Here’s How To Improve Your Customer Service

Good customer service is the best way to satisfy your customers and keep them coming back. If you are rude to your customers or simply do not fulfil their requests, then you will likely lose their interest. 

If you want to gain your business more customers, then you will want to improve your customer service. On that note, here are the best ways to improve your customer service. 

Have an efficient telephone system

A Business Telephone system is one that should be quick and efficient. As soon as a customer dials your number, you will want to pick up the call as soon as possible. With more telephone lines and more assistants to pick up the phone, you will be able to fulfil customer telephone requests. 

On the topic of telephones, it is important to be assistive and polite on the phone. Always remember that the customer is right. If you tell them they are wrong, then you will likely lose their trust and loyalty. 

Ensuring that you are friendly on the phone will attain the customer’s attention and they will leave the call feeling like they were respected and well cared for.

Be available 

Being available means that you can reply to customer questions and requests. If you are unavailable a lot, then you will not be able to fulfil your customer’s needs. 

When you are available, let your customers know. Share a tweet or a story on Instagram to let them know that you are ready to answer their questions. 

Likewise, let your customers know your availability for answering questions. Show your business hours on your social pages and website so that customers know when to expect you. 

Offer a live chat

Speaking of being available and letting your customers know when they can expect an answer from you, offering a live chat is a great to way respond to customers during certain hours. 

You can set business hours so that customers know when to expect you. It might be 8 am to 3 pm or 9 am to 5 pm. If you show the times on your chat service, then customers will know when to expect you. 

Live chat service is a great way to offer customers immediate and live answers. They can ask you multiple questions and attain an instant response instead of waiting around for seven days through email chats.

Use positive language

Using positive language will guarantee to make customers happy. Even if you can’t help them, using positive language will show them that you tried and would like to assist them. 

When you are speaking to them online, ensure to maintain positive language more so than in person. In-person, customers can see body language. As they cannot online, it is important to use positive language so that they can get a sense of how friendly you are. 

When you are speaking to your customers, always ensure to finish the conversation by asking if they need help with anything else. It gives them an opportunity to ask further questions and see that you are always willing to help.

3 Tips To Retaining The Employees Driving Your Business…

As an employer, you should be thinking about how to retain your employees. After all, they are the people who drive your business to success! So wouldn’t it make sense to try and keep them happy? You can do this by providing a good work environment that meets their needs. An employee’s work experience is dependent on four factors: the physical surroundings of their workspace, the type of tasks they are doing, company culture/values/benefits provided at work, and opportunities for professional development.

1 Incentivise Tasks

What do you want your employees to be doing more of? If it’s a particular type of work, then incentivise that! For example, if they are struggling with an aspect of their job and need guidance but don’t have time in the day for training or mentoring – offer financial incentives. You can give bonuses based on completing tasks within a specific timeframe or reaching defined milestones.

Incentivising employees is imperative because it helps them feel valued by recognising what they’re doing correctly and encouraging them to perform well. It also provides motivation when things get tough, which will help increase productivity. Another great thing about this approach is that you can keep track of progress through completion rates and statistics. This approach is relevant to any business but would work particularly well in retail and service positions.

2 Offer Employees Development Opportunities

Offering training courses or workshops is another way in which employers can help employees feel valued. Again, this helps with retention because it provides new skills and knowledge that will benefit them and grow your business further – after all, you’re letting them spend time learning!

If your business doesn’t currently have the resources to offer this type of training, consider partnering with a local community college or university. You can split tuition costs and work together to provide skills development for employees. Another benefit is that it makes things easier when recruiting new staff because they’ll already be familiar with company culture, making onboarding more efficient.

The bottom line here, is that companies who invest in Employee Value Proposition (EVP) are setting themselves apart from competitors and gaining an edge over those businesses without the same mentality towards human capital management – especially small-to-medium-sized enterprises!

3 Seek Employee Input

You should also be doing everything in your power to make sure employees are happy. This means making yourself approachable and always open to suggestions from staff members! Employees may want to feel like they have a voice in their company’s decision-making process. You can do this by organising regular feedback sessions with managers to discuss what is going well or give ideas for improvement. Another tip is to arrange monthly ’roundtables’, which involve inviting multiple teams together so there will be no conflict of interest when it comes down to the honesty of responses – plus, everyone has a common goal that will push them forward as a team!

In conclusion, these are three great ways in which employers can retain their highly-valued employees. It’s important to remember that the environment you work in largely determines your happiness and productivity, so this is where a lot of focus should be placed when it comes down to employee retention!

5 Reasons Why People Don’t Buy From Your Shop

Picture the scene: You’ve launched your brick and mortar shop. It’s been a long process to find the right spot for your store and secure all the products. You’ve obtained a small commercial loan to get yourself started. You’ve even contracted a freelance logo designer to establish your brand. You feel like you’ve done everything possible. But people still don’t buy from your shop. What are you missing? 

#1. They don’t know about it

While you’ve been planning your business for several months — sometimes even years — your customers are still new to the idea of your shop. Most may not even be aware that a new shop opened in their local community. The truth is that you can’t wait until people find out about you. It could take ages, by which point, your finances will be in the red. Instead, make sure you’re launching a promotional campaign to inform everyone about your store. Something as simple as placing leaflets in local shops (with the authorisation of the owner) can help spread the word. You can also arrange for door-to-door leaflets in your neighbourhood. 

#2. They can’t find you

Your customers could struggle to find your store. Ultimately, a lot of road work projects have transformed city centres and local neighbourhoods during the pandemic. You need to put your business on the map to help people find you. The good news: Google My Business is a free service that ensures you can make your business visible on Google Maps. You can also use the many available functions to display relevant information about your store, including opening hours, contact details, and photos. 

#3. They can’t find what they need

Design the perfect layout for your store requires psychological know-how, experimentations, and creative thinking. If you are keen to maintain some form of social distance via your layout, you need to pay close attention to your floor plan creation. A unidirectional shop floor plan can reduce infection risks. Unfortunately, it can make it difficult for customers to find what they need. So, it can be helpful to make best selling products visible at your points of sale. You can find smart POS display accessories such as signage, visible sign holders, and telescopic banners to maximise visibility in a limiting floor plan. 

#4. Your store assistants are a turn-off

Shop assistants can help customers and encourage purchases. However, more and more shoppers prefer to browse alone without additional assistance. They find assistants intrusive. It’s not uncommon for shoppers to walk out of a shop because they find the presence of an assistant too stressful. A US- and European-based beauty store, Sephora, has introduced a colour-coding strategy to help customers. Shoppers can find baskets of different colours at the entrance. One colour means they are happy to be helped by an assistant, the other means they prefer to be left alone. 

#5. It’s not as good as you thought

For some reason, people don’t like your products. Perhaps, they don’t fit within the local community. More often than not, market research can pinpoint the needs and wants of your local audience. If you are not sure about your products, go back to market research to identify potential issues. 

It’s not easy to be the new shop on the block. New retailers often need to go through a learning curve to build their presence within the community. From visibility to lack of behavioural insights, you need to put yourself into your customers’ shoes to leverage your presence.