Tag: customer loyalty

5 ways to improve your customer service

Great customer service is never set and done. To be great, you have to regularly improve your systems, train your team and collect feedback for future improvements.

The effort is worthwhile. Businesses that deliver excellent customer service can expect sales increases of about 20 percent or more.

How is your customer service? If you’re not sure (or it’s just been a while since you’ve checked in on it), now’s the time to make sure you’re not missing out on any customer service opportunities. The smoother the customer service experience for the customer, the stronger the path to your next sale.

The following are five ways to improve your customer service.

Understand the needs of your customers

Everything your customer service team does should be based on the needs of your customers. Without this, your service will miss the mark.

To learn more about your customers’ needs, simply ask them. You can do this through a survey, email, phone call, text message or any other method you like. Regularly soliciting honest feedback, in general, will only strengthen your customer service efforts.

Allow the information you receive to guide your overall customer service strategy.

Train your team to be empathetic

Whether you have a large customer service team or that team is just you, learning and embracing empathy is critical to delivering excellent customer service.

Simply put, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This is an important first step in all customer interactions and ultimately will grow customer loyalty over time.

But how do you train (yourself or others) to be more empathetic? Check out these five exercises to help build more empathy.

Keep in mind that if a customer service team member cannot embrace empathy, he or she may not be the best fit for your business.

Set individual and team goals

What do you want to achieve with your customer service efforts? And how does that look for your team at large and for individuals on your team? Involving them in your goal-setting process will naturally encourage the buy-in needed to achieve them. They’ll have ownership and motivation tied to those goals.

These goals should naturally inform service standards that you expect from your team. If anything is unclear about your standards, put it down in writing.

Of course, once goals are set, you must track performance. There are a number of KPIs (key performance indicators) that you could monitor if they reflect your goals, such as:

  • Customer Satisfaction Scores
  • Negative Response Rate
  • First Contact Resolution
  • Average Resolution Time
  • Re-open Rate

Again, focus on the metrics that reflect progress toward your decided goals.

Then, as employees hit those goals, consider rewards and recognition. This could be something along the lines of an employee of the month program, splurging on a team lunch or dinner, gift cards, etc. This effort will keep the morale of your team up, which will lead to more buy-in and more future success. 

Streamline your process with the right tools, software

While implementing new technology can be intimidating, the key is that you’re streamlining anything that’s unnecessarily being done manually. Manual processes (such as report generation) are slow and can limit the greatness and effectiveness of your customer service.

As you research customer service performance management software options, keep an eye out for user-friendly features and software that falls within your budget. Identify your biggest needs to prioritize the best tools and software your team needs.

The initial research and implementation can require a lot of time and effort, but once your new software (or other tools) are in use, you’ll see big savings in time and more. In other words, your team can spend more time focusing on the customers and less time with tedious tasks that can be done another way.

Embrace omnichannel customer service

Similar to omnichannel marketing, omnichannel customer service is all about leveraging your multiple channels to deliver a seamless customer experience. Truly, the two go hand in hand in many ways.

Omnichannel requires you to think through how each channel can complement another and work together to create a personalized experience for the consumer whether you’re connecting with them through desktop, mobile devices or brick-and-mortar stores.

It’s about accessibility for your customers and meeting them where they’re at.

Dive deeper with our five tips to boost your omnichannel marketing efforts, and consider where your customer service efforts can fit in with omnichannel marketing (since they are so connected).

In conclusion

Customer service can make or break your business. Take the time to understand where your customer service stands right now and how you can improve it. The time you spend now will pay off in dividends later.

And while you’re at it, check out our six tips to improve your customer retention rate.

As you’re working through your customer service strategy, consider leveling up your overall digital marketing with DailyStory. Features include automating various marketing tasks, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

6 tips to improve your customer retention rate

Strong customer retention is just smart business.

The cost of losing one customer equates to seven times the resources used to convert them. Customer retention is about maintaining your current customer base and increasing loyalty by offering better products or services and other benefits. Customer retention tactics include loyalty programs, discounts, special offers and targeted marketing campaigns.

