4 Tips to Improve Customer Service by Embracing a Holistic Approach

Studies have revealed that customer satisfaction is a precursor to both customer loyalty and customer retention. Since loyal customers tend to not only do business with a particular company that they look up to and love, they promise the company profits and dedicated following. As a result organizations today are employing more resources to improve customer satisfaction levels than before.

In spite of these efforts not many have been able to gain success because narrow focus on improving satisfaction doesn’t lead to exemplary service or memorable experiences. This detracts companies from achieving their goals. Businesses therefore need to have a holistic approach towards customer service, so they can enhance end-to-end customer experience.

Here are 4 tips that will enable companies to improve customer service by embracing a holistic approach:

Improve Customer Journey

Removing clutter from a store’s passageway or improving one or two touch points can surely improve customer experience, but it’s less likely for a vendor to amplify its sales through it. Thus, companies must look to maximize consumer satisfaction by taking actions which can further enhance customer relationships.

For example, enabling customers to exit stores quickly after shopping can be a reason for buyers to prefer your business over others. A recent study by Box Technologies and Intel, conducted in Britain, revealed that 41 percent customers abandoned a purchase just because of long wait times at the checkout counters. Whereas, 86 percent said that they avoid stores where they expect to see very long queues.

In brief, you can only improve the customer journey, when you give your clients less reason to shop elsewhere.

Conduct Thorough Market Analysis

Let’s face it, when it comes to conducting market analysis to enhance customer satisfaction, not many business owners and marketers cover all the bases. Consequently, business leaders fail to see actual market realities and end up losing all their money. However, they can avoid such a situation, if they conduct thorough market analysis that involves customers’ views as well as internal staff input, study of competitors and market evaluation.

Through customer surveys, organizations can gauge how satisfied people are with their product or service, how they can improve, what problems do buyers face while shopping at their store and etc. The team input, on the other hand, can give them a completely different view point. It can reveal how a company can enhance customer service, staff productivity, how to address issues, reinforce relationship with clients and more.

By studying competition, retailers can analyse where they are lagging behind and how rivals are luring shoppers etc. More importantly, it will enable marketers to develop a successful marketing strategy that can connect their brand with the target market.

Rise Above the Competition

With effective discovery processes, organizations can create numerous opportunities to rise above their competition. The discovery process allows companies to win potential customers by recognizing their concerns without the need to lure them by offering discount cards or points for shopping. In fact, they can engage consumers more deeply by involving them in the manufacturing process and showing that the business really values them.

Zappos and Apple are the two most prominent examples of companies that have managed to create great customer experiences with a holistic approach. As a result, now they have a large base of loyal customers, who not only advocate, but also promote their products and services.

This clearly shows that a commitment to providing first-rate customer experience can turn a company into an industry leader.

Embrace an Overall Futuristic Approach

Retail industry is evolving at a much faster pace than ever before, as increased competition in the market has raised customers’ expectations. It has therefore become crucial for businesses to continuously re-evaluate themselves and embrace new changes in order to meet customers’ expectations. Companies failing to meet their expectations will not only miss on the opportunity to attract new customers in the future, but they’ll also end up losing their current customers.

This doesn’t mean at all that businesses should only make changes that directly impact their clientele. They should also be willing to make changes that can improve employees’ productivity in the future and keep everyone from the CEO to the frontline staff on the same page.

For example, by adopting latest automated technology organizations can routinely direct customer complaints to the departments that are best trained to handle them. This will not only decrease the amount of load on other departments, but also improve their productivity, which means they’ll be able to serve customers better.

In the same way, when the communication within the departments is improved it automatically brings everyone on the same page. Every employee knows exactly what they can offer to customers.