Lessons Learned From Interacting Directly with Your Customers

In the current era of overabundance, a customer has more options than ever. This trend has prompted most of the companies to switch from being product centric to customer centric.

Thus, it is becoming more and more essential for the companies to have a direct communication with the customers and understand their every requirement. As you interact with your customers, you would gradually realize that above everything, your customers crave empathy.

Empathy will be remembered and make your customer more likely to recommend your product.

In the initial stage of a business, it is important to hear each and every customer because that’s what will direct the product development. But, you shouldn’t stop this practice as your business grows. Customer service should be a priority for every business. It will not only customers coming back, it will create advocates that will speak on your behalf.

What does the customer want/seek?

1. A simple way to contact the product vendor. This is the prime requirement of every business. Make yourself easily accessible to your customers. Make the best use of technology for that purpose. Allow customers to reach you via Facebook, Twitter, support forums etc.
2. Prompt replies. Delayed replies can anger or frustrate the customer whereas a prompt reply serves as an immediate assurance. A prompt reply is always necessary whether stating “We shall get back to you soon” or “Thanks for informing us of the issue. We shall resolve it”.  Take help of the available helpdesk plugin to ensure this. The helpdesk plugins would make your work lot easier by helping you categorize your customer queries, prioritizing issues etc. If you are a WooCommerce store owner, the commonly used helpdesk plugins are – WSDesk, Zendesk, FreshDesk.
3. Relevant replies. While prompt replies are important, relevant replies are required to build trust. Every prompt reply can’t be about “we are looking into the issue,” “sorry for the inconvenience,” “we shall give you an update soon.” A straightforward reply which directly caters to the issue is more capable of winning a customer’s trust than incessant, irrelevant replies.
4. Less repetition. This is another essential point to keep in mind. Do not reply just for the sake of replying. While it’s important to keep your customers in the loop and repeatedly assure your customer that his/her issue is being currently worked upon by the developer, yet, avoid saying the same thing over and over again. Update him on the actual progress like how much has been completed, how much is left.
5. Always give your customers more than what they expect.

Discounts

It’s important to value a loyal customer and give them discounts based on their previous purchases. As you focus on sustaining your old customers, new customers will see it happen. If you are running a WooCommerce store, you can take help of extensions like XAdapter Dynamic Pricing and Discounts plugin for WooCommerce.

1. It’s important to make them feel connected. Right from the start of the conversation, they are required to be ensured that you are there to help them out anyway.
2. Try to analyze the issue from their point of view. Recall those times when you are at the receiving ends trying to contact a customer care.

While interacting with customers, it’s important to understand the tone of the customers and reply accordingly. That’s where the intelligence of a customer support agent comes into play. He or she must know how to handle different types of customers especially the difficult ones.

How to deal with difficult customers

An angry customer repeatedly complains about your product.

In such cases, look beyond the customer’s anger and try to understand the actual issue. Let them know that you are aware of this issue and try to resolve it on priority.

Sometimes customers believe they are the only ones who know the right answer.

In such cases, allow the customer to speak and ask questions. Make him feel that you respect his knowledge. And most importantly, do not take his comments personally.

Then there are customers who are so pessimistic it seems like you’ll never change their minds.

In such cases, you are required to remain ultra-positive and that’s the only way to deal with them.

Try to give your customers all the facts which he is required to know and this would doubly ensure him that you understand the entire issue.

Thus, customer support can make all the differences that is required to take your business to another level!