Simply put, just a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to at least a 25 percent increase in profit.

You want to keep your customers purchasing from you once you acquire them. But as important as it is, customer retention is a big challenge for many businesses.

The following are six tips to improve your customer retention rate and keep your business strong.

Invest in great customer service

Clearly, bad customer service can lose you customers. But what’s needed to deliver great customer service that will increase your customer retention?

Start by understanding your customers’ needs. What platform do they prefer to contact you on? What other insights about your customers could help you?

You’ll also want to set and communicate customer service standards with your team. These standards should not just promote a positive customer service experience but also a consistent one.

Check out our six ways to be more responsive to your customers.

Share your company values to build trust

How your business operates, the quality of your products or services and how you treat your customers should all be a reflection of your company’s values.

And while your values may be completely intertwined with how your business operates, the more you can share your values with your customers, the better.

Shared values between businesses and customers help build trusting relationships. The relationships you can build with your customers directly impact your customer retention.

Check out our six ways to grow consumer trust.

Over-deliver on customer expectations

Offering decent quality at a reasonable price is not enough these days. Consumers do expect more because they have more choices than ever before. If you don’t meet their needs, they’ll purchase from someone else.

How can you personalize your customer’s experience and be proactive throughout their purchasing journey? It all starts with knowing what your customer wants. Getting feedback through surveys and reviews can help you identify areas that can be improved.

Just remember that you never want to over-promise in any way to your customers. But whenever you can, you want to surprise and delight by over-delivering. Go above and beyond.

Regularly collect customer data

Data can help you understand the needs of your customers. Surveys are an effective way to encourage customer engagement and learn more about them. You’ll also be able to identify dissatisfied customers before they decide to never purchase from you again.

Besides collecting this data, it’s important to act on it. How can you improve? What do your customers need from you? 

Check out our eight tips to create a successful customer survey for your business.

Communicate with your customers in multiple ways

Regularly sharing information about product or service updates is imperative, but the more ways you can do this the better. 

Your target audience can be reached across multiple platforms. So, consider how you can best communicate through webchats, social media, text messaging, email and so on.

Of course, personalization can make your content that much more effective.

Check out our seven tips to level up your content marketing for inspiration.

Celebrate and reward loyalty

There are many ways that you can acknowledge, celebrate and reward brand loyalty among your customers.

Brand loyalty involves more than just retaining your customers, though. It’s about providing an experience that your customers won’t find anywhere else that will keep them coming back.

Check out our six tips to create brand loyalty for your business, and take your customer retention to the next level.

In conclusion

While attracting new customers will always matter, you can’t forget about your existing customers. Customer retention not only saves you money on new-customer acquisition, it also generates larger profits for your company.

As you’re developing a strategy to boost brand loyalty for your business, consider leveling up your digital marketing with DailyStory. Features include automating various marketing tasks, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

6 ways to attract customers to in-store shopping

Despite the growth of online shopping, there’s still value in the in-store shopping experience.

And if your business depends on actual foot traffic more than online sales, it’s important to attract customers to your physical store location.

After the COVID-19 pandemic (when online was the predominant way to shop), about 65 percent of consumers still prefer the in-store retail experience when shopping. In fact, impulse buying is more likely to occur in physical stores.

Because online shopping offers an easy, fast and often personalized experience, your in-store experience has to go above and beyond for consumers to see value in brick-and-mortar shopping. It’s about taking the opportunity to offer real-life, touch-and-feel experiences that build deeper relationships with your customers.

This need might feel overwhelming. The following are six ways to attract customers to in-store shopping rather than online shopping with you.

Invest (or reinvest) in-store design

Every store is different, but investing in thoughtful, memorable store design pays off. Of course, how you approach a redesign can range from hiring an interior designer to displaying visually engaging merchandise.

The key is that you’re elevating the in-store experience visually. Effective store design can lead to about a 40 percent increase in sales.

