Featured

A lot is said and written about how to handle unhappy customers. While some of the seminars and articles offer really useful tips about this topic, have you ever thought about looking into the reasons that contribute towards making customers unhappy and angry? Your proactive approach towards reducing the number of unhappy customers is likely to play a significant role in enhancing customer satisfaction levels. Start off with rooting out the causes that can annoy your customers. Improving the areas of your service that directly impact customer satisfaction levels would surely reduce the number of unhappy customers. Here are a few useful tips that can help you with making customers happy and contented!

Reduce Customer Service Wait Time to the Minimum

Customers often complain of long annoying service time more than anything else. Whether it is a long line at the billing counter, delay in the delivery of orders or minutes of waiting before their turn to get served, all this will eventually result in unhappy customers who would not want to do business with you again. So the first step towards improving your customer satisfaction levels is to reduce service wait time to the minimum. If you are making your customers wait because of fewer resources, set it right by hiring a bigger team of efficient people. If you have complicated policies, cut them loose. Whatever the reason for long customer service wait time, take effective steps towards making your service quick to increase the number of happy and loyal customers.

Your CSRs should have all the Essential Customer Interaction Skills

Another reason that can drive your customers away is nonprofessional attitude of your customer service staff. If for instance a customer walks into your store and is looking for a product, he /she asks the CSR to help and instead of an empathetic attitude the representative just points to a shelf and starts talking to a coworker ignoring the customer completely. You should not be having such people onboard to serve your customers. Hire people who are emotionally intelligent, are dedicated to their profession and have really good communication skills. Your CSRs should be equipped with all the necessary skills that are required for creating a positive customer experience.

Track the Number of Refunds and Complaints to Improve Your Product/Service

It is quite likely that you have a long list of unhappy customers because of the flawed product/service they are receiving. Track the number of product/service refunds and complaints to see what you are doing wrong. If a large number of complaints are coming for one specific issue for instance, quality of the product being not up to mark, you should pay attention on improving the quality of your product. If it’s a service issue that is causing you to make a huge number of refunds to customers, look into the matter and remove the loopholes that are damaging your business. Identifying the pitfalls in your product/service and improving them is likely to increase the number of your happy customers.

Fulfill the Promises Made to Your Customers

For many businesses the claims and promises are just a marketing gimmick to grab the attention of customers. If you want happy and satisfied customers for life you need to fulfill the promises made to your customers. For instance, if you have claimed to get back to your customers within 24 hours, stick to your words and contact the customers within the promised time. If you are offering money back guarantee on a product, make sure to credit the promised amount to your customers’ accounts. Being transparent and honest to your customers always pays off. This helps develop reliable and lasting customer relationships for your business. Stay loyal to your customers and you would have no unhappy customers at all.

Customer Journey Mapping to Identify Key Issues Straining Customer Relationships

Customer journey mapping can turn out be a really useful tool in increasing the number of happy customers for your business. This tool can be used to track down the issues that can result in a negative experience across various customer interaction touch points. You can then remove the gaps between the departments or communication channels impacting customer experience. For instance, if you figure out that your customers feel frustrated as they have to move from one department to another to get things done, you can simplify your procedures and make the process of availing service convenient for customers.

Ensure a Customer Centric Approach is Highly Valued in Your Company

Just saying that your business has a customer centric approach is not enough. If you want to be a brand that has happy, contented and loyal customers, make sure that you truly value a customer centric approach and make it a part of your organizational culture. You need to tell your team that Customers are the most valuable asset of your company. For example if a customer comes into your store and takes an hour of your CSR’s time without buying anything, he/she should be thanked for the visit and should be encouraged to come again. By showing your customers that they are really important to you there is no way they will leave unhappy.