All humans want to feel special and valued, and customers are no different. Customers cherish personalised services and our next customer service tip is based on this very idea. You can improve your customer services by making it more personalised, special, and unique for the customer.
- Address Your Customers by Name: When people address you by your name, it makes you feel important and seen. This is no exception when it comes to customers. using your customer’s name indicates that you have paid attention to them and heard them effectively. It helps in reflecting the fact that they are important enough to be remembered by you. This is a friendlier approach to building customer relationships and does not feel forced. It humanises the interaction between customers and businesses.
Customers become excited and delighted when they hear their name being called. You can use their names while talking to them in person, on the phone, through emails, or when you approach them with surveys.
2. Send Personalised Messages/Replies to your Customers: Using personal names in interactions is not the only way to make customers feel important. You can send automated emails when customers sign up for a free trial of a service or purchase your product. However, even though this automated message helps customers become familiar with the product or service, it is far from personal. When a customer purchases a product or service from you, whether it is free or paid, reach out to them personally and ask them how you can assist them. Even if they don’t take your offer to help, or have no queries, they will feel positive about the gesture and will be more willing to invest in your brand further. They will also know that they can reach out to you in case they ever need help. Research has found that personalised messages help deliver 6 times more transaction rates, have 29% higher email opening rates, and 41% higher click rates on the emails as compared to non-personalised emails.
The first step to make your emails more personalised is by using the name of the recipient when writing to them. Another way is to send the email or the message in the customer’s native language if you have information that they are based in a different country. But only do so if you have a translator of the same language in your company and when the customer is not expected to reply back to the email/message. Other strategies to consider are using a friendly, warm tone and style of writing, as well as informal language. Using a personalised email to send the message from instead of a corporate handle. For example, an email from steve@business.com will have a better and more personal impact than businessname@business.com
3. Use some old-fashioned and personal ways to contact customers: Old fashioned communication like sending letters or thank you notes have huge benefits in the modern automated day and age. Most customers leave the brand or a business because they feel that the brand is apathetic towards them. Hence, personalised thank you notes along with the delivery of the product will show your clients how much they mean to you and that you view them as people and not just profits. Make sure you send thank-you notes that are customised and personally hand signed instead of just some words that were typed on Microsoft Word and printed later.
Make sure to include the customer’s name, and be sure to make your thank-you card reflect the identity and tone of your brand. When you send out thank-you notes, it generates a positive word-of-mouth advertisement of your brand. Customers who receive these notes are pleasantly surprised and post the pictures of the note and the product on social media to show their followers. You can also consider sending holiday greetings to your customers. It will help you stand out from your competitors more.
4. Reward Customers who are Loyal: Modern consumers like personalisation. It helps drive sales as well as gain customer loyalty. The best way to offer customers a personalised experience is to have a loyalty program as it will also make it easier for you to collect necessary data. The idea here is to “wow” loyal customers with an extraordinary experience that they will not forget soon. Focus on making the experience relevant to their tastes as well for maximum benefit.
Let’s say you have a business for coffee, you could reward your long-term customers who give shoutouts to your brand online with free samples of flavoured coffee every month. Or you could offer them free shipping right to their doorstep. Alternatively, you could help the customers experience something more meaningful by sending them coffee jars/mugs with the customer’s picture and a meaningful message or a thank-you note along with it.
5. Have a lenient and straightforward refund policy: Businesses that have a money-back guarantee if customers are not satisfied with the product gain more trust from the customers. The most important customer service tip is to make the purchasing experience of the customer feel that their purchase is risk-free and a straightforward policy ensures just that. It also encourages customers to try more of your products and services.
Since most businesses these days offer a refund policy of some sort, advertising isn’t always enough to stand out from the businesses that are competitors. You can make sure that your refund policy is relatively easier for your customers to understand. Do not use technical or legal jargon that can cause confusion and anxiety amongst customers. Use bulletins to highlight the requirements and eligibility to apply for refund policies and clearly outline deadlines or any relevant information that is important for customers to know. Having an FAQ section to explain your refund policy is also proven to be helpful.
6. Offer Guarantee for your Products: Another important consumer service tip is to offer guarantee for the products you are selling. This is especially advisable for risky products. Your guarantee need not be for lifetime or years and years, but it should cover a reasonable time period. Guarantee of products increases the confidence of the customers and they are more likely to invest in these products. This works especially well for electronic products. You can explain the guarantee of the product and the refund policy if there are any technical issues with the product to the customers when they are checking out, or in the product description itself. You can also add the same information in the FAQ section of the refund policy.
Another technique to maximise customer satisfaction is to have an option of money-back guarantee. If you are offering a service, such as training, and if the customer is not 100% satisfied with the service, they can ask for a refund. This will help increase the customer’s trust in you as an entrepreneur and your brand. This practice helps customers understand just how important their satisfaction is for you.
7. Offer Free Return Shipping: Most retailers feel as though they will lose out money by covering or refunding shipping costs. But research shows that free returns encourage customers to make more purchases online and influences their purchase behaviour. However, this policy can be easily abused so it is important to have a refund policy that clearly outlines the eligibility for this option.
If you are a small business trying to make your ends meet, you can offer this policy of free return shipping only for some products (recommended: best selling products) and not all of them to manage your costs better.
8. Offer Discounts or Free Trials: Discounts are a recommended way to get more customers to purchase your products. Research has shown that offering discounts increases traffic, elicits positive moods in customers, and helps establish strong customer-business relationships. According to the scarcity principle of compliance, if you have an end date to your discount period, it can lead to more sales than if you were to sell your product without a discount.
Another way to experiment with discounts is to host giveaways and select some of the customers who take part in it. This will act both – as a way to gain positive PR and increase traffic on your website.
Offering free trials is also a recommended practice especially if you are providing services to your clients. The general period of a free-trail ranges from 3 to 7 days for self-development programs. A 30-day free trial for your app will also work wonders.
This gives customers a chance to explore your service and decide for themselves if they want to go ahead with it. Even if they choose to not go ahead, it creates a positive reputation of your business and customers are more likely to recommend your brand to others. When offering free trials make sure to not ask for the customers their credit/debit card details, it will make them more reluctant to give your services a try. Allow customers to use a social media account to log into your website and access the free trial, it will make it easier for them to avail the offer. Lastly, don’t over-promote your services during the free trial. Let the customers enjoy the trial period and explore the real value of your services and then decide in the end. For eCommerce products you can provide customers with demo videos of how the products work and what to expect from it since the trial period will not work in this case. All in all, keep the experience smooth and don’t rub it in the customers’ face that they can pay for the service being provided for free, because they already know that.
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