Agata Klein offers some suggestions to keep customers satisfied.
Customer satisfaction is all about keeping your customers happy, with the product or service offerings that you provide.
Some companies believe that once the purchase is made, no further work is required on their behalf to service the customer. This is a common misconception that is costing these companies money in repeat sales and referrals.
Here are 5 ways that you can ensure customer satisfaction on your next product or service transaction:
Start Before the Sale
Even before your customer purchases a product or service from you, make sure they feel like they are the most important person to you. After all, without them your business would not survive for long, so why not make them feel extra special during their experience with you? For example, if you have a physical store location, simple things such as greeting customers when they walk into your store makes them feel acknowledged.
Further to this, ensuring that your store is adequately staffed for customer inquiries is crucial to ensure a pleasant experience prior to the sale. There is nothing worse than a customer walking out of your store prior to purchasing a product because they couldn’t find a staff member to answer their questions. If your store is online, having live chat or email support with quick turnaround available is key to ensuring your customers get their questions answered promptly.
Continue During the Sale
Once again, a simple question like, “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” is an effective way to make your customer feel important, and open up the opportunity for an extra sale in case they couldn’t find something they were looking for. Customers will often appreciate the extra effort and remember the experience when planning their next shopping experience. It’s no surprise that customers will willingly go to the store that they feel has treated them better than the competition.
Follow up After the Sale
Follow ups are a great way to gain important insight not only on your service levels from the customer’s point of view, but also to get reviews and feedback on the product or service your customer has purchased.
Sometimes customers will not be entirely satisfied with their purchase, and your follow up will give you the opportunity to address their needs and rectify the situation, or even recommend a product or service that might work better for them in the future. Once again, most customers will appreciate the extra effort on your part and will often become repeat customers while also giving valuable and free word of mouth advertising to their friends and family.
Product or Service Recommendations
Further to point number three, product or service recommendations are a great way to show your customer that you have their needs at heart. Asking a few questions to conduct a brief needs analysis can work wonders, since you can quickly offer a solution to the customer and provide valuable and insightful recommendations based on your offerings.
For online retailers, compiling data on past purchase history and trends in the marketplace can allow you to recommend items to your customer that they might not have otherwise looked at. Remember, you are the expert on what you sell, so coupling that knowledge with customer data can be a powerful asset to any business and can ultimately generate more sales.
Easy to Find and Easy to Use
Whether your store is a physical location or an online store, making sure your customers can find what they are looking for is also important. Proper merchandising techniques in-store and proper tagging of items with keywords online can make for a much smoother sales transaction.
An easy to use and intuitive online interface also allows for customer satisfaction when placing online orders. When it comes to inventory, some companies even have computer terminals in-store dedicated to searching for items at other store locations, giving the customer a quick and easy way to find their items.
The tips above are just a few of the ways you can ensure your customers are satisfied, giving your business the opportunity for further growth and prosperity.
About the Author
Agata Klein is a Vancouver Graphic Designer that helps businesses establish their identity online and offline.
