Question

Companies want to acquire profitable customers. Describe how marketers build relationships with customers

Answer 1

Answer :

Taking care of current clients is more cost-effective than finding new ones. This is why companies should strive for customer loyalty and aim at building long-lasting relationships with them. Customer relationship is a special bond created between buyers and a brand as a result of numerous marketing, sales, and customer service processes.

Build And Maintain Customer Relationships:

Good customer relations develop over time and remain stable if the consumer-business interactions are beneficial for both parties. It’s not enough to woo clients once and leave them be. A once won affection must be cared for and nurtured on every occasion.

1. Spare Customer’s Time : No one likes to queue, especially in a digitized era that bears a strong promise of delivering fast and advanced solutions. It’s unacceptable, then, to keep customers waiting on hold for hours if there’re many modern communication channels and types of customer service that allow for a quick query resolution in just one contact. If, however, you’re experiencing a busy season at your company, defuse the situation in a professional way and lead customers through the waiting process by:

• communicating every step of the way,
• estimating the wait time,
• speeding up the conversation with canned responses.

Canned responses (or quick replies) are predefined responses that a service representative can call during an interaction with customers to speed up the conversation. Try Quick Replies feature to automate the most repetitive queries and unburden your customer service agents.

2. Give Each Customer Individual Treatment : How do you make customers feel valued and special? By giving them VIP treatment. Quality products are no longer the only factor that contributes to high customer satisfaction as it’s the user experience that will overtake the price and product of every brand as a key differentiator by 2020. Don’t treat your customers like academic projects that must be completed by the end of the day, but look at them as individuals and deliver a personalized service:

• Call them by names. Getting on first-name terms with customers will bring you both closer and make visitors feel appreciated. You can personalize your communication and use your customers’ names in automatic messages with a sales chatbot.

• Keep order history. Whether they’re first-time visitors or regular clients, it’s always good to track order history and offer personalized recommendations.

• Go the extra mile. If you want customers to stand behind your store, you need to show a genuine interest in their lives. How? With a simple gesture of caring, like sending a letter or a thank you card (What does customer service mean to you).

3 Stay Positive Throughout The Whole Interaction : Customer service is not a department. It’s an attitude. Throughout your customer service career, you’ll encounter many people. They will either inspire you to achieve better results or feed on your positivity and steal motivation. But, you should always remember that customer service is about helping people and your performance shouldn’t be determined by someone’s bad mood. Instead, set the positive state of mind by following these two simple steps:

• Use positive language. Resort to affirmative words (e.g. excellent, surely, exactly) and empathy statements (e.g. Let me look into it) to create a positive environment for yourself and customers.

• Smile : It’s been scientifically proven that smiling releases endorphins to our bodies that make us feel overly happy and motivated enough to deliver an excellent service to all types of customers.

4. Always Exceed Customer’s Expectations In A Positive Way : How would you feel if a customer service agent promised you to call you back with a solution within the next thirty minutes but in fact, they didn’t? Would you feel deceived, frustrated, let-down? This is why you don’t promise gifts that you can’t afford. Instead, set clear and reasonable expectations that will be resolved throughout the conversation and will confirm your credibility. Honesty and clear communication are the two customer service skills that will help you avoid humiliation and save your face. Improve Communication With Live Chat

5. Show Appreciation To Clients By Introducing Loyalty Programs : Did you know that returning customers spend 67% more than new customers? This means, targeting customers with special programs could act as an incentive to revisit the store and encourage a product repurchase. So, if you’re looking for new ideas to benefit customers and keep them close, try introducing one of the loyalty programs that offer a different type of user engagement:

• gift cards,
• birthday cards,
• the points program (points for rewards),
• the game program (rewards for completing game levels),
• the tiered program (rewards based on the membership level)

6. Handle Negative Feedback Well : Since we’ve already discussed the importance of measuring customer satisfaction, why don’t we focus on the importance of handling negative feedback? If you think that receiving negative comments will tarnish your company’s reputation permanently, you’re very wrong. The key to receiving negative feedback is that the customer’s opinion (flattering or not) gives valuable insight into the company management system. There is always room for improvement whether you work for a startup or a well-established company. Collect feedback, admit your mistakes and turn failure into success. Collecting feedback is necessary if you want to satisfy the needs of all customers. A quick chatbot message will help you learn customers’ opinions in less than three seconds.

7. Always Look For Contact With Customers : If you want to stay in touch with customers, don’t count on them. It’s your responsibility as a business owner to look for constant contact with clients – before, during and after the sales process. Here are some ideas on how to take better care of your clients and strengthen the client relationship:

• send personalized emails,
• send newsletters,
• offer small gifts,
• invite them to follow a company blog,
• share their posts on social media platforms.,
• include them in your PR outreach.

Remember that you can automate your customer communication and boost their engagement level with chatbots.