Whether you run a small or a substantial business, you will need to know that managing customer relationships is what will keep your business stronger and ever growing. Typically, if you are running a large business, you will realize that the attention level you devote to customers will increase. Each customer will always expect to receive a high service level. Therefore, despite the type or quality of service or products that you offer to them, the customers won’t be that loyal for long, unless you give them the treatment that they deserve. They will expect that good treatment, prior and subsequent to buying the product or service.
Managing Customer Relationships for a Better CX
Communication
This is one thing that will maintain a good rapport with your customers. You will need to keep them involved and always satisfied. This can be done by interacting with them regularly, which also boost the loyalty and trust level. Normally, the customers will feel that you have a mutual trust-based relationship if you communicate openly with them.
Also, ensure that you obey the legal obligation to keep the customer clued-up. For instance, if the transaction is under long-distance selling, you will need to provide the customer with relevant information concerning their order. In the information that you provide, you must include the price, description of the product, the delivery information and rights of cancellation.
You will therefore need to exploit every possible channel in order to communicate with your customers. You may give them a call, use the website in order to get in touch with them as you collect the feedback about your goods and/or services. You might send them emails to supply them with relevant information and if you get any contact from them, ensure you have responded more quickly and efficiently.
Gauge the Service Levels of the Customer
Here, you will need to recognize the key performance indicators, which are typically anything that relates to the number of complaints received or the number of faulty goods returned. They can also entail the number of times you contact every customer. Once you have the key performance indicators, you will need to take action soon enough. You will do this by using the information that you have gathered in order to fix the faults.
You can also rate the level of service by constantly gathering feedback from customers as you monitor how satisfied they are with the services. This will help to sustain a high customer care standard.
Have a Well Trained Staff
The management might be performing well in pushing for better customer services, however, there might be some issues with your staff. Therefore, you will need to offer top level training on customer service to the staff that have standard contact with the customers. Since these staff will be the first people to meet the customers in your business, you will need to ensure that the business image is always professional.
Besides the front-desk staff or sales staff, you must ensure every staff receives proper training on how to carry out their job. It is important to train the entire staff and ensure that they are perfect at their job and how their job efforts can affect the customers.
Weigh and Supervise The Delivery Capabilities
This is also a vital aspect of managing customer relationships, whereby, you should always focus on delivering the customers order always at the expected time. You will have to gauge the reliability to deliver products in relation to fulfilling the needs of the customers. You should ensure that the system of delivery is capable of delivering the products to the clients as they requested. This will help you to avoid such situations like damaged goods and incorrect or late deliveries.
You should gather the relevant information on deliveries by talking to your customers and know if they are contented with the standards of delivery that you offer to them. Customize your delivery services in a way that it will match with the expectation of the customer.
Measure Your Level of Resources
Study every resource level in the entire supply chain in order to know the trend that is the most successful. You can gauge if it is better to buy goods in bulk so as to adjust to the best service offered to the customers. You should also ensure that you have a good relationship with your suppliers.
To weigh up the resource level, you can review the internal resources of your company. This can be done by ensuring there is enough staff on the phone line to attend to all the incoming calls. It is important to have enough people to assist you in attending to the customers, especially if the business is stretching.
Exploit the Technology
First off, you must ensure the technology of your business is upgraded to the best. You can network each of your computers for the sake of easing the need of retrieving a customer’s information by a staff member. You can also scrutinize any other possible way of using technology for the sake of enhancing the service to your customers. You may want to arrange a safe extranet that lets customers access important information like stock levels, pricing, giving feedback or accessing the necessary manuals. You can also exploit the social media and reaching your customers at all times as you respond to their concerns.
In as much as you may want to exploit the technology, you will need to adhere to the related legislation. For instance, if you have your customers’ information on a hard copy or soft copy, you will have to adhere to the Data Protection Act. In other situations, you will need to inform the Information Commissioner about the information that you are collecting and what you need them for. Also, when you are sending emails for marketing purposes to customers, you will need to adhere to the e-commerce regulations.
Generally, you will need to have a well laid strategy for the sake of ensuring your customers are well taken care of and that they receive the expected services. You should always ensure your customers’ dissatisfactions are well taken care of when managing customer relationships.
