The loyalty of your customers builds your business, and good word of mouth, whether spoken at dinner parties or typed online, can make or break a company. And that loyalty and good reputation is built not upon making no mistakes, but upon being able to have excellent customer service, and being able to resolve conflicts quickly and well. How can you best develop a reputation for great customer service?
Be Quick to Respond
Response time matters in customer service. Average response time can be over ten to twelve hours. That’s too slow for modern consumers. There are ways to resolve this issue, though. The use of bots can begin the process, and having social media management in the evenings, as many consumers now use social media rather than email to make complaints. Having well trained employees in store with a long list of varied replies for common complaints can help immensely as well.
Reduce Errors
As with many things, doing one task repetitively can help reduce errors with small business assembly, forming kits which are easily standardized. Kitting and assembly can improve production and reduce shipping mistakes. If each kit must be collected every time a shipment is made, obviously errors of shipments missing products or having the wrong products can be made. However, if to ship a single “kit” means to grab one box containing those individual items, all of which were assembled prior, your possibility of error diminishes!
Long-term Relationships
You aren’t developing relationships with your customers to last for a day, or a couple of weeks. Your goal is long term customer loyalty. This demands familiarity with your customers themselves, and building up those relationships over time. And this requires training your team to be comfortable communicating with customers and to nurture customers. That communication capability works best when team members themselves are cultivated as long-term relationships to the store, and feel secure and happy in the work they are doing as well.
Your business depends upon loyal, happy customers, and that depends upon being able to form those bonds. Resolving conflicts early, admitting mistakes freely to do so, having happy team members, and kitting and assembly work can all help with those goals! Employees who form stable bonds with their work, and feel fulfilled doing it, will be better capable to build loyalty bonds on your behalf with customers. Your cultivation of them matters greatly.
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