As a small business owner, you know how important customer loyalty is. Unfortunately, you’ve probably also experienced difficulties in communicating with patrons. So, if you’d like to grow in this area, here are three ways to improve your small business’s customer communication.
1. Make Contact Easy
In order to even begin improving customer communications, you must be able to reach said, customers. More importantly, your customers need to be able to contact you. Start by ensuring that your contact information is easy to find. Your address, phone number, and e-mail address should be on every advertisement you have.
Next, be sure that you’re answering patrons as soon as possible. This is particularly important when it comes to calls. When patrons call your business, you should pick up more often than not. If you have a lot of phone traffic, you may want to try automating the process.
Finally, be sure to answer any messages you missed. An employee should check on this at least once a day.
2. Encourage Feedback
Feedback is essential when it comes to customer communication. While it can be difficult to receive criticism, patrons must know that you’re willing to change and grow. In order to receive regular feedback, you’ll need to set up a system. Sure, customers can simply call in and talk to a manager. However, it may be easier to handle a messaging system specifically for feedback.
Be sure to make this system widely known, particularly on social media. When you receive feedback, try to remain impartial. Yes, customers aren’t always right. Many patrons will make complaints with no bearing on reality. However, you can still take something away from every comment.
3. Stay Positive
Whenever you interact with a customer, you must remain positive. This helps to direct the conversation in a healthy and progressive manner. Otherwise, your talk may turn into an unhelpful argument. A great way to remain positive is by focusing on the future. If a customer approaches you with a complaint, don’t allow the conversation to center around apologies.
Instead, quickly apologize and suggest solutions. No matter what, don’t allow yourself to become argumentative. Even when a customer is wrong, you must focus on positive steps forward instead of correcting the patron. During the employee training process, this style of conversation is essential to teach. So, you may want to set up fake interactions to help new recruits prepare.
Interacting with customers isn’t always easy, especially when an individual is annoyed or combative. Luckily, trying these methods may greatly improve your customer interactions.
