When thinking of ways to make your business more successful, you probably consider factors like cutting costs and providing more value through your products and services. If you run a brick-and-mortar store, you might consider expanding your business with additional locations or even franchising.
While these are all excellent ways to increase success, there’s one factor that holds it all together: customer satisfaction.
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What is customer satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a measurement of how happy your customers are with your business. If your customers aren’t happy, it won’t matter how many new locations you open or how amazing your products and services are – you won’t get very far.
So, how do you make your customers happier? Here are three places to start.
1. Streamline all customer communications
First things first: focus on communication. How you manage customer communications will create a positive or negative experience for your market, which will directly shape their perception of your brand. Smooth and easy communication makes customers happy. One of the best ways to create that is through streamlining your customer interactions through one central software application.
For instance, using Contact Center AI increases agent productivity while enhancing the customer experience. This, along with helpful and friendly agents, creates the positive interactions that leave customers feeling taken care of and valued.
Another thing you can do is connect your Facebook messenger to your website so that anytime someone messages you through your website’s chatbot, the conversation is carried over to Facebook. This way, you won’t lose people once they leave your website.
Sure, you can have people enter their email address to get a reply from an agent, but not everyone will give you that information. Connecting your chatbot to Facebook is ideal.
2. Listen to all feedback
Feedback is important for achieving success. It’s important to listen to all feedback from satisfied and dissatisfied customers as well as potential customers. Your customers are a valuable asset for learning what you’re doing right and where you can make improvements or adjustments.
It won’t matter how perfect your product or service is – if your marketing efforts don’t speak to and inspire your target market into action, you won’t make many sales. You can learn a lot about where your marketing falls short from potential customers.
Feedback from potential customers will help you identify where your marketing messages are missing the mark. For example, if you run ads on Facebook and get comments from people who are confused about your product, that’s an indication that your ads aren’t clear. It could also mean you’re advertising to the wrong market. If this is the case, explore both possibilities. Clarify your paid ads and also ask questions to find out if you’re reaching the right market.
3. Focus on getting more reviews
Reviews are important. If you’re not getting many positive reviews online, make it your focus to change that. Use customer feedback to try new things and see what makes them happy. Happy customers will give you positive reviews that can influence potential customers and turn them into conversions.
However, don’t worry about your negative reviews. If you’ve already asked those people how you can make things right, you’ve done all you can. There will always be people you can’t please and it actually makes you more trustworthy when you have a mix of positive and negative reviews. Studies have shown that the closer a brand gets to a full 5-star rating, the less likely people are to buy from them. Consumers who don’t see negative reviews suspect a brand’s reviews might be fake.
It’s not hard to get positive reviews. Although past research said people are more likely to share a negative experience online, recent research suggests people are more likely to share positive experiences online. In one study referenced by Forbes, 49% of people said they would share positive experiences on social media or an online review site, while only 30% said they would share a negative experience. This is great motivation for working on generating positive reviews from your customers.
You need satisfied customers to create big success
To go beyond a basic level of success, you need happy customers to boost your reputation online and in their personal lives. You need positive word-of-mouth recommendations, positive online reviews, and a general consensus socially that your business is great.
Building a positive reputation for your brand is rooted in customer satisfaction. What people say about you matters because it influences other people. This is why the customer experience is taken seriously by all the world’s major brands. If you want the same high-level success, you need to follow suit and prioritize your customers’ happiness.