Even your lighting can make an impact on how your customers feel and the overall in-store shopping experience. One study cites a 12 percent increase in sales for one retailer in Germany that installed a new lighting scheme.

And it never hurts to think about which areas could be photo worthy for your customers, where if done right, your store easily could get posted and shared on Instagram and other social media networks. (You can then leverage this user-generated content on your own channels.)

Take a look around your physical store with fresh eyes. What do you see? You can even distribute a customer survey to find out what your customers think would improve your store design if you’re not sure where to start.

Become a community hub

Building a community out of your target audience isn’t just for social media. It can be done in your physical store as well.

If you can, create a space within your store that can host meetings, gatherings and so on, both formally scheduled and informal happenings. 

This gives you the opportunity to engage with new audiences (and bring in new customers) by hosting in-store events with various groups. And depending on how open and accessible the area is, customers may feel compelled to sit down and hang around longer as they talk with friends or work on their laptop.

Make sure that your community space is comfortable and accessible. It should be a space where people would want to spend some time. Of course, free WiFi never hurts either.

To take this idea even further, consider a dual purpose retail space. For example, this could be a cafe within your retail store. This does take considerable more work but could deliver bigger results if it’s right for your brand.

Offer customization, personalization services

About 62 percent of American consumers prefer gifts that feel more personal. By adding gift customization and personalization services in-store for customers, you may attract consumers who are looking for that something special for their loved ones.

What this looks like depends on the type of retailer you are and the products you’re selling. For example, a store with skincare products could offer the opportunity (and materials) for customers to put together their own gift baskets with whatever products they choose, walking out with a complete gift ready for giving.

Embrace all the senses

If you’re only focusing on what customers see while in-store shopping, you’re missing out on all the other senses that could compel them to not only stay longer but to return more often. And both actions can result in more in-store sales.

Creating a multi-sensory atmosphere specifically could encourage shoppers to spend an extra six minutes in your store and increase your sales by about 10 percent.

Consider the five sense:

  • Sight
  • Sound
  • Smell
  • Taste
  • Touch

Again, just like gift customization, how you embrace multiple senses depends on what makes sense for your brand, your store and your products.

What music are you playing? Does it create a positive atmosphere? Is there a comforting or invigorating scent to your store? Can customers taste samples of your products? Or, do you offer free mints at the door, for example? What is the seating like, or is there any seating at all? Can they touch your products?

Remember, you want to deliver a memorable experience that any customer entering your store would want to repeat. Start scanning your physical space for those opportunities.

Interact one-to-one with customers

Clearly, whether online or in-store shopping, the customer experience can make or break your business.

About 93 percent of customers are more likely to purchase from a brand again if they offer excellent customer service. And when it comes to in-store shopping, this is your opportunity to interact one-on-one with your customers. It’s inherently different than any online shopping experience. It’s all about that human interaction.

Customers feel special with undivided attention and personalized advice as they’re shopping. About 49 percent of consumers have made impulse purchases after getting a more personalized experience.

Think about how you can deliver a more personal one-on-one experience for your customers without being overwhelming.

Make your store pet-friendly

If it’s right for your brand, welcoming your customers’ pets into your in-store shopping experience can build a loyal and trusting connection with your customers.

Whether it’s a pet-friendly area or having some water bowls out, as well as treats available, for animals, it’s up to you.

Just keep in mind that you may have some legal limitations when it comes to allowing animals into your store. Check with your local health and safety boards to ensure that everything is on the up and up.

In conclusion

Technology will always be a factor for businesses, whether you have a physical store location or not. But with a store, you have the opportunity to level up the in-store shopping experience that your customers crave. You’ll build deeper connections and ultimately grow your sales.

While you’re evaluating how to best attract customers to in-store shopping, consider leveling up your digital marketing process. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automation, dynamic audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

7 ways to connect with potential customers through marketing

As a marketer or business owner, you’re constantly looking for ways to find and connect with potential customers. Marketing is the answer.

