how to win customers 1. Captivate customers from the earliest point of engagement. The very moment you read this article, companies around the globe are losing business by mistreating customers. Typical example: A customer walks into a store or restaurant, is greeted by nobody and is forced to wait for service. This is not a great way to create a first impression! Even worse, some businesses can actually lose half of their clientele this way. Most businesses don’t even measure how many customers they lose. Smart businesses never make customers wait. Instead, they roll out the red carpet. Always have an employee ready to greet a customer. There are also technologies that can do the “greeting” for you, such as an in-store kiosk that lets people “check-in” for service, or mobile apps that queue customers in a virtual line. Related: 5 Tips for Building Strong Relationships With Clients 2. Encourage customers to share their opinions. The era when a bad customer experience was only relevant to a few close friends is over. Online and mobile reviews mean every experience is magnified and spread in space and time. Social media can make good and bad reviews spread like wildfire. Its good practice to encourage feedback by making it easy for customers to promote your business. It could be as simple as a “Like us on Facebook” reminder on emails that you send to customers. An additional option is to offer a discount to customers that send a tweet with a recommendation or referral. Be sure to keep interaction a two-way street, thanking customers who provide a nice shout-out. 3. Address customer complaints or negative reviews honestly, compassionately and openly. Move quickly, and be empathetic. Put yourself in your customers’ position to understand what is driving their discontent. Most important of all, never ever get confrontational. You will likely fuel the fire rather than extinguish it. To COPE with problems, companies need four elements: Contrition: apologize Own up to the problem and take responsibility Prevent the problem from happening again Explain to customers what happened and why and what you are doing to prevent it from happening again
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 20:57:48 +0000
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