Business experts know that no customer is more profitable than a return customer. The only problem is that customers are becoming more and more willing to test out a new business if they decide that yours is no longer up to snuff.
Building a strong brand and delivering high-quality products or services is an important aspect of increasing customer retention. However, your customer service is equally as important. If your customer service has room for improvement, it’s important that you find that out quickly.
Customer service feedback is the best way to pinpoint your areas of improvement. Making sure that your team has the right tools to connect with clients is imperative. For example, investing in Broadvoice’s cloud PBX system enables businesses to interact with clients using a single app that provides phone, video, SMS, and chat services.
Read on to learn new and improved ways that you can collect customer feedback and act on it appropriately.
Ask for Online Reviews
There are plenty of ways that customers can leave reviews for your business online. Whether you have a review tab on your website or you’ve set up a business page with Yelp or Google Reviews, it’s easy to make online reviews available to customers.
All business owners know the importance of collecting good reviews. After all, new customers tend to look them over before deciding whether or not to give you a chance. However, did you know that negative or critical reviews can be just as beneficial?
Ask your customers to leave online reviews wherever your business is listed. Make sure you’re checking those reviews a few times a week. When you encounter a negative review, respond by apologizing, acknowledging the problem, and addressing clearcut ways that you will avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Set Up a Customer Feedback-Text System
A lot of your customers aren’t going to call their relationship with your business quits the moment they receive bad or subpar customer service. In fact, a lot of them are more than willing to give you a chance to fix the issue. The faster you can right any wrongs, the more likely it is that you’ll retain their business.
The fastest way to receive customer service feedback is to set up a text system. That way, they can address any issues they’ve had while they’re still in your store or restaurant. Learn more about how this works and why it’s one of the most productive ways to collect customer service feedback.
Do You Provide On-Site Wifi? Connect a Survey to the Sign In
More and more coffee shops, restaurants, and even bookstores are starting to offer their customers free wifi. Providing free wifi encourages customers to frequent your business and see it as a place where they can stay longer, relax, or get work done.
If you provide on-site wifi, you can actually use this to your advantage for collecting customer feedback. Set up your wifi system so that it prompts your customers to complete a quick survey when signing into the system. Make sure that you keep this survey short and simple so that you don’t discourage customers from using your wifi.
This is another way to get real-time feedback from the customers who are still visiting your business. However, it’s worth noting that you may not collect as much customer service feedback this way, as not all of them will use your wifi.
Incentivize Responding to Email Surveys
Email surveys are nothing new. Businesses who send out newsletters or makes sales online should be including customer feedback surveys in their email campaigns. One of the best ways to do this is to automate the sending of these surveys to customers who have recently completed a transaction with your business.
However, you may have noticed that your surveys are going unanswered. That’s because your customers may not consider it worth their time to provide you with feedback. How can you fix this issue?
Incentivize your surveys. Offer discounts or freebies in exchange for filling out your surveys. Make sure that your customers know that these incentives aren’t hinging on a positive review–what you want is honesty!
Review Recorded Customer Hotline Phone Calls
If you’ve ever called a business before, you’ve probably heard the disclaimer that your call is being recorded or moderated. This is something that your business can do, as well. In fact, even if you ask customers to take a moment to complete a survey over the phone after calling customer service, you should still record the call.
Sometimes, customers don’t report instances of poor or subpar customer service even when they do occur. It may not phase them or they may not have the time to let you know about the incident.
By reviewing recorded calls, you can decide for yourself if improvements need to be made. These improvements may be overarching, e.g. updating your customer hotline script, or they may involve specific employees who are not reflecting your core values.
This method does not actively show individual customers that you are making strides to improve. However, it will still have a positive impact over time.
Prioritize Customer Service Feedback and Improve Customer Retention
When it comes to customer retention, we tend to focus primarily on the ways that we can get them through the door. Branding has been the big buzzword of the past decade! However, customer service also plays a huge role in customer retention, and by improving the way that you collect customer service feedback, you can improve your relationship with your customers.
Are you looking for more ways to innovate your customer service practices? Take a look at our other articles for tips, tricks, and updates that will boost your customer service team today.
