Author: graphdeveloper

Call handling as a service has many definitions; the perceived value of this function varies dramatically and is often underrated.

Call handling is a far more skilled and diverse function than simply answering a phone and responding to basic customer queries. Expert Call Handling can fulfil multiple tasks from pre- and post-sales customer support, multilingual global response and product recalls, to inbound lead management and lead qualification. This broad scope and the alignment to emotional customer experiences gives this function arguably greater potential impact on the health and wealth of a brand than pure acquisition-based activity.

Call handling isn’t typically viewed as a revenue generating service in the same way as lead generation or appointment setting but is nonetheless intrinsically linked to the bottom line. Here’s how:

Brand reputation

If a customer or prospect reaches out to you at a time when they really need support and reassurance, how you respond dramatically impacts how they perceive your brand. Studies show that negative experiences stay with us longer and, in the age of social proof, an unhappy customer sharing their views on social media can seriously damage your reputation and future revenue.

Product acceptance and utilisation

If customers have problems or issues with your products or tools, they need to be able to rely on your support line. Particularly in the early stages of on boarding when there may be greater need for support and greater likelihood of churn, the quality of support will influence their acceptance, enjoyment and future usage of your product or service. This in turn will directly impact their levels of adoption, future upsell, and cross-sell opportunities, subscription renewals, loyalty and retention.

Marketing ROI

If customers interested in your proposition are calling but you aren’t picking up, you are leaving money on the table. Turning your back on customers who already have an appetite to buy whilst spending heavily on acquisition is throwing good money after bad. If you have invested in an expensive product launch or marketing programme that creates high demand, responses need to be fulfilled in a timely manner so that investment doesn’t go to waste.

Not only does lead backlog eat into your acquisition budget, qualifying and routing leads quickly and efficiently ensures a consistent flow of sales-ready leads to your team, improving conversion, driving revenue and ROI.

Compliance

If your call handling agents are well trained and supported with the right systems and processes, you are much better placed to meet client SLAs (Service Level Agreements). If agents fully understand policies, procedures and industry-specific legislation, your business will avoid fines for regulatory non-compliance and damage to brand reputation.

Customer experience

It isn’t as easy to measure as pure acquisition but there is strong evidence to link high levels of customer satisfaction with increased revenue, retention and profitability – simply put, why would an unhappy customer want to buy again or recommend your brand to others? Brands that understand the significant cost of a poor customer experience elevate their CX and differentiate their brand through high-quality, responsive call handling.

These are just some of the ways that a call handling service has potential to either enhance or detract not only from brand reputation, customer satisfaction and loyalty but significantly, the bottom line. If you are interested in solid growth and profitability, this function needs to be given the status it deserves and developed to realise its full potential.

If you don’t have the skills or capacity in-house to meet your call handling needs, outsourcing is a good solution. An outsourced option can manage unforeseen, short-term or fluctuating requirements to ensure SLAs are met. It can deal with lead backlogs if in-house resourcing is limited so marketing investment isn’t wasted and no opportunity is missed. And, it can help you remain compliant and protect your brand reputation in the case of a crisis or product recall.

Your business can be broken down into 4 segments or component parts.
Through extensive research and study of the most successful businesses worldwide, I have likewise determined that there are 4 common focal points found in a successful strategic plan for Business Growth and Profit-Building. These common focal points, or 4 major components, are interrelated and can be made to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

When you clearly identify them in your own business, and then strategically harness their power to function cohesively, the 4 major components can produce exponential business growth. And that kind of business growth leads to an increase in bottom-line profits!

So what are these 4 major components to a successful strategic plan for business growth and profit-building?

The 4 major components

Vision, Goals, & Mission.

When you consider your business’ Vision, Goals, & Mission, your chief aim is broken down into 2 parts. First, you must carefully analyze and clarify what direction your business is currently heading in right now. What is your Vision for your business? What are your personal goals and business objectives? And finally, what is your Mission for your business? Do you have these 3 clearly set out? You need to in order to start seeing real growth in your business.

Second, you must determine whether you need to change course to develop the business growth you want and the increase in profits you need. Having clarified your Vision, Goals, & Mission, you will then know in what direction you want to steer your business to generate the business growth and increased profits that you want.

As you work through and implement any business growth plans, keep referring back to major component 1, your Vision, Goals, & Mission.

major component 1 is the guiding direction for your business, just like a compass pointing to “True North”.

Business Operating Systems, Management, & Training.

I liken major component 2 to the engine that drives a car. When you consider major component 2 in your own business growth plans, you accomplish 4 things:

1. You undertake a review of your business’ engine; that is, your staff and contractors. How can they play a positive role in growing your business and increasing your profits?

2. You consider your hiring practices. How they can impact your successful business growth at the front end…, when you hire others to join you.