Of course, this is easier said than done because you have so much competition, and they seem to be doing everything right. However, consumers are smart, and they no longer believe everything a company says about its brand, products, and services, so it’s up to you to find new ways to connect with customers and foster trust.

Your customers drive your business. Without them, you wouldn’t exist. Customer interactions are key, so instead of reaching out to them because you need them to buy something from you, you must continuously find ways to connect with them on a more personal level.

Here are a few ways to connect with potential customers through marketing.

Personalize it

The one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Consumers want personal interactions with brands and to feel special. You can personalize your marketing by giving customers what they want.

Instead of sending email blasts for products customers might not be interested in, you can use your email marketing software to automate your marketing and send personalized emails to customers based on actions they’ve taken on your website.

For example, if someone purchases a toy for their dog, you can regularly send them emails about dog products instead of asking them to look at products for cats or other pets they might not have.

Dive deeper into how personalization is true one-to-one marketing.

Build trust

Your customers need to trust you before they make a purchase. Unfortunately, your first-time customers have likely never heard of your brand before, so they don’t yet trust that you’ll deliver on all the promises you made on your website.

Building trust is crucial, so consider adding testimonials to your site to act as word-of-mouth marketing and allow your customers to learn about the quality of your brand and products through other real people. 

Another way you can foster trust is by working with influencers and content creators who can be your brand advocates. Even though you pay these individuals to highlight the benefits and features of your products, your customers are more willing to listen to an actual human being than a business website or brand.

Respond to concerns

Always be available to customers to answer their concerns.

Even when customers have issues, quality customer service can improve their experience with your brand, making them more likely to come back.

For example, many businesses offer free returns for a set number of days with no questions asked. This means they’ll print the shipping label for the customer or even send them the packaging to put the products in to be shipped back out. By offering exceptional service, whether or not there’s an issue, you can improve your relationship with customers and begin fostering trust. 

Check out our 11 tips to best respond to negative reviews.

Be active on social media

Social media gives you the unique opportunity to showcase your brand in a more personal way.

While you might not want to put behind-the-scenes footage or images on your website to maintain its professional appearance, social media is the perfect place to show the people behind the brand to start building customer relationships.

Your social media platforms should be used to engage customers, not simply sell them products or services. Instead of making every post a post to sell more, consider asking customers to engage with your brand by hosting giveaways and contests or using social media as a way to highlight your expertise by offering valuable and educational content. 

Check out our 11 best practices to grow your social media followers.

Show customer appreciation

You’d be nothing without your customers, so show them a little appreciation once and a while.

You can show customer appreciation in several ways. Many customers would be happy to receive deals as a thank-you for their business. However, you can take it to another level by making the experience even more personal and rewarding for them. 

Writing personalized thank-you letters or birthday cards is one way to show customers how much you care about them. One company that excels at building customer relationships is Chewy, the pet product marketplace. Chewy sends cards to pets on their birthdays and condolence cards and flowers to grieving pet parents after learning a pet has passed away. This company excels at building relationships, so they’re never in the back of someone’s mind when they need something for their pet.

Have a customer loyalty rewards program? Check out our five tips to successfully promote it.

Survey customers

If you want to know more about your customers, send them a survey and reward them once they’ve completed it.

You can learn just about anything from a survey, including how customers feel about your products and brand as a whole.

It can also improve your marketing by helping your business understand what customers want, including when they want to hear from you and which types of deals are most likely to make them take action on your website. 

In addition, consider social listening, which essentially audience research where you monitor your brand’s social media channels for any customer feedback, mentions of your brand and discussions surrounding specific keywords, topics, competitors or industries that are relevant to your brand. 

Build your email list

email-subscriber-list
If you don’t have an email list, you can’t send out surveys or keep customers informed about their orders, deals, and new products.

The best way to build relationships with customers is through email. If you don’t have an email list, you can’t send out surveys or keep customers informed about their orders, deals, and new products.

Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing strategy, so if you’re not using it to grow your business, you’re losing out on tons of sales. 

