How to Communicate with Customers

It’s never a bad idea to focus on bringing in new customers, but you need to make sure you won’t cycle through them. Retaining customers and inspiring their loyalty is what ultimately will make up a solid foundation for revenue. New customers aren’t as valuable as you may think if you don’t have a plan in place to hold onto them. A solid loyalty strategy isn’t something you can afford to do without, and the sooner you implement one, the faster your business will receive all of the benefits.

Keep Track of Buying Habits

You won’t know how to communicate with former customers if you don’t know what’s meaningful to them. What did they come to you for, and why did they need it? If you aren’t sure what products or services are relevant in their lives, you’ll be wasting any contact or marketing efforts you’re throwing in their direction.

Always Follow Up

A week or so after you’ve sealed the deal, give your client a call to ask them if they’re enjoying their product or service, and ask them if there’s anything else you can do for them. This is especially beneficial for large purchases. Never go directly to further marketing or upselling unless the client has suggested they will need something else, or you can provide the resolution to an issue. Inform them of anything going on within your business that may apply to their needs, and thank them genuinely for their patronage.

Memorable Gift Giving

A lot of businesses will send things to past customers on their birthdays. It’s a simple way to show you care. Some customers may perceive things like coupons to be tacky for the occasion, but you aren’t out of alternative options. A card that will make them laugh can easily do the trick, as long as your humor is within the standards of professionalism.

Send Personalized Emails

Everyone gets run-of-the-mill mass marketing email campaigns, and a lot of the time, they’re eager to follow the link and unsubscribe. Sending one communication en masse doesn’t show that you’re paying attention. Personalized emails will make an old customer feel important enough to consider coming back. It speaks a powerful testament to your customer service and expresses how much you appreciate your customers.

Never send excessive emails, as people are generally put off by anything that could be considered spam. Limit your emails to once a week for regular retail, monthly for common services, and bimonthly for large sales or services.

Incentivize Their Return

Every day, your past customers are bombarded with advertisement from other companies. Finding an excellent deal from a competitor can be all it takes to turn them in the opposite direction. Establishing a loyalty program or showing special treatment to individuals whose business you value will likely reward you in the long run. Offering exclusive deals or personalized services makes customers feel good, and it will also help you face the competition with your head held high.

Host Events

Special events create an aura of sophistication. If you’re holding one of these events, make sure your past customers receive an invitation. While this may not be inexpensive to do, it will provide you with opportunities to generate larger profits, especially if everyone gets some one-on-one time. Try holding seasonal or semi-annual events to promote loyalty while showcasing your customer service skills.

How does your business maintain contact with past customers? What are your secrets for maintaining a loyal customer base? Feel free to share with others in the comments section.

About the Author
Kelly Smith is Content Manager at Career FAQs, Australia’s leading portal on online learning and career resources. She is interested in new tech solutions and self-improvement ideas.

Surveys are a powerful tool that have been used for decades by businesses eager to “get inside the heads” of their clients and stay competitive in an increasingly dog-ear-dog business environment. These days, with the world a quicker and smaller place than ever due to the advent and proliferation of technologies that mean that your brand is effectively global as soon as you have an online presence, it is more important than ever that you are aware of what is going on in your market.

Surveys are also a great way for building client relationships, and with the power of social media reigning supreme, your clients are perhaps your best and cheapest form of marketing.

Even though we have ascertained that surveys are an integral part of business success, it is still a time-consuming event to organize, execute, and analyze. However, following are some ways to make the process as simple as possible for both your clients and yourself:

Using the Correct Survey Technique

As a business, it is imperative that you stay with the times. It is also essential that you stay with the times when it comes to conducting a survey. Door-to-door and phone surveys are from the Stone Age. The only way to conduct a survey is with a mobile survey app.

Mobile survey apps are a natural evolution from the smartphone and tablet revolution. As well as being a much friendlier form of survey that enables the surveyor to accurately target interviewees and approach them on neutral territory where they will be more willing to give of themselves and their time, they also holds numerous benefits for the party commissioning the survey as they are cheaper and quicker to organize (and amen if necessary), can be uploaded to the cloud, analyzed in real-time, enable automated analysis, and offer opportunities to spice up the survey with media that cannot be offered over the phone or without a portable computing device.

Using the Correct Messenger

We all know the refrain, “Don’t shoot the messenger.” However, what if the messenger is worthy of being shot? Are the people conducting the survey on your behalf worthy of being your messengers? Are they well groomed? Do they have an outgoing and friendly personality conducive to attracting interviewees and being brand ambassadors? Do they care about what they are doing and realize its importance?

Your interviewers are the front line of your company’s corporate image. This cannot be stressed highly enough. Pay a bit more if required but a good surveyor will get your quota of surveys speedily and this is vital as time is money.

Using the Correct Survey Questions

Don’t start off a survey with the tough questions as this will repel prospective interviewees. Let them be eased into the survey with simple questions, and gradually build up the difficulty factor so that it seems like a natural progression and not a chore. This will not only improve response rate but also leave the interviewee with a feeling of satisfaction that they have assisted you.

Using Incentives

Nothing succeeds like an inducement. Offer interviewees a gift certificate, discount card, or some other incentive and watch them flock to the survey. Even better, let them scan a QR Code at the end of the interview for a mystery prize.

However important a survey is, you want it completed quickly. The above techniques will aid you in achieving this task.

About the Author
Written by Sharon from Dooblo, visit us to find out about capi survey software.

