How Franchise Owners Can Use Customer Service to Outdo the Competition and Grow Their Business

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Franchise Owners|How Franchise Owners Can Use Customer Service to Outdo the Competition and Grow Their Business“Next in line.”

Nothing projects mediocrity better than this tired, dusty greeting. You know it well, because you’ve heard it thousands of times. This robotic phrase and its cousins (“May I help you?” “What can I get you?”) efficiently move things along and cue the customer to state their business. They also prepare the customer to be underwhelmed. It’s the typical encounter we’ve settled for as consumers. And that’s the opportunity for franchisees.

With the bar set so low for customer service, franchise owners are well positioned to jump ahead of the competition. Their franchisor has already developed proven systems and desirable products. Franchisees who deliver these products in a delightful, surprising way will stand out from the lackluster crowd. They’ll awaken customers from their lifeless transaction trance and prime them for excitement, loyalty and spending. Here are three ways to make that happen:

1. Elevate the customer’s emotions. Whether you sell cheeseburgers, pest control or senior care, you’re in the happiness business. People tend to remember how they feel more than what they got. It’s their emotions that most influence what they think of you, what they say about you and whether they come back. Every customer is a potential repeat customer and a walking spokesperson for your business. If you just sell them the “thing” but don’t make them feel a little better, you’re missing an opportunity and leaving money on the table. Be deliberate about providing emotionally satisfying experiences. Use the delivery of your products and services to lift their spirits. In exchange, they’ll lift your revenue.

2. Connect with your customers. Research shows that few things in life make people happier than meaningful human connections. We’re a social species. We’re drawn to community and we deteriorate when lonely. Even introverts have a need for occasional companionship. That doesn’t always mean deep friendship or intimacy. But small moments acknowledging each other’s humanity validates our individual existence and feeds our soul. These moments range from long conversations to saying “bless you” to a stranger who sneezes.

Your customers aren’t coming to you for friendship, but they do respond to friendliness. That means giving them a warm greeting that’s different from the way you greeted the last customer. (You wouldn’t walk around a party and greet every person the same way.) It means relating to them person to person, rather than cashier to customer. You can still do this quickly and professionally (think Starbucks, In N Out Burger). What you don’t want is to facilitate cold transactions or robotically repeat phrases that are written friendly but not spoken friendly (“WelcometoPete’sPizzahowcanihelpyou”). Be present, be authentic and be human.

3. Exceed customers’ expectations. Customer service is your absolute best form of marketing. Unlike an ad that gets seen mostly by people who don’t need what you’re selling, customer service is making an immediate impression on the hottest lead there is. This is someone who’s right there with money in their pocket and an interest in your offerings. And they’re quite likely to need you again. Good ads bring customers in. Good service brings customers back, often with friends. And when they do return, they’ll have more confidence in you and more enthusiasm for what you sell. The goal is always to give them an experience they want to repeat.

Giving the customer more than they ask for is a smart investment. Whether you’re throwing something in, taking a few dollars off or just giving them a little more time and attention, this something extra is part of your marketing. It’s something you do to ensure they return. You’re probably already spending money running ads for people who will never come in. It makes a lot more sense to invest in people who’ve already identified themselves as your base.

Most businesses are too busy being busy to do these things well. Your franchisor undoubtedly wants you to create great experiences for your customers, but they can’t control that. It’s up to you. Make customer service your number one priority. Create experiences that make people happier. Customers will notice, and they’ll come back for more.

About the Author

Scott Greenberg is an internationally recognized speaker, author and coach who helps franchise owners grow their businesses, build high-performing teams and create unforgettable customer experiences. He has given presentations in all 50 states and throughout the world with franchise clients that include McDonalds, Great Clips, GNC, RE/MAX, Smoothie King, Global Franchise Group and many more. For 10 years, he was a multi-unit franchise owner with Edible Arrangements, winning Best Customer Service and Manager of the Year awards out of more than 1,000 locations worldwide. Learn more about his new book, The Wealthy Franchisee, at https://www.scottgreenberg.com/the-wealthy-franchisee/ and https://www.amazon.com/Wealthy-Franchisee-Game-Changing-Franchise-Superstar/dp/164201124X.