3. You evaluate and design your management and training processes to support the business growth that you are striving for. And,

4. Most importantly, you strategically develop the specific operating systems that your business must have in place to effectively and efficiently run your business; whether you, the business owner, are there on the job, or not.

Are you driving a sputtering jalopy or a precisely tuned race car? major component2 answers that question.

Once you’ve got major component 2, your business systems, running smoothly, it’s time to start filling up the tank.

Strategic Marketing, Lead Generation, & Lead Conversion systems.

When you consider major component 3 in your business growth plans, you must analyze your systems for servicing your current customers and clients, for identifying and obtaining more of your Ideal customers and clients, for marketing to your unique target market, and for converting more prospects to bring in more sales and increase your bottom-line profits.

Finally, a successful business growth and profit-building strategic plan must never leave out the all-important topic of money.

Financial Position, Cash Flow, & Reporting.

In major components 4, your primary focus is to review the systems that you have in place to know where you’re at financially, to handle your money, to control it, and to keep it coming in. What changes do you need to make in your financial operating systems to ramp up your business growth? Where is your money? How is it being spent? Do you have operating systems that you have designed and put in place to control expenses and costs? Is your money coming in consistently? What Cash Flow “production” strategies are unique to your business? Are there any other “production” strategies that you can implement immediately? Are there any other ways that your business can “manufacture” additional Cash Flow?

Well, there you have them.

Those are the 4 major components of a successful strategic plan to grow your business and increase your profits.

Businesses outsource their telemarketing needs to a professional company because the establishment and maintenance of an in-house telemarketing facility is in itself a challenge. The installation of the required telemarketing equipment and training of an effective telemarketing staff demands the expenditure of a considerable amount of resources. It might not be impossible for companies to make the entire arrangement themselves but it is indispensable for them to have a certain level of maturity and preparedness to face the challenge of training an entirely new team.

While chalking out the blueprint and implementing the process, businesses should consider the following factors to ensure a successful telemarketing operation within the company:

1. Proficiency in conversation: The telemarketing callers being hired and trained should attain a high level of proficiency in the way they conduct telephone calls with clients. They should speak with clarity and correctness in language and should be well aware of the comments appropriate for business calls. Proper care should be taken to inculcate refinement in their speech that befits any business call. Such professionalism in speech and mannerism are the starting point of successful telemarketing call.

2. Compliance to rules and regulations: The noose of telemarketing rules and regulations are always being tightened by regional and national governments. It is important that you comply with the rules all the time. To ensure this, the management of the company has to keep abreast with the changing rules and communicate them in a timely manner to all the in-house telemarketing staff. This may pose a challenge to any in-house telemarketing facility.

3. Familiarity with product: Any telemarketing caller should have good knowledge about the product or service he is trying to sell over the phone. In-house callers have a definite advantage here as they are already well acquainted with the product or service in question. But it is also important that they are kept abreast with any new development happening or product being launched so that they are able to speak to the clients as true representatives of the company.

4. Scripted conversation: Telemarketing callers are provided with a guideline they have to adhere to in form of a scripted conversation with a customer. The script is carefully designed and framed to evoke a positive response from a client. The mark of a good caller is that she roughly keeps track of the script but sounds natural at the same time. In-house callers need to be trained well to follow the guideline as far as possible.

5. Incremental approach: The success of a call depends largely on the way a client is engaged in conversation. From arousing the customer’s interest in the product to extracting information and persuading the client to make the purchase, the conversation should be carried out in a progressive manner. Abrupt attempt at trying to close a deal in the first few seconds of the call will only annoy the client and abort the call.

6. Taking rejection in stride: It is a part of a telemarketing caller’s job to be able to accept rejection from clients. Every call need not result in closing a deal. The attempt should be to try and improve the ratio of successful calls which is what telemarketing is all about. A telemarketing professional should possess the perseverance to keep calling despite facing repeated rejection. This quality may not come through training alone but is an important part of any telemarketing training.

7. Client-based approach: Telemarketers have to deal with a wide variety of audience through their calls and it is a part of their job description to adjust their approach according to the customers they are dealing with. Business-to-consumer calls, for example, need an entirely different kind of approach than the business-to-business calls. Callers have to factor in these complexities on a day-to-day and call-to-call basis.

Thus, in trying to choose between setting up an in-house telemarketing facility and outsourcing the entire process to a professional telemarketing company the challenges and costs involved in training the entire staff has to be taken into consideration.

How to generate better profits? This is a question that keeps echoing in the mind of every businessman because there are competitors, who are more than willing to abate their profits. If you are a businessman then you can certainly understand how difficult it is to achieve business goals and generate revenues that are anything better than satisfactory. Running a business is a constant struggle that requires both expertise and dedication. Employees need to just do the work that will be assigned to them but a businessman has to diligently monitor all the operations and bring about all the required modifications that can contribute to better revenue generation. In case, you want to generate better revenues and expand your business then this write-up can offer you a very helpful suggestion.

