As a small business owner, you already know that keeping your customers happy is key to your success. The thing is, it’s not always straightforward how to do this, and can get confusing and frustrating. It can be particularly tricky when you own a digital company because there are few face-to-face interactions.
So what do you do? There’s a great article in Entrepreneur Magazine that outlines 3 steps to happier customers.
- Don’t just be friendly, be a friend.
There’s nothing worse than a stiff, “reading off the script” tone when it comes to customer service responses. Have a personality and keep it light. Think about how you’d approach helping a friend, and apply that to how you respond to a customer.
- Quality and Quantity
Things can get hectic in customer service, but don’t let that affect the quality of your work. Instead of delaying a customer service response because you don’t yet have the solution, take a few minutes to send an email apologizing for the issue, while noting that you’re hard at work getting to the bottom of things. Be honest if there’s a delay, and (as mentioned in Step 1) be personable.
- The Rule of Five
Sometimes you will encounter an unreasonable customer who makes it hard to stay cool. Your instinct may be to make snap decisions and then fire off angry or defensive emails you later regret. Instead, “take five.” Some days that means resting five minutes, some days it means answering five other emails. This will disengage you for a bit and help you regroup before you reply.
To sum it all up, humanize your customer service. Don’t fall into the trap of letting everything seem automated. You may have a digital company, but you have human customers!
Check out the whole article in Entrepreneur Magazine.
Have more questions? Contact us at Nakata Consulting. We’re here to help!