How to Maintain the Trust Of Your Customers

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Trust|How to Maintain the Trust Of Your CustomersThere are many different aspects that contribute to a company’s overall success or failure. The strength of the idea, the execution of those ideas, and, yes, the trust that is held between the company and the customers. This last point is actually pretty underrated. It has such a big impact on a company’s success, yet the trust isn’t just given — it has to be earned, and it can also be lost, if the business isn’t careful. In this blog, we’re going to take a look at a few key ways that you keep the trust of your customers.

No Hidden Fees

Nobody likes to feel like they’re being ripped off, or they’re being cheated. There’s sometimes a temptation to add extra charges to a customer’s order, because it’ll ultimately benefit the bottom line. But let’s be realistic for a moment. While adding a last-minute charge will boost your profits on a short-term basis, it’ll hurt them on a long-term basis. That’s because it’ll cost you a customer, and maybe even earn you some bad reviews. People much prefer to know the true cost up front, so make sure that’s what they get.

Be Honest

Even the best companies in the world make mistakes. There’s no such thing as perfection, after all. There’s sometimes a temptation to run from our mistakes, and we can see why — it’s much easier to bury your head in the sand, rather than confront an issue. But it’s important to be honest with your customers if there’s an issue that affects them. If you experience a cyber security breach, then let the affected customers know as soon as possible. It’s part of the duty of care you have to the customers that have trusted you with their financial information and other sensitive details.

Keep Pushing Forward

When it comes to your customers, you don’t want them to just trust that you’re not going to screw them over. You want them to trust that you’re the best in town. It’s all good and well to have customers that have a positive impression of your intentions, but if they don’t trust your capabilities, then there’ll only be so far that you can go. As such, it’s important not to rest on your laurels. Instead, keep on pushing forward. Your customers might like what you’re doing right now, but they’ll only feel the same way in five years if you’re continuing to push forward.

Stay True

Ultimately, it’s all about staying honest — to your customers, yes, but also to yourself. What does your company stand for? What principles guide you through the future? If you keep these things at the forefront of your mind, then you’ll find that it’s much easier to retain the trust of your customers, since they’ll have no reason to doubt your intentions. You’ll be operating from a place of sincerity. And if people know that what they see is what they get, then they’ll have no reason to doubt what you’re saying and doing.

How to Build Long-Lasting Customer Relationships? (A Step-by-Step Guide)

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Relationships|How to Build Long-Lasting Customer Relationships? (A Step-by-Step Guide)With the advancement of technology, consumer behavior has changed. Today, marketing and winning over customers is not the difficult part. The biggest challenge faced by businesses today is to retain their customers.

With every passing day, numerous competitors are popping up in each industry. Hence, it is very easy for customers to switch to new brands that appeal to them more. In fact, according to InMoment, 50% of customers leave a brand for competitors who stay more relevant and satisfy their specific needs.

With these changes, maintaining customer relationships is what makes a brand stand out from its competitors. Laying a strong foundation of a healthy customer relationship leads to reduced churn and increased profitability for businesses.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll get a quick overview of how you too can build strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers.

1. Add Value Through Content

The principle of reciprocity is super-important when we talk about building customer relationships. No relationship works one way. If you don’t add any value to your customers, they are not going to associate with your brand.

The best way to add value is by creating high-quality, useful content for your leads and customers. This is the 101 for starting your customer relationships the right way.

You can use the tried and tested content marketing strategies such as blog posts, ebooks, guides, and white papers. Or, you can even take it a step further by using content such as webinars, checklists, templates, videos, social media content, etc.

2. Increase Engagement with Prospects

Engaging your prospects in meaningful interactions is the best way to go about strengthening your relationships with them. Hence, you must prioritize user engagement.

  • Integrate customer service options such as live chat, chatbot with your website and social media platforms. This will lead to many fruitful interactions with your prospects and customers.
  • Ensure that you actively engage with your prospects on social media platforms. You can do this by interacting in the comments section. Or, you may even individually reach out to people who have previously engaged with your posts.
  • Build an email list and send out weekly newsletters through emails. Add clear CTAs in your emails and encourage replies to begin conversations.

3. Track Customer Data

For building and maintaining customer relationships, you need to store and track all your customer data in one place. It is important to track customer data such as contact info, previous interactions, purchase history, etc. Without this, you won’t be able to manage customer relationships in an optimized manner.