Customer Support – The Key Ingredient For Better Revenue Generation

Outsource call center services, no matter how small or big your business is. This is one suggestion that can do a world of good to your business and can help you generate better revenues for sure. If you are wondering how call center outsourcing can be helpful for your business then here is an explanation. As you know that customer support is a major competitive differentiator in today’s business world. This is the reason why you need a team of experienced professionals, who can give a first-time resolution to even the most dissatisfied customer. However, hiring a team of call center professionals can cost you a fortune. So, it is best to outsource call center services for your business; call center vendors can offer the most effective customer support solutions that can give your business a boost for sure.

In case, you are still not convinced to avail call center services then here is something that you definitely need to know. A satisfied customer can bring more business than a thousand dollar advertisement because he will not just stick with you but will also recommend you to family, friends, and acquaintances. Every customer support service should be treated like an opportunity to earn the trust and satisfaction of the customer. This is because satisfied customers do not just maintain revenue generation of a business, they boost it. So, you should without any doubt avail call center outsourcing services for your business. Call center professionals will indefatigably handle the customer support process of your business and will keep your customers satisfied for sure, which of course is the key to generating better revenues.

The decision to outsource telemarketing services depends on a number of factors, the most important of which is whether the benefits accrued outweigh the costs incurred. It is the foremost duty of management to analyze the cost-benefit ratio before going in for outsourcing.

The primary benefits that come with outsourcing are the expenditure spared in recruiting and maintaining an entire telemarketing staff and the costs saved in procuring the equipment. The payroll costs are in part passed on as charges for the telemarketing services but the added benefits depend on how expensive the locally available labor is. If very low-cost labor is locally available to a company, outsourcing may not help save much on this count. As regards the equipment, the seasonal telemarketers are more likely to find outsourcing more efficient rather than the ones who need telemarketing services throughout the year.

However, once the initial costs are taken care of, outsourcing does contribute to saving costs for the company in the long run. Here are a few important reasons why you should go in for outsourcing:

Hiring of personnel

Labor costs are only a small part of the entire expenses that come along with hiring staff for the telemarketing services. The hiring and recruitment of the personnel can prove to be an expensive and cumbersome affair for the management. The money spent on the recruitment agencies and the time spent by management in interviewing the candidates is hardly worth the effort.

At times, the company may be forced to manage with a leaner staff than is actually required and compromise on the opportunity costs in not being able to make enough telemarketing calls due to shortage of staff. Outsourcing the services will not only ensure a well-staffed team to make the required number of telemarketing calls but also help tackle all the problems related to the recruitment of the personnel.

Professional training

Providing appropriate training to the personnel is perhaps, more important than hiring them because it is the kind of training that will determine the quality and success rate of telemarketing calls. Here again, businesses cannot afford to cut costs by compromising with a less professionally trained staff. The company and its products have to be represented by well-trained professionals.

But it is not at all an easy job to design and implement a high-level training program for telemarketing staff with up-to-date techniques by a company whose primary focus lies elsewhere. Professional telemarketing companies, on the other hand, can distribute their cost of training between various clients it offers services. As they specialize in telemarketing services, they can afford to spend time and money on providing intensive professional training to the telemarketing callers.

Compliance to telemarketing rules

With rapidly tightening rules and regulations, telemarketing calls have to comply with the updated restrictions put on these calls by various regional and federal governments. As the rules of various states keep changing from time to time, it gets very confusing for organizations to keep track of them.

In such a situation, it becomes tough for businesses to deal with these legal issues. For specialized telemarketing companies, however, it is a crucial part of their job to ascertain adherence to these rules.

Space for operations

The establishment of an in-house telemarketing facility would mean that the telemarketing staff and equipment would use up good part of the office space while in case of a telemarketing company the cost of space can again be spread among the various clients. A business might be compelled to go in for unnecessary space expansion to accommodate the telemarketing paraphernalia. Outsourcing can help avoid such extra expenditure.

Thus, outsourcing telemarketing services can save costs on a number of fronts and result in net savings for businesses after the initial costs are incurred in buying the services.

50% of the customers say that they switch to a different brand if their needs aren’t met.

On the contrary, customers wouldn’t change their mobile network operator over a single incident of bad connectivity issue. Similarly, even when a customer has to struggle for months to get a wrongly debited payment from their account, they are less likely to stop doing business with that bank.

While increased expectations have led customers to frequently switch brands, there are certain industries like real estate, banking, and telecom where customers stay loyal by default.

Why?