There are many types of email marketing messages to send, including:

  • Abandoned cart emails
  • E-blasts with deals
  • Customer appreciation emails
  • New product announcements
  • Company announcements

Each of your emails can be personalized based on actions your customers take on your website, improving your ROI and boosting sales.

Check out our 16 email marketing best practices that make an impact.

In conclusion

Connecting with potential customers isn’t difficult as long as you prioritize it.

Customers want to shop with businesses that actively show they care about them. If you’re not offering quality customer service or trying to build relationships and foster trust with customers, you’ll quickly lose out on sales to the competition that is doing all these things.

Consumers don’t want to be sold to. They want to be educated, informed, and experience personal interactions with brands.

Stop alienating customers because you don’t know how to market to them. They are the life of your business, so it’s time to start brainstorming ways you can begin building trust and improving your reputation. 

As you’re looking to connect more with consumers, consider optimizing your overall digital marketing process, which includes automation, audience segmentation and enhanced email and text message marketing capabilities, to name a few. DailyStory can help. Schedule your free demo with us today.

About the author

Ashley-Nielsen

Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music. 

6 tips to boost your customer referrals

Businesses invest a lot into marketing efforts that bring in new customers, but what are you doing to increase your customer referrals?

With more than 2.4 million brand-related conversations happening in the U.S., consumers are obviously already talking about their experiences with brands, for better or for worse.

Customer referrals are when existing customers introduce their family, friends and contacts to become new customers with your company.

After all, consumers view other consumers as about 14 percent more credible than a brand itself (or its employees).

If you’re providing great customer experiences with your products and/or services, then word-of-mouth customer referrals should be happening naturally. However, investing effort into encouraging referrals will only build on that.

The following are six tips to help you boost your customer referrals and grow your business.

Create a customer loyalty program

Your most loyal customers are the most likely to refer others to your business. You can embrace and nourish this with a customer loyalty rewards program, which is a marketing approach that recognizes and rewards customers who purchase or engage with a brand in some way on a recurring basis. 

As part of your progam, you would give out points, perks, free products and coupons, even graduating customers to higher levels of loyalty the more they buy if you want. However you structure it, the overall goal is to encourage the customer to become a more regular consumer or (even better) a brand promoter. Customers who are so loyal that they are actively promoting your brand are exactly what you want.

You also can have a very simple referral program (as opposed to a full customer loyalty rewards program), where your customer refers a friend in exchange for an incentive. And that’s it. Just think about what works best for your brand.

Check out our five tips to successfully promote your loyalty rewards program, and see our six tips to grow to create brand loyalty for your business.

Exceed expectations

While seemingly a general tip, delighting your customers during every step of their customer experience with your brand can play into your overall customer referrals.

Take the time to audit what your true customer experience is like for a brand new customer. Consider:

  • How easy your website is to navigate?
  • Is it easy to contact your business with questions?
  • How thorough and responsive is your customer service?
  • Is there a clear path for purchasing?
  • Are you offering a quality product or service?
  • What if there needs to be a refund or return?
  • How do you follow up after the purchase is complete?

The happier your customers are, the more they’ll tell others about your brand. And always remember that you never want any customer to be a “one and done.” Think through how you can keep bringing them back.

Make referrals easy

Your customers are busy people. The harder it is to effectively refer another to your business (especially in exchange for a perk or discount), the less likely that the customer referral will happen. (Even with an incentive offered.)

You can offer email templates for them to send, links to easy-to-fill-out web forms or fliers with QR codes that direct to an informative landing page. The sky’s the limit.

Just make sure to identify the best method that works for your customers and communicate it clearly.

Identify and target customer referral opportunities

If you’re interested in identifying key customers who are worth their weight in customer referral gold (rather than asking for referrals blindly and aimlessly), it’s helpful to start with a little research.

LinkedIn can be a great assist with this. At its most basic level, you can identify your customer, his or her company and other networked connections. 

By doing this, not only can you limit your targeting to the potential referrals that will have the biggest ROI (return on investment), but you can “do the work” within your ask by letting the customer know who and/or what you’re hoping to connect with.

