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How To Keep Customers Happy
Satisfied customers are vital to the success of any business. Word of mouth advertising is still one of the best marketing tools there is, and nothing works better than a personal recommendation. But keeping your customers happy means constant monitoring of all aspects of your business: it’s a combination of factors such as service, reliability and excellent product quality. If you’ve been receiving a lot of complaints recently then clearly you need to make some changes.
Here are just some of the areas you can work on to keep your customers happy – and in doing so boost the reputation of your business:
Be Easy To Reach: As a customer, nothing is more frustrating than being unable to contact a company when you have a problem or query regarding their products or services. Ensure that your website contains clear and simple instructions on how to get hold of either you or a member of your team. This should include phone numbers, email addresses and your actual business address. Also include the times they can expect to get hold of you so there is no confusion.
Respond Quickly: If you do receive criticism or if you have delivered a faulty product, make sure you take rapid steps to rectify the problem. Generally, clients will be more forgiving if you acknowledge a fault on your side and fix it as soon as possible. What they don’t appreciate is having to argue a point and wait days or weeks for a solution.
Share Expertise: Be generous with your knowledge and experience. If customers are looking for advise on a particular problem then you should be happy to provide it to them, even if it doesn’t always result in a sale. Offering free seminars now and then or running a regular blog discussing issues your target customers may face will also help you build up a reputation as a useful person to do business with.
Keep Innovating: Today’s marketplace is very competitive and trends come and go quickly. Customers generally want the latest or most advanced products and they may get bored if your range has remained the same for months or years. This is particularly true if you work in a hi-tech industry in which a product that was cutting-edge one year can be obsolete the next. Ensure you keep making new and exciting additions to your product range or service offering – and keep customers informed of this through marketing and advertising.
Be Reliable: If you say you’re going to deliver a product or complete a project within a certain time-frame, take pains to ensure that you do this. Customers value reliability and they will understandably refuse to do business with you if you consistently make promises you can’t deliver on. As an adjunct to this, be honest and trustworthy: make sure your processes are as transparent as possible. Making false promises for a quick sale may make you money in the short term, but it won’t help you build up a loyal customer base and that is the key to long-term success.