Well, they can’t keep moving to another network operator or bank as easy as shifting multiple tabs on their PC. Such shifts cost them money and time not to mention the tedious process behind it. As a result, customers choose to deal with bad connectivity or payment processing glitches rather than having to make the change.

So, does this mean these customers will stay loyal no matter what, and the brands can get away with such bad customer experiences?

Actually, it depends on these factors:

– One’s own saturation point
– Level of easiness involved in shifting to another brand

This article discusses the above two factors with instances, their influence on the customer’s decision making, how they affect businesses and what they need to succeed in the long run. If you belong to an industry like banking, real estate, telecommunications or wherever the customer lifetime value is high by default, it’s time you became aware of the shift of power to consumers.

1. One’s Own Saturation Point

Let’s say John buys an apartment from a real estate company. He moves in with his family and within a few months, starts encountering some issues. The walls develop cracks and the ceiling develops dampness during the winter season. He repeatedly asks the real estate company to take responsibility and rectify those issues but the real estate company turns a deaf ear.

Despite being frustrated, John has only two choices – either sell the apartment or go on an endless loop of fixing these issues incurring additional costs. But, the harsh reality is he has already invested so much on this apartment and if he tries selling it off, no one’s ready to buy except for a really low price. He’s caught in a mess with no choice but to keep spending money on additional repairs. And, the worst part is he accepts it even after knowing that the real estate company has been unfair to him.

How Long Before the Brands Begin to Take their Customers’ Issues Seriously

The general view that customer loyalty depends on post-sales experience does not apply to every sector. In industries like real estate, manufacturing, financial services, etc, the purchase is left to the owner’s risk which is why most businesses turn a blind eye post-sale.

In the above example, it’s clear that the real estate company has an upper hand. It might even appear like the customer has no power over them. Yet, something which such brands forget is the bad reputation they are accumulating. While brands were able to survive without heeding to customer issues in the past, technology has amplified the impact of negative word of mouth bringing about their downfall. Customer feedback and their long term satisfaction are taking the forefront. And, let’s not forget the fact that 90% of consumers read online reviews2 before making purchasing decisions.

Here’s where you can turn the tables by making the first move. If there’s something wrong, apologize and own up to your mistakes. Work with your customers in resolving their issues. This will definitely garner your brand lots of positive word of mouth. Over time, this will gain your business a distinct advantage. Before you know, each one of your loyal customers would have turned brand ambassadors, making way for new customers.

2. Level of Easiness Involved in Switching to Another Brand

Let’s take a 10-year challenge. Had it been the late 2000s when Mary experienced problems with her mobile network, things would have been unfavorable for her. Not many people had smartphones let alone mobile internet access. She would’ve had a basic mobile and switching to another brand would’ve been a mammoth task. If she had switched to another brand that offered affordable plans, it meant she would’ve to buy a new number. This process would have taken a few days. And, she would’ve lost her current number which was known to all of her contacts. Unthinkable, right?

If you fast forward to now, Mary’s situation is entirely different. She has a smartphone with internet access. If she feels her mobile internet is lacking speed, all she has to do is buy another brand’s SIM and insert it into her phone’s dual SIM slot. This way, she can still use her old number to make calls while using the new SIM to access the internet. Even if she wants to make a complete switch, she has the option of number portability that lets her retain the same number despite switching to another brand.

As you see, with advancing technology and options to switch brands, customers can’t be forced to stay loyal. But, even after the ball being in the customers’ court, why do they stick to certain brands despite receiving a subpar experience? Here’s where another scenario comes in.

When Brands Take Advantage of Customers’ Loyalty

In some industries, brands don’t have a distinct advantage over another. That’s when they stop offering benefits because customers don’t have a choice to leave. But, when new players enter the market with better deals, customers don’t hesitate to make the switch.

For example, when Jio entered the Indian telecom industry with low priced data plans, it crossed 50 million subscribers within 83 days, taking the position of a formidable opponent to the current players in the market. The user base of competitors like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea started to shrink and they experienced major revenue losses within the same quarter.

Conclusion

Customer expectations have skyrocketed in recent years. Yet in certain industries, customers choose to stay, not out of loyalty but lack of choice. This unfair trend is slowly dissolving with customers getting the chance to switch brands and influence the brand’s long term success.

Be it any industry, every organization has to be receptive to their customer needs to gain their loyalty. It takes years to be on their credible list and the only way any brand can achieve this is by truly championing the needs of customers.

What do your customers want? This question has been asked more than any other question in today’s competitive business world. Undoubtedly, this era belongs to customer experience, and every company is striving to provide the best possible experience to its customers.

While it is crucial to understand your customers, it is equally important to explore the fundamentals of customer interaction. Every great business works on the rule of thumb of seeing the world through the customer’s eyes. After all, it is only then that you realize and redesign your business functions to create value in a customer-centric way.