The SuperOffice Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can help you organize all the data related to your customers. SuperOffice CRM will help you:

  • Manage lead and customer information at a commonplace so that your sales team can pull up entire customer history at one go with ease.
  • Track all your customer touchpoints and have a birds-eye view of how many customers are coming through your sales pipeline.
  • Provide omnichannel personalized experience to your customers leading to increased customer satisfaction.
  • Manage your entire pipeline and close more deals.
  • Track all your success metrics using visual dashboards and in-depth reports to help you find any gaps in your pipeline and fix them.

4. Use Loyalty Programs

Customer retention can be much more profitable than customer acquisition for most businesses. In fact, returning customers tend to spend 67% more than new customers.

Using loyalty programs is a brilliant way to make your one-time customers return to you again and again. If this doesn’t strengthen the relationship with your customers, nothing else will!

The way to build a successful loyalty program is to provide attractive incentives that your customers won’t be able to resist. You can offer incentives such as special discounts, redeemable reward points, free feature upgrades, and similar more offers.

5. Gather Feedback and Iterate Based on that

The final and most important step to building strong customer relationships is to gather feedback from customers and keep updating your products or services based on that. If you don’t take this step seriously, you might start seeing increased customer churn rates.

  • Collect customer feedback from every touchpoint. You can use means such as chatbots, live chats, emails, surveys, or in-app messages to gather feedback.
  • You should also look for any customer complaints or feedback on social media platforms. People tend to use social media for providing negative feedback.
  • Track and analyze all the gathered feedback. Come up with improvements or upgrades in your products and services.
  • You can also creep on your competitors and look for any common customer complaints. This will help you to identify any gaps in your competitors’ products. You can update your products to fill in these gaps.

To Conclude

Studies show that a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to 25% to 95% increased profits! And, laying foundations for long-lasting customer relationships is the key to maximizing your customer retention.

Hence, start implementing these steps today and watch your business grow to new heights in 2021.

9 Tips To Improve Your Customer Service

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Improve Customer Service|9 Tips To Improve Your Customer ServiceEvery business knows the importance of good customer service. However, sometimes procedures can slip, and of course, everyone is only human when it comes to dealing with situations that arise. The scale of business that can be lost due to poor customer service techniques is surprising. Now more than ever, people place companies on a pedestal when choosing where to buy. So, getting this aspect right is essential to get the right balance for your business.

So what does excellent customer service look like? Check out some of the top ways to incorporate typical company characteristics and techniques into your company processes.

1. Become an expert

Nobody likes a know-it-all, but when your company displays knowledge and expertise in a product or service, you can give precise and specific solutions to their issues. If the customer has to go through five different people to have a query resolved, they will not be happy. It’s also essential to have a troubleshooting or FAQ section on your website that can help in the first instance. If a customer can resolve an issue without needing to speak to someone, the more likely they’ll return.

2. Empathy

Companies should not act like robots. People want to talk to someone that understands their issues. To build a strong relationship with consumers, your team needs to be active listeners and establish a common ground.

3. Be personable

As mentioned before, customers want to be able to communicate with a human. Contact details should be clearly available on your website. If possible, integrate an option such as live chat to help people get answers quickly and easily without picking up the phone. This function can also help convert people. Suppose they have any immediate questions about an item. In that case, they’re less likely to leave the site to go and compare the information.

To help make your staff more personable, allow then to incorporate their personality into the customer experience while staying on brand. This is also important for any communication type, such as social media, live chats, and phone conversation. Consumers like to feel the personality of the brand and its staff, so they know they’re not buying from a faceless entity.

4. Clear communication

In short, don’t waffle or hit customers with sales jargon when they have an issue! If they contact customer services, it’s typically because they have questions or queries regarding an order. So don’t avoid the problem, just get straight to it and communicate clearly to resolve issues. If this does not happen, you could risk losing the customer and receive a request for a refund, as the issue was not resolved.

5. Flexible

The saying ‘the customer is always right’ is mostly true. However, this is only possible if your company is flexible. Adapting to different situations is vital for all team members. Unfortunately, some people try their luck when querying or communicating issues. The key to customer service excellence is to remain level-headed and calm. This can be easier said than done. However, investing in good training for your teams will help them tackle different scenarios and put their skills into practice.