Objections are an inevitable part of a sales cycle. Sometimes they are just an excuse, other times they are totally justified – but if you aren’t familiar with the basic techniques to overcome objections you could well be missing out on potentially lucrative sales opportunities.

The key is to understand why a customer is objecting – once you can uncover this, you will be in a better position to answer them. This article looks at five common sales objections, how to handle them effectively and turn them into an opportunity. Anticipate and practice these techniques so that you can handle objections with confidence.

1) Cost: I don’t have enough budget

The most common objection to making a purchase is price. Price objection is often a convenient excuse to get rid of a sales person before truly understanding the real value of the product or service. Make sure you emphasize the benefits of your product/service and quantify it. Prospects usually forget about price when you identify problems and help solve them.

It’s also important to have clear understanding of their financial position. For example, if it’s their financial year-end and budget is limited, you need to know the best time to contact them again. They may be aware of a competitor offering a better price, and you will need to confidently talk about what value you can bring to the table that your competitor isn’t offering.

By understanding their financial situation and what you can offer differently to competitors will help you arrive at a competitive pricing strategy that may well help change their mind.

2) Timing: It’s not the right time for us right now

Timing can be a valid reason for companies to delay a purchase. It could be down to the fact that their budget has been allocated elsewhere, or changes happening internally in the company that delay decision-making. Ask to schedule at a later time when they are likely to reconsider – and more importantly, what will have changed in that time? If timing is a valid reason, you need the assurance that when the time comes to approach them again there are no other objections.

3) Lack of Familiarity: I don’t know you

Trust isn’t instantaneous; it takes time, consistency and persistence. Trust happens when you approach the sale as a way of helping the customer solve their problems or needs, rather than as a sales pitch. It helps to provide the customer with other marketing materials about your company so they are at least familiar with your brand before you approach them about a sale.

Needless to say, gaining trust is only part of the equation. You must also have a product or service that customers want and need, so make sure you can provide feedback and case studies from existing customers that demonstrate value, integrity and establish trust.

4) Previous bad experience: I’ve had a bad experience from a product/service like yours

It’s an unfortunate truth that some customers have been let down by companies similar to yours, and this may influence how open they are to what you have to offer. Ask them to tell you about their experience so you can empathize, and address any doubts or concerns they have.

5) Existing supplier or In-house resource: We already do that in-house

Don’t be prepared to walk-away simply because they already have an existing supplier, or do it themselves in-house. You need to identify whether there are any gaps in what is already being provided, and whether there is an opportunity to provide services on an adhoc basis. Ask when the existing contract is being renewed and whether they are happy with their current supplier so you know whether any future opportunities exist.

Objections should not be considered an obstacle, but rather an opportunity to open up the conversation and understand more about the customer’s situation and needs.

About the Author
Article by Su Copeland, Managing Director of Lingo Telemarketing. Lingo provides B2B telemarketing and telesales training to businesses to improve a company’s sales pipeline, increase sales effectiveness and improve overall sales performance.

What is the best definition of customer service? While managers may disagree about the semantics, it basically boils down to this: Good customer service means doing everything you can to give your customer what he or she wants, and if that simply isn’t possible, doing everything you can to find a reasonable alternative that meets that person’s need.

You want all of your surveys to look like this!

Sometimes this means that, in spite of what every customer service agent is taught, the customer isn’t always right. Sometimes it means being more honest with your customers than they might ordinarily like. A lot of the time, it might even mean being honest enough to cost your company a sale.

Yeah. It seems really counter-intuitive. As a customer service agent, you were taught to keep your customer as happy as possible so they will keep buying things and feel good about those purchases.

Recent studies, however, have proven that being honest and denying your company the short-term sale actually builds loyalty and more sales over the long term.

In a recent article published by Direct Marketing News, Ernan Roman points to the example of cellular providers telling their customers when those customers are nearing data or text message limits. It would be easy enough to allow the customer to simply go over the limit and then rake in the big bucks in overage charges. Ultimately all that does, though, is send the customer running to any other cellular provider with a better policy. Alerting the customer to the approaching limit to keep him from going over builds trust.

Why?

For one thing, it proves that the company cares more about the customer than it does its bottom line. Nobody likes to be made to feel like a wallet with feet. Respecting the customer’s plan and potential budget issues keeps this from happening.

For another, it allows the customer to keep his control over the situation. The power to prevent an overage is completely within his control. If he chooses to keep chowing down on data, then any overage charges are his own fault, and he will know this.

How does this apply to you?

Studies have proven that telling your customers what you are doing, telling your customers when something they think they want might not be within their best interests – even when it costs you a sale in the moment – is the best thing you can do.

“Just to let you know, the creme-filled ones have dairy, sugar, and about a zillion calories!”

This does not mean, however, that you should tell the plus-sized lady holding a size zero dress, “Oh, honey, no; you’re too fat for that.”

Instead, try, “Wow, what a great dress! I’ve found, though, that it can cling in weird places if you get the wrong size. Let’s get a variety so you can see how different sizes look on you.”

See: You’re still telling the customer the size she’s holding might not do the trick. You’re allowing the customer to keep her dignity. You’re allowing her to make the choice she wants to make. You’re also alerting her to problems with the garment.

Honesty requires you to focus on the person instead of on your store’s Units Per Transaction (UPT) metric. This is only going to be good for your business as long as you can figure out how to do it eloquently.

About the Author
Erin Steiner is a freelance writer from Portland. She writes about business topics, personal finance, and geek/pop culture. Like most English and Theater majors, she spent copious amounts of time working in customer service positions after college.