Remember,

“Walt Disney once said, “Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

You may wonder how some of the most successful organizations are able to deliver a seamless customer experience? Here we share some really valuable customer experience lessons from the best in the business.

1. Apple Customer Experience – Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty

Apple is one of the world’s most valuable companies. Also, Apple’s customer support is exceptional and highly visible, which helps build trust and improves customer experience.

What Can You Learn From Apple?

• The Custom Model

Apple follows a custom model that is based on the letters A- P- P- L- E. Employees are trained to walk a customer through the following five steps –

A- Approaching customers with a personalized touch

P- Probing into customer queries to understand their needs

P- Presenting a viable solution to the customer

L- Listening to and resolving the customer’s concerns as quickly as possible

E- Ending the conversation on an optimistic note and inviting them to follow up whenever necessary

• The Power of Personal, Engaging Conversations

Customers return to your business when they feel attached to you. Apple believes in having engaging and active conversations with the customers, in person and online via Apple website or social media platforms.

• The “Town Square” Customer Experience

Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior Vice President, Retail, said that the company’s new stores focus more on enriching customers’ lives rather than just selling them things. She says that “We are reinventing the role our stores and employees play in the community. We want to be more like a town square, where the best of Apple comes together, and everyone is welcome”. The Apple store is now the most prominent product from the company with new features like the latest iPads, iPhones, Watches, Macbooks, and Apple TV.

What’s interesting about these stores is that they are not just meant for the entrepreneurs to discuss their ideas but also for kids to learn to code. Apple stores organize ‘Hour of Code” workshops for school kids to teach them the Swift programming language.

• The Importance of Employee Training and Onboarding

Apple’s training manuals focus on communication skills, and it ranges from non-verbal communication interpretation to an empathetic attitude. According to a report by Biddle, Apple employees are trained to utilize a technique called “The Three Fs: Feel, Felt, Found.”

2. Disney Customer Experience – Creating Magical Moments For Customers

Disney is linked with the idea of creating incredible and memorable experiences. In this increasingly competitive global economy, Disney emerges as the king of customer experience. With a business vision to create the most magical resorts to the most memorable characters, Disney has made these fantasies come alive.

What Can You Learn From Disney?

• Create Personalized Experiences

Disney has mastered the art of taking an experience meant for millions and personalizing it for the individuals. Disney, through their smartphone app and MagicBand, creates a customized experience for their guests. When the guests come to pick their tickets up, they can get a button that gives them the reason for celebrating at Disney, whether it is a marriage, a birthday, a first-time visit, and so on.

• Take Constant Feedback

The only way to improve customer experience is to know what customers actually feel about you. It is essential to understand the customer’s pain points and take steps towards eliminating them.

Disney has implemented listening posts where they can directly learn about customer feedback.

It has survey teams in the theme parks that capture customer feedback at the entrance and the exit points. They also have the provision of in-app feedback and welcome suggestions on email from all their guests.

3. Tesla Customer Experience – Quicker Feedback Loops, Creating Better Products

The electric-car pioneer Tesla has paved the way for a new customer experience model in the automotive industry. The engineers at Tesla are involved in a continuous process of achieving customer feedback loops.

That is, customer feedback is essential to Tesla, especially when it comes to creating better products, building customer loyalty, and exploring new business ideas.

What Can You Learn From Tesla?

• Good Experience Creates Loyal Customers

According to CleanTechnica, Tesla’s customers have an overall satisfaction rating of 80%. A staggering 80% of customers buy or lease another Tesla for their next car. From the beginning of the car buying experience, Tesla makes sure that the customers have a hassle-free experience.

The employees communicate the business model and their energy mission effectively to the buyers. Customers have the option to purchase cars either from Tesla’s stores or through their website. The vehicle is customizable, and there is a dedicated team that guides the customers through payment, document signing, and delivery.

• Fast Feedback is Everything

According to Harvard Business Review, the company makes about 20 engineering changes every week in its Model S vehicle, most of which are based on the data derived from customers’ driving experiences. According to the company, “These automobile changes include new battery packs, updated safety, and autopilot hardware”

Tesla incorporates the concept of “Fast Feedback,” that is, the faster the feedback can be gathered, the better. It helps the company to understand what customers are particularly looking for, in terms of features and functionalities.

• Use Social Platforms To Interact With Users

Tesla is an excellent example of how social media platforms can be put to use in improving overall customer experience. No one uses Twitter as skillfully as Elon Musk.

• Be Bigger Than Your Product

Tesla has a mission that is bigger than just cars. Its mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Every Tesla employee is committed to this purpose and educates the customers about the concept of clean energy.

Every great business is built on a vision, a vision to create something that makes the lives of people easier. It demands the implementation of logical frameworks into executable ideas that can then be turned into actionable steps and help the business evolve and grow.

