Chances are, that unless you have a superior offering or something very distinctive and differentiated, your business is fighting a number of others for customer attention, and dollars.
If you’re in the luxurious position of having a regular clientele then the chances are that you have a good number of happy customers. Happy customers are generally a pleasure to have, but ecstatic ones are even better! The ecstatic customer not only gives you business but also functions as an extension of your marketing organization. Best of all, all you have to do is keep them happy! Ecstatic customers bring repeat business, reinforce your brand, echo your brand message and act as unpaid advocates for you.
To attain customer ecstasy your business needs to exceed the expectations of the customer and take advantage of every opportunity to wow the customer. Here are a few ways that Pretectum thinks you might be able to do that – think of them as “the holds”!
Constantly hold court
Customer communication is tricky, generally, you may only hear from customers when they want something or need something or have a problem. Do they know how to get in contact with you, and how easy is that – no seriously, how easy is that? The concept of holding court alludes to royalty convening courtiers or a judge convening a court of law, if you do this constantly then it suggests that you’re always paying attention and available
If, as a customer, I want to ask for support, get a quote, an estimate or make a request, or hey, even provide feedback, where do I go? If you don’t believe us, take a long hard look at your favourite bank, airline, utility provider or brand. You’ll often find that getting the opportunity to actually engage with a living breathing person via a web chat panel for example, has been displaced by bots that try to guess what you’re saying. Worse, if they provide an email address, oftentimes that email takes a long time to get answered if it ever gets answered. As a final resort, many customers will often resort to public shaming or call-outs of a brand by using loud-hailer technologies like Twitter, Facebook and the like.
Customer supporting communication should be made available at all stages for prospects and customers. These groups can have queries at any stage ranging from pre-sales purchase to return policy.
Your business should provide support at all stages because 70% of customers say they are likely to switch brands if they deal with agents who are unable to answer their questions, and that includes bots! Through automation, you can start the conversation, especially if you have data identifiers attached to the customer master that can support automation.
Hold onto the gold
If you agree that your customers might be amongst your biggest assets then you will also agree that they need to be looked after. Accordingly, you should never leave your customer hung out to dry or dissatisfied – that kind of outcome can be very expensive.
If necessary, your staff need to diverge from the normal customer interaction script to help ensure optimal customer satisfaction. You need to empower them to do this because attracting new customers can cost as much as five times more than keeping existing customers. The customers you have are gold!
Forbes says that a 5% increase in customer retention increases company profitability by 75%; that means companies should strive harder to please existing customers and go the extra mile to impress the customer.
Hold their attention
Most of us like a surprise, or at least, as long as it is a good one, the chances are that we will like it. When prospects are examining your offerings or returning customers are looking to buy more of something or something new, then the chances are, that they will have questions. Industry analysts, Forrester, said that 45% of US consumers abandon an online transaction if their questions or concerns are not addressed quickly.
Forrester says 76% of consumers look at customer service as a test of their value to the brand in question. One of the most effective ways to surprise clients is by giving them special loyalty offers, discounts and rewards or by providing any additional service. Dissatisfied and loyal customers can be given some pick-me-up perks to either right side the relationship or sustain them. Special offers, complementary offerings, gifts, promos and discounts or vouchers can be provided on special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. Creating long-lasting impressions will convey a sense of personalization.
Make sure that you develop an FAQ and that you have a way to get the prospect or customer a quick response at all the stages in the relationship. If you have things like date of birth or birthday day or even month in the customer master then those can be used as part of that customer interaction and personalization initiative.
Hold your promises
The biggest mistake that your team can make is giving wrong commitments to the customer. Avoid this reputation damaging behaviour and don’t ever make this mistake as customers may feel cheated and duped if their expectations are not fulfilled.
Promise less and deliver more. False promises and commitments can get the sale or get the customer off your back temporarily but over time you lose the customer in a longer run. McKinsey found that 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated, if they feel cheated then they will not do business with you.
The best way to hold promises is to know as much about the customer as possible, and the CMDM is one of the best ways to centralize all that customer knowledge from their personal data all the way through to indicators of the last contact, the circumstance of that contact and how it was resolved or left.
Hold them in high regard
If you’re serious about doing business, then you need to be serious about doing just that. This means that you need to recognise that indirectly your customer is your paycheck. We’re all familiar with the sentiment of taxpayers that claim that police and city officials are their servants, because they are paid by taxes.
While that position is only partially true and notionally interesting, the reality of doing business is that if you have no customers you have no revenue and as a consequence your business has no purpose and likely will fail to last.
Accordingly, if you think about customer engagement, if you show appreciation for the customer every time you interact with them, you’re demonstrating appreciation for all their business, leveraging data in the customer master can help with conveying that message and ensuring that the interactions are fresh and not stale everytime you engage.
Pretectum’s view is that customers are an asset for the business, an asset that can be maintained and retained.
One the best ways of working on retention and maximizing customer lifetime value is by giving the customer the right levels of care and attention and the easiest way to that is to use data to inform the next best action.
Contact us today to find out how our Customer Master Data Management platform can help.