No matter what kind of business you’re in, there’s no one more important to you than your customers. As every business owner should know, keeping your existing customers is always easier, and more cost-effective, than bringing in new ones. Providing outstanding customer service is the most reliable way to inspire customer loyalty, but as technology advances, so do the standards for good customer support.
Customers around the world claim that good customer service is an important element when deciding which brands to be loyal to—in fact, it’s a whopping 96% of customers. This means that you need to focus on every element of your customer support from the moment customers walk into your business to the moment they leave. Of course, you’ll need to ensure positive customer interactions over the phone and online as well. Here are just a few ways you can provide better service and have customers coming back for more.
Provide an outstanding waiting area.
When guests come into your home, you want them to feel welcome, right? Your direct them to the most comfortable furniture in your living room and offer them an extra seat. You should show the same hospitality at your business. Whether your services are by appointment or you simply lack the team members to address every customer as soon as they walk in, your waiting area can leave a lasting impression.
Keeping your waiting area filled with comfortable furniture like a storage ottoman bench will fill the function of keeping customers content and double as a way to store items you aren’t using on a regular basis. Of course, you’ll likely want to fill the space with some armchairs or maybe a couch as well, and ensure you always keep a comfortable temperature for the time of year. Adding some indoor plants can really liven the place up as well, and customers will feel more appreciated if you provide simple refreshments like water or healthy snacks.
Keep your contact center equipped with modern software.
Regardless of your field, you’re likely running a call center to both chase down sales leads and provide customer support. If you want to empower your sales agents and improve the efficiency of your contact center, you’ll need to invest in modern outbound contact center software.
Having to manually dial numbers can eat up large chunks of time and will absolutely lower agent productivity, so having dialers like predictive dialers and progressive dialers will be a great help. Your sales agents can use predictive dialers to automatically dial from a set list of phone numbers and alert them whenever a call is answered, so they can deliver the best sales pitch your company has to offer.
Of course, on the subject of customer service, you’ll also need to equip your business with the best inbound call center software to address customer concerns. Setting up interactive voice response (IVR) is a great way to field calls to the right agent for each customer’s needs. If you really want to set the bar high, then it’s a great idea to invest in a true omnichannel solution.
Modern contact centers already have the ability to let customers contact support agents using digital channels like text, SMS, email, webchat, and mobile apps. With true omnichannel routing, customers can even switch between these communication channels seamlessly, all while staying in contact with the same support agent.
This makes for an exceptional customer experience, complete with the ultimate convenience. A unified agent desktop can even help your support agents keep up with all conversations across all channels, so they can step in with the full context of the situation when needed. You can even inspire customer loyalty further by using connected customer data to make special offers based on previous purchasing history. Ultimately, providing these personalized customer journeys is the easiest way to stand out from the competition.