Product customization is the key to serving your customer base successfully. Not all of your customers want the same thing or use your product the same way. Product customization is essential for delivering a personalized customer experience to each segment of users, and can drive customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.

Not All Your Customers are the Same

Regardless of whether you sell a physical product or online software, your customer base has different wants and needs. Remembering that all of your customers are different, is critical to create a product that is attractive to as many people as possible. As the old saying goes – if you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll appeal to no one. Instead of being just generally suitable for your clientele, you can customize your product to be specifically perfect to every different segment of users.

Millennials are particularly attracted to the idea of customization. In the book Custom Nation, Anthony Flynn and Emily Flynn Vencat explain that, “millennials (13 to 31-year-olds) have grown up with customization, and naturally expect it in every aspect of their lives.” Brands have been developed around the idea of hyper-personalization, which makes it possible for everyone to get exactly what they want at the press of a button.

Customers love things made just for them

Customization is a great business strategy because it makes customers happier; and happy customers are repeat customers! In retail, Deloitte found that 1 out of every 5 customers is willing to pay 20% more for a personalized or exclusive product. Similarly a 2012 study on customization found, “customization increases perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and ultimately customer loyalty toward a service provider.”

Why? For the very simple value that customization brings to the customer. Customers who can customize their experience find value either through exclusivity, in the form of a personalized, unique product, or specificity in the form of a feature that works in a way that they would like.

Customization as a Feature

There’s no denying that customization is an expensive affair. It takes time and money to offer multiple versions of the same product. Your development team needs to dedicate resources to building out new customization options. There’s also a higher risk factor, since more customization means more complexity. In retail, this might look like you are shipping the wrong customized product. In software, you might see bugs pop up as there are more and more different ways to use your product, that you may not have even thought of testing yet.

All this means that you need to treat customization like any other feature in your product. Decide whether it’s worth it to add more complexity to the product. Are users asking for what you’re thinking of building? How much time will it take to build and support this feature? What else will be impacted by this customization? Will the additional customization support or devalue your existing brand?

The most important questions to ask when considering customization is “who are my customers?” and “what do they really want?” The answers to this question will help you identify places where customization can really help boost customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Finding Places to Customize

Instead of trying to make everything customizable, it’s important to be methodical about offering options to your users. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a product that’s overly confusing and complicated. Remember when Homer Simpson tried to make a car that did everything? Try being Simpson and you’ll just have a useless, albeit humorous, product on hand.

Instead of aiming to customize everything, look at who your users are, and what they want to be able to do. This will help identify the most important opportunities for customization.

User Personas

The first step to identifying potential customization opportunities is by understanding the different people who use your product. Creating user personas can help illustrate the different segments of your user base. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, user personas are:

“Fictional characters that designers use, to reflect user types by pinpointing who they are and what they do with products in relevant contexts. Designers create personas from user data, to understand user characteristics, needs, and goals, and gain valuable insights into user journeys, and later, test prototypes.”

There’s a lot of helpful information contained within a user persona! In particular, understanding needs, goals and user journeys will help showcase where your customers could be getting more value from your product, if it was slightly customized to their needs. That might be something as simple as the language they use for work, the jobs that need to get done, or their style preferences. For example, Netflix creates user personas to identify what each type of viewer wants out of their Netflix experience. This helps them pare down their enormous catalog of content to create a custom experience for every type of user.

User personas can be especially handy for products that cater to a variety of stakeholders. If the people purchasing the product, the people who use it everyday, and the ones generating monthly reports, are all different people, user personas can show you what each type of stakeholder needs. If you don’t allocate individual value to all three types of users, it leads to customers churning, because the person paying the bills or making the decisions may not realize how helpful the product is to the frontline teams.

Feature requests

The second way to find opportunities to enhance customer satisfaction through customization, is to look at what customers are already asking to do.

Customization doesn’t add an entirely new workflow, it usually only modifies an existing feature. For example, if customers want to add a date range to an existing report, or would like to update a dashboard in a particular way, those are customization requests.

To understand what customers are asking for, look closely at your customer support tickets and feedback forum. Tagging incoming customer conversations with “feature-request” or “customization” can make it easier for product teams to pull reports based on what customers want.

Customization Boosts Customer Satisfaction

Allowing your customers to customize their experience is a clever way to stand apart from the competition. After all, who knows what they need, better than the customer themselves?

