A growing number of businesses rely heavily on word-of-mouth marketing to thrive. As technology advances further integrate ability into our daily lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult to enjoy those benefits unless you are actively giving back to others. Learn about the importance of customer service in word-of-mouth marketing.
Businesses must realize that leaving poor customer service experiences alone will only grow more difficult as people begin to talk about them. With the ease of access to information via the internet and social media sites, chances for unhappy customers to spread their negative experiences far and wide increase with each passing day.
It’s important to remember that your reputation counts, which makes good customer service even more crucial to your business’ success. When things go wrong, keep calm and communicate!
Bad customer service can cost you dearly in terms of lost sales or hurt feelings, but it is also quite likely that it will expose some weaknesses within your company or staff members who were responsible. By addressing any issues immediately and correctly, you may prevent more serious problems down the line.
Steps to provide great customer service
Providing excellent customer service is an important part of word-of-mouth marketing. While it may sound trivial, creating a good environment for customers to feel welcomed and understood is a powerful way to create repeat business.
Running low on products? Ask if any nearby locations carry what you’re looking for. If so, visit them!
Finding your product lost or broken? Offer to match or go up with another one from the same manufacturer. Sometimes sellers get too focused on their merchandise and forget about supporting others.
With technology moving at lightning speed these days, making sure your device will work for someone else can save them time and money.
As mentioned before, within the context of this article, we’ll be talking about providing stellar customer service via social media.
Provide consistency
As mentioned before, creating word-of-mouth marketing opportunities is mostly about leaving good comments in appropriate places. But what are those comments?
They’re conversations that people have with others. So how do you create these conversations if nothing seems to be coming up when you read your favorite book review site?
You can’t unless you’ve had similar experiences as someone else! If you’ve ever left a bad review online, you’ve done something like this.
That’s why it’s so important to establish yourself as an authentic person who cares about other people. Your style, tone, and personality all contribute to making people feel comfortable and confident while reading reviews or chatting with you on social media, phone calls, and in person.
Your personal touch also helps ensure the quality of each conversation. This way, even if some things don’t go exactly according to plan, everyone leaves feeling relaxed and pleased.
Good customer service will always get praise. People will talk about you and spread positive stories about you.
Be consistent when providing customer service
Consistency is one of the most important things to focus on when providing customer service via social media channels or through phone calls and emails. It’s hard to create loyal followers if you don’t see them consistently, so be sure to check your accounts frequently!
By having a constant presence, people will feel that they can connect with you and ask questions or offer feedback without feeling uncomfortable or insecure. This creates an overall supportive environment for conversations and relationships!
It also helps to emphasize consistency because people are looking for signs that you are there and functioning — not only at this moment but over time. They want to know that you will be around long term, which means investing in your health now will help ensure their trust.
And finally, consistency is key to creating lasting relationships. People expect more from frequent interactions than they do from once-a-month chats that sometimes get cut off due to a lack of interest or action.
But we all have limited resources, and it would be better to invest those in opportunities that have the potential to return much greater benefits rather than ones that are just fun “me time” activities.
Respond immediately
Recent studies show that 70% of smartphone users look up your business online before making a purchase, and nearly half do some sort of research via mobile device. By having a good reputation you are creating an opportunity to win over new customers or retain current ones!
By breaking down the barriers to contact, you’re giving your audience more opportunities to connect with you.
Tell them what they want to hear when providing customer service
We all have at least one friend that is super sweet and kind, never fails to make you feel good, and always puts others first. They are the ones who greet you with a warm smile after you come home from a hard day or ask how your family’s night went hours later when you tell them about it.
They know what makes you happy and will do everything in their power to help you find that thing.
And we as consumers spend an average of eight dollars per visit on restaurant food! So if you’re planning on going out tonight, maybe invest some time in those people before you- by sending a nice note or calling to say hello, you’ll be spending money more efficiently.
By being aware of the things that matter to your friends, you can learn a lot about yourself and where you need improvement.
It’s also worth mentioning that while this article focused mostly on buying groceries, any type of service can apply here. A recent study found that only 30% of employees get good quality sleep, which could affect their performance at work. If yours isn’t up to par, try doing something to improve it (sleep schedules, etc.
Make it clear what they should be expecting
As mentioned before, one of the most important things to focus on as an entrepreneur is creating supportive environments for your company and its employees.
Your customers are going to do their best to give you good feedback no matter how professional you seem, so make sure that you project a positive image with them!
Keep yourself accessible, respond quickly to messages and comments, and use social media tools to interact with your audience.
By being interactive, you’ll gain more insight into the needs of your customers and thus better understand what changes or improvements need to be made.
Be friendly
Speaking as someone who works in word-of-mouth marketing, there’s no way I can tell you how many times a client will mention a business they love and give them kudos for their great service.
But what happens when they don’t receive that same level of care the next time they go to do business with them?
I have helped countless numbers of clients launch new businesses by creating an online presence and social media accounts. But once people start to talk about them, it’s hard to ignore those comments.
So why risk losing potential customers because of poor customer service?
It’s all too common to hear stories where a business left a bad taste in someone’s mouth or worse, didn’t even respond to a complaint. In fact, according to one survey, 80% of consumers never re-enter a company site after purchasing due to poor service.
That’s crazy!
Consumers are your biggest asset so wasting money on expensive goods unnecessarily is very unwise. Fortunately, there are some easy ways to prevent this from happening. Read on to learn more about how to be a pro at providing top-quality customer service.
Offer help
As mentioned before, being a leader is about serving others and creating an environment where people feel comfortable coming to you for assistance and guidance. This includes offering helpful suggestions, taking care of their needs, and encouraging them to return your kindness by telling everyone they know how great you are!
Your reputation as a business owner depends on the quality of service that you provide to your customers. If someone comes away from a shopping experience with a poor experience, they will likely spread this information via social media or through word-to-word conversations with other individuals who visited your site at the same time as them.
By giving good customer service, you create brand loyalty which can translate into repeat purchases. By adding value to the experiences of those around you, you strengthen your brand while also promoting your company.
When was the last time you helped another person and received credit for it? I’ll give you a minute to think about it. (Too long!)
Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t very powerful if no one ever talks about you. Studies show that 90% of all buying decisions are made after a mere five minutes of exposure. That’s why it’s so important to make people like you and keep them coming back.
Provide superior service
As we have discussed, staying in control is a key factor in developing leadership skills.