6. Open to feedback

No company is perfect. While you may have a good reputation for excellent customer service, there’s always more than can be done to improve it. One of the best ways to ensure improvement is to be receptive to feedback. Of course, you may get the odd discrepancy in negative feedback. Still, constructive criticism is always important to take on board. A good way to collate feedback and reviews is to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. These will highlight areas of improvement and tackle any lingering issues that customers have, however small.

7. Listen to staff

One of the most significant aspects that can help improve customer service is by listening to your staff. They are the people face to face with the consumer and experiencing the issues they face. By collating staff feedback and frustrations they have with delivering good customer service, you can create a plan to implement changes. Staff may have various input from requiring more training on products to having insufficient authority to issue refunds, which hold the process up. Looking at each area and determining what can make the customer experience better will help consumers and staff in the long term.

8. Act on your promises

Getting feedback from customers and staff is all well and good, but what are you going to do about it. A company that says they’ll change and fails to doesn’t hold onto a good reputation for long. Act on your promises and give solutions to issues that are affecting the customer journey. In some cases, it may not be possible to implement changes straight away. Still, it’s also important to communicate this to customers and staff. An announcement such as ‘you told us this, and we’re working towards making it possible’ is a great way to let people know you’re listening but can’t do it straight away. If feedback is ignored, then it shows.

9. Don’t bombard the customer with surveys

While it’s essential to try and get feedback from customers, some companies make the mistake of bombarding customers with surveys about their experience. There are many ways that consumers can give reviews, including incorporating tools to encourage feedback on specific products. Giving customers the option to leave feedback is crucial, and if they say no – don’t push it. One of the best ways to drum up engagement is via social media. People love to suggest brands and let others know about their experiences, so be sure to interact and engage with others on your platforms to encourage tags and mentions in consumer social posts.

These are just some of the ways to improve your overall customer service experience and success rates. By implementing good practices and remaining consistent and on-brand, you will ensure customers get the information they require without confusion and hassle. Does your company cover the above?

6 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Improve Customer Service|6 Ways To Improve Your Customer ServiceCustomer service has always been an important part of any successful business but in an economy that is struggling due to the Coronavirus pandemic, it has never been more vital to provide a flawless customer experience.

Have the right systems in place

Being available to your customers at the right times and on the right platforms is crucial. Most businesses have call centers and an online presence in the form of live chat, social media listening, and email. If your phone system is outdated then contact some specialist VOIP providers who will be able to advise you.

Learn to listen

Many companies can fall into the trap of just seeing their customers as faceless voices at the end of a phone or email. There is a real person with a real problem on the other side of any conversation.

Train your employees to actively listen rather than just read a script. Interact, engage, and empathize with your customers.

Use the right language

It can be easy to fall into an overly formal standard of language. It is seen as a way of communicating clearly and leaving no room for misinterpretation. It often has many negative effects on your customers. It is difficult to create a level of trust and friendliness, which is not good for your brand. When training your customer service reps, ensure that you create an atmosphere of friendliness and positivity.

Create experts in your customer service team

As a customer, there is nothing more infuriating than talking to someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about or their lack of product knowledge. Even your first line support staff should know your products and services in-depth.

Respond in a timely manner

The time it takes for you to respond to a customer will have a huge impact on overall customer satisfaction. Not just the time it takes to answer the initial call but when responding to a customer’s query. Even if you don’t have a resolution to their issue right now, you should contact them to let them know you are still dealing with their issue.

Analyze customer feedback to improve

Continuous improvement cannot happen if you do not learn from your customer interaction. Rather than conduct a huge survey on an irregular basis, try building feedback into your daily customer service. Using feedback tools at the end of every customer service interaction will give you a real-time view of how you are performing. Changes can be made in a timely manner and improvements observed quickly.

Conclusion

Great customer service comes from really connecting with your customers on a professional and personal level. Customers expect speed, product knowledge, and a swift resolution to their issues. If you are failing to provide all of these, then you are going to start seeing the detrimental effects on your customer base and client retention. Use customer service as a key component in your business strategy.

Listen to your customers and improve your customer service levels accordingly in order to continue to improve.