Listening to the customer is improving the image of your business, becoming a company with a more human and empathetic treatment. It also allows you to detect potential problems early and exploit advantageous virtues. 5 tips to achieve this.
Have you ever been disappointed that someone you care about never seems to take your opinions or views into account?
There is nothing worse than perceiving yourself as an unlistened to. That feeling of frustration will make you look for any other way to be better.
Well, we have some news to give you: if you don’t listen to your customers (carefully) you’ll be feeding them that unpleasant feeling.
Modern consumers demand transparency and honesty from the brands they buy from. They expect their voices to be heard, which means that attracting and retaining customers, today more than ever, is about listening to the customer.
It is essential to take into account the interests of users, but the most important thing is to implement their comments and opinions in your products or business model.
Why? Let’s see reasonsOne research found that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they want after just one bad experience , and 92% would abandon a product or service after two or three negative interactions.
For reasons like these, we decided to write this article: listening to the customer today is not an option, it is an obligation. Failure to do so, sooner rather than later, will cause your business to disappear.
Listening to the customer: 5 tips to gain competitive advantages
Regular communication to keep you present
Listening to customers is the key to serving them in the best possible way. Every company knows that customer preferences are extremely dynamic.
In spring they want one thing, but in summer they want something different. Having agile tools to communicate with them on a regular basis is an effective way to keep an eye on their changes and their epochal preferences.
Put yourself in the shoes of a consumer who has had a bad experience. Does it make you reconsider choosing that brand or service? Will you make a claim? Will you complain on social media? Will you tell your friends and family the bad news?
We all want to receive accolades, but the key to any company’s growth is to break the comfort barrier and answer those nagging questions and concerns consumers may have.
Having regular in-store customer satisfaction surveys will help you avoid the following mistakes:
- Pressuring your consumers to interact with you only when you need a specific or predetermined response from them.
- Lead your clientele towards topics that don’t really reflect their needs or disagreements.
- Ignoring what your customers think and feel because you believe that complaints or suggestions have no value for your business.
- Dismissing the criticism you may receive from your sales proposal because it contradicts the idea you have about your business.
Prompt and appropriate responses
Whenever there’s a problem with a customer, the key to fixing it is to show that you’re being proactive in resolving it. Your customer reviews are very important to bring solutions to your business.
A quick response that informs the customer that you received their message and that you’re working 100% to resolve their issue is a critical first step.
Imagine yourself in your customers’ shoes and you’ll know that it’s impossible to compare the importance of immediate contact with another type of “cold” interaction: the value of receiving honest feedback when the experience unfolds is unparalleled.
The longer you delay the initial response, the more upset your customers will be: you’ll end up spending more resources and time looking to repair the relationship.
Don’t wait until you have a definitive solution or until you have an answer to all their concerns. Always responding quickly with a simple note, acknowledging the problem and making a minimum of feedback, establishes from the very beginning of the dialogue a positive channel of communication.
Ask for feedback and suggestions (and record them)
Consumers are never short of ideas. Their comments, suggestions, and