, customers can be easily heard, so make sure you take advantage of their voice. As a young professional, you’ll understand the need to bond with brands before investing in them; therefore, make sure you do the same for your company.