Look for ways to offer a unique and personalized experience to customers at each stage of their journey. When you understand the different types of customers that purchase from you, it becomes clear how each of their needs differ. By catering to these needs specifically, you can boost customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, work-life has slowed to a crawl in most parts of the world, and remote work is the new normal. For startups and small enterprises, there are some important decisions to be made to ensure business survival in the short term. To aid that decision, here are a few tips that could prove useful:

1. Focus on existing customers

With the chances of new sales diminishing, this should take the highest priority on your to-do list because your existing customers are your lifeline. Making sure your customers are satisfied with your product or service, and will continue to rely on them, guarantees you a steady revenue stream. It’s universally established that it costs more to acquire a new customer than retaining one. In these uncertain economic conditions, you’d have to spend a lot more on marketing and sales to acquire a customer. With that in mind here are some steps you can take to retain current customers:

• Understand how their business is affected and look to solve the issues where your product or service can contribute.
• Offer free value-added services or additional features discounts on new purchases or build a loyalty program to keep your existing customers satisfied and relieve some of the financial strain they might be facing because of the current situation.
• Constantly stay in touch with them to be on top of any requirements or roadblocks they might be facing

2. Keep employees motivated

While you might be tempted to take a peek at your human resources from a cost perspective, right now, your employees could be your most valuable assets. When motivated, their ideas and dedication can lead to unique solutions that might not have occurred to you before. But more importantly, if you keep your employees assured and happy, they’ll do a better job of keeping your customers happy.

When you are a small business owner, it’s common that everyone on the team should be prepared to take care of customer support. Especially during times of uncertainty such as this, employee-customer relationships can play a big role in business survival Here are some ways you can do that:

Make sure that your employees are safe and well settled into their new situations because their physical and mental well being is important, and it’s the responsibility of a company to ensure that.

See to it that all your employees have what they need to comfortably work from home (whether that’s cloud-based technology, collaboration tools, or hardware they will need access to) while also keeping an eye on resources they might need to make this a smooth transition.

Engage with them regularly because social interactions and communication can help boost morale.

3. Be empathetic to customers

Many customers are going through the same scenarios you are. So while you might be in a tough spot, some of your customers are also focusing on business survival. As a company who can understand these difficulties, being empathetic towards them during this time will earn you their trust. Here’s where customer service plays a vital role.

Train your agents and other employees – from your product development teams to your marketing and sales teams – to be understanding of customer concerns knowing that they also have tough decisions to make. Doing that proves that you are a company that takes customer experience and satisfaction seriously. Here are a few action items to tick off for your customer service in these times:

Prepare agents for tough questions and how to be as understanding as possible, while keeping an open mind when finding solutions.

Proactively reach out to customers whenever there is any issue or update that needs to be conveyed, whether that’s product/service-related or policy-related.

Try to fulfill the requests they have quickly. While there are financial restrictions for both customers and you, keep negotiations and problem resolution times as short as possible.

4. Find other ways to add value

Helping customers in this difficult time is not limited to engagement and problem-solving. You can also add value with useful resources that can help them get through this difficult time. A few videos, guides, or tips in the form of easily accessible assets can be beneficial for companies trying to stay on point and keeping things simple. Here are some examples:

We have built a dedicated resource page on remote support with a lot of useful information ranging from interviews with industry leaders to guides on managing work remotely. A similar dedicated set of assets relevant to your product or service can help your customers navigate the new normal.

Stripe has built a great resource page with essential information companies can use, such as sources of financial aid, government policies, etc. during the current crisis.

E-learning portal Educause created a page for educational institutions to navigate their academic calendar and deal with the disruption to normal classes and schedules.

5. Inspiring business survival stories from the previous financial crisis

It’s not yet certain how long this situation will last, neither is it clear how much of an impact it will have on the economy. But if there’s anything we can learn about business survival, it is from companies who have been through similar situations and found ways to add value to their customers’ lives. These companies rode out the storm that was the financial crisis of 2008 and came out the other side stronger, so here’s a little inspiration:

Groupon

The story of Groupon is a magnificent one. During a time when companies were shutting down, and governments had their hands full dealing with the aftermath, Groupon launched their business. They built an e-commerce platform on the idea that groups of people want to buy the same product for a discounted price. Their first offer was a ‘2 slices of Pizza for the cost of one’ deal.

It quickly became a hit amongst customers! By being a company that helped consumers cut expenses and save every last penny on every item possible, they were able to solve a customer problem and, therefore, quickly grew in revenue.

Learning:

Even if you are going through a period of great economic difficulty, identifying customer pain points, and creating products that speak to a market need – you can still find ways to add value to customers.

Netflix

Netflix takes up more than 1/3rd of the USA’s bandwidth capacity! It’s safe to say they have been thriving, especially in times of uncertainty. It’s only fitting that their now-famous video-on-demand streaming service business model was conceptualized in the 08’ financial crisis.

They managed to turn around their failing video rental business quickly by providing attractive plans and offers such as an unlimited number of shows or movies streamable every month as well as providing exceptional customer service.

Learning:

What Netflix saw in the chaos was an opportunity to capitalize on the need for convenience and choice at lower price points. Being agile and swiftly rethinking parts of your business model based on the current situation can open up new avenues that can help you navigate the current situation.

