In a business environment rife with competition, emphasizing customer care is extremely important. Without a system that prioritizes the needs of your customers, your company won’t be able to keep itself afloat. The good news is there are a few key ways you can incorporate customer care into your day-to-day business relations that will both help you keep your customers happy and give you an idea about how your customers feel about your company.
Know Your Customer
Knowing who your customers are, or at least your target audience and demographic, can help make meeting your customers’ needs much easier. Being able to cater to your customer experience around your target audience will ensure a majority of your customers are left feeling satisfied and that their needs are met, or if not entirely met, then there is an easy method in place for them to get assistance with any issues they might be having. You want to create an effective personal experience for your customers that best meets their needs.
Listen to Feedback
Having a way for customers to submit feedback is essential for ensuring your business is not only constantly growing and changing but also seeing that you are fulfilling the needs of your customers. While it is important to take some customer feedback with a grain of salt, especially if it seems like they’re just trying to get something free for their trouble, most customer feedback is genuine and can help you get a gauge on how good a job you are doing with meeting your customers’ needs. Use this feedback to identify the problem, be it a training issue, operations, or something completely different, and address the problem.
Be Accommodating, But Not a Doormat
Many companies mistakenly overemphasize the old adage “the customer is always right.” While it’s a good mindset to have when dealing with customer service, it’s not good to take it as absolute law. There are going to be bad customers out there who simply look to take advantage of your business and are just hoping to get something for free. Catering to these types of customers’ just opens your door to repeated abuse as they come back over and over to bully their way into getting free service or merchandise.
Dealing with these customers can be difficult, but it’s important to stay calm and adhere to your policies. Bending the rules in an unusual circumstance (like extending the return policy by a few days for someone who just got out of the hospital) is fine, but these types of things shouldn’t become the norm. Shaming customers for bad behavior will only make you look like the bad guy when they turn to social media, so just stick to the facts and stay professional.
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