The world of business is more competitive and cutthroat than ever. Customers have access to a wide range of providers offering the exact same goods and services who are tripping over each other to service their needs. They are in charge, and they know it. Thus, while customers are more fickle than ever, businesses are (perhaps paradoxically) investing more and more of their time, effort, ingenuity and capital in keeping them. Lots of nascent entrepreneurs focus a considerable amount of effort into their digital marketing strategy in order to grow their brand and build an ever expanding customer base. But while this is admirable, they mustn’t ignore the importance of customer retention in the scramble for new business.
As in most things, your approach to the technology you use can play a huge part in marshalling how you communicate with and fulfill the needs of your customers. But if you don’t avail yourself in the right tech and software you could be letting your customers down…
Communicating in the wrong ways
What’s Your Brand’s Customer Service Persona?
There’s a fine, fine line to be walked when it comes to outbound communications with your customers. Virtually all customers want to be kept abreast of the latest offers and promotions so that they can avail themselves of, they certainly don’t want to be pestered. Cold calling is understandably toxic, yet while many businesses use emails for exactly this purpose, they can easily slip through the net and lie unread in a spam box. That’s why many businesses are capitalizing on the immediacy of text messages with business landline texting. It has a sense of personality and intimacy that’s missing from email while a lot less invasive than cold calling.
Cutting corners on your website
Alongside your social media presence, your website (and the content you post on it) is your calling card to the world. Thus, it needs to reflect the ideals, principles and overall quality with which you want all those legions of leads out there to associate your brand. If you cut corners on how you design and build your website you risk damaging your brand. If your website is not responsive enough (i.e. suitable for access via a mobile device), not interactive enough or not secure enough it can undermine users’ trust in your brand. Moreover, if you cut costs in terms of design, it will cheapen and coarsen your brand and rob it of the sense of prestige you’re trying to build.
Scrimping on your mobile app
The World Doesn’t Want Your App
Gone are the days when enabling customers to access a business via a mobile app was the sole preserve of big business. Now even the smallest and humblest of businesses are capitalizing on the power of apps to promote brand awareness (even having a presence on the app store is a great marketing boon), facilitate secure transactions and incentivize loyalty. Mobile apps are still nascent enough to give customers a sense of fun and novelty while making it easy and convenient for them to use your business. If you scrimp on talent when developing the app, however, you could end up with an unresponsive, hard to use app that crashes unexpectedly and actively damages your branding.
As important as it is to manage overheads effectively, investing in the right tech can be a colossal boon to your customer service.