Conclusion

There is no question that this is a very confusing and challenging time from both a personal and professional standpoint. Most companies are having to re-work their strategy in 2020 and create new ones that focus on business survival. But normalcy will resume soon, and we hope that we can look forward to seeing the resumption of business as usual.

The customer experience market was valued at $6.5 billion in 2019 and is expected to experience a 17.7% compound annual growth rate each year until 2027.

With happy customers being the lifeblood of all businesses and the value of customer experience, it’s no surprise that 45.9% of businesses rate customer experience as their most important priority over the next five years.

But in an increasingly competitive world where consumers have so much choice, how exactly can businesses go about keeping their customers happy?

This article will give the answer to this question. We’ll take a look at strategies you can implement to boost customer happiness and some of the most effective ways of measuring customer satisfaction.

8 Ways to Make Your Customers Happy

We define a happy customer as someone who’s not only made a purchase, but has had a great experience with that purchase. Here are eight ways to make your customers happy, and improve the reputation, and longevity of your business.

1. Don’t compromise on the quality of your product

The quality of a business products or solutions and the results they produce go a long way toward determining the business long-term success.

Consumers expect the products and services they purchase to function flawlessly and solve whatever problem they’re having.

With these expectations, companies should do everything they can to ensure product quality. You have to make sure that any product performance faults or bugs are kept to a minimum.

If you’re in the process of designing or looking to release a new product or service, make sure you can confidently answer these questions regarding product quality:

• Does the product solve a problem?
• Is the product tailored to your user’s needs? (is there a product-market fit)?
• Do you know your ideal customers?
• Are customers able to understand and effectively use the product?
• Is there a demand for the product?

While there’s much more that goes into defining and developing a quality product, these questions are a good place to start when you’re beginning to plan a new product or service.

2. Have an effective customer complaint resolution process

Even with the most professional, proactive customer service, customer complaints are inevitable. No matter the reason for the complaint, it’s the business responsibility to find an appropriate resolution.

This is why it’s vital to have an effective resolution process in place.

3. Deliver a consistent, omnichannel customer service experience

Customers have more ways of getting in touch with a company than ever before — they can pick from email, phone, live chat, social media, SMS, and messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Apple Business Chat.

Often, customers will use more than one channel to get in touch with a company, and customers expect a consistent experience across all of them.

4. Maintain low response times and resolution times

Responding to and resolving customer queries quickly is one of the cornerstones of good customer service.

Delayed resolutions and long wait times can lead to unhappy customers. In fact, 75% of customers state that fast response time is the most important attribute of customer experience, while 88% of consumers now expect a response from companies within 60 minutes of raising an inquiry.

5. Offer proactive customer service

Proactive customer support involves identifying and resolving customer problems before they occur, which helps to improve customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and improves customer retention rates.

Proactive customer engagement shows your customers that you have their best interests at heart, and that you’re willing to go the extra mile to be proactive and deal with any issues that could affect their experience.

Some of the most common and implementable forms of proactive customer service include:

Creating self-service materials such as knowledge base articles, instructional videos, and FAQs that customers can access to solve their queries.
Letting customers know of any service or product maintenance in advance.
Acting on customer feedback and recommendations when appropriate.
Keeping customers up to date with any product or service issues and letting them know when they can expect the issue in question to be resolved.
Launching a help widget or a live chat widget that pops up and offers help when customers are showing visible signs of frustration.

6. Build a rewards or loyalty program

Rewards and loyalty programs have been proven to improve customer retention, increase rates of customer satisfaction, and boost company revenue. Companies with strong loyalty programs tend to grow their revenue 2.5 times faster than their competitors.

There are a lot of different rewards/loyalty programs and initiatives that work well. The specific type of program that’s right for you will depend on your goals and your industry.

Here are some examples of proven customer rewards/loyalty offerings:

• Offer discounts, special offers, or free products/upgrades to repeat and loyal customers.
• Offer redeemable points toward a purchase.
• Offer exclusive access to new products or beta versions of a product or service.

7. Invest in agent training

Poor, inconsistent customer service can hurt a business bottom line and lead to customers looking elsewhere.

62% of customers share their bad experiences with others. While 95% of consumers say that customer service is an important factor in their loyalty to a brand.

8. Keep your employees happy

Keeping employees happy, satisfied, and productive in their roles is a proven method of improving customer satisfaction.

Employee happiness is proving even more important, considering the increased level of customer support requests agents have been experiencing.

Over the past 12 months, 83% of customer service leaders in the US have noted an increase in requests, while 33% reported operating with a reduced staff.

With increased demands, businesses and customer service leaders need to do everything they can to keep support agents happy and provide them with adequate tools.