Flip any negative reviews

Negative online reviews are a reality for every business and something that you already should have a plan for to monitor and address.

However, what’s important to remember is that every negative review is simply an opportunity to make that customer happy and hopefully that follow-up service not only converts them into a happy customer but a loyal customer who tells others about your brand.

Check out our 11 tips to best respond to negative reviews.

Offer different methods of customer referrals

Word-of-mouth referrals aren’t the only way your customers can help spread the word about your brand. 

Make sure that you’re encouraging a variety of ways that your customers can “refer,” including (but not limited to):

  • Writing a review
  • Submitting a customer testimonial
  • Serving as a case study

Of course, if you’re asking your customers for referrals of any kind, be respectful if they’re saying no or not acting on it yet. Space out your requests and continue to give different methods. No one reacts well to pushiness, and you’ll never know when it happens to be the right suggestion at the right time for the right customer.

In conclusion

Customer referrals are powerful. Take the time to ensure that you’re doing everything possible throughout your brand’s customer journey to delight and encourage your customers to spread the word.

As you begin evaluating customer referral opportunities, consider optimizing your digital marketing process, which includes automation, audience segmentation and enhanced email marketing capabilities, to name a few. DailyStory can help. Schedule your free demo with us today.

5 tips to successfully promote your loyalty rewards program

Regardless of whether you’re about to launch a loyalty rewards program or already have an existing one, promotion is everything.

Loyalty rewards programs can help grow your business.

In fact, consumers who engage in high-performing loyalty programs are twice as likely to increase their frequency of purchases. More than 90 percent of companies have some sort of loyalty program.

Clearly, the more members you can drive to join and engage with your loyalty rewards program, the better.

The following are five tips to successfully promote your loyalty rewards program and do just that.

Start with an invitation

It sounds simple, but sometimes, the best place to start with growing your loyalty rewards membership is to invite your customers to join.

This can be done in a number of different ways:

Remember that the easiest thing to do is to ask. Customers (new or existing) can’t join something they’re not aware exists. You might be surprised by the response. 

Offer a welcome gift

To reinforce the value of your loyalty rewards program, consider offering a “welcome gift” for all new members. 

This gives immediate gratification to your members as well and can be used as an incentive for joining.

The gift can be anything that makes sense for your business and your bottom line.

Cross-promote everywhere possible

You can leverage the power of digital marketing by bringing all your available channels together to share one message that can engage your target audience in different ways.

Cross-promotion is critical for any loyalty rewards program promotion. Customers appreciate (and expect) their favorite brands to keep pace with them.

Start with a simple, clear and consistent message, and then, consider how best to convey that through every social media platform and digital marketing medium you have available to you.

Dive deeper with our seven tips to level up your content marketing.

Incentivize all loyalty rewards program referrals

Word of mouth is powerful, and you can take advantage of that by giving your loyalty rewards program members an incentive to invite their friends and/or family to join.

It’s about turning your brand advocates into brand ambassadors. About 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know directly.

Depending on the setup of your program, you can do this by offering bonus points, a free product, a free service, a discount toward a future purchase or something else.

Go ‘old school’ with display advertisements

Whether you have one physical business location or multiple, consider designing and displaying various display options promoting your loyalty rewards program. This can include: 

  • Flyers
  • Posters
  • Promo cards
  • Inclusion on all printed receipts

You can make it easy for interested customers to act on your display promotions by requesting a code be texted to a number, having an available tablet where they can sign up or by using a QR code.

If you don’t have a physical business location, consider a pop-up display ad on your website and/or a standing loyalty rewards program promotion on your homepage.

Remember, the most important aspect of having a loyalty rewards program is getting the word out. Then, take the time to think about the best incentives you can offer and what the messaging should be around that. 

As you begin promoting your loyalty rewards program, consider optimizing your digital marketing process, which includes automation, audience segmentation and enhanced email marketing capabilities, to name a few. DailyStory can help. Schedule your free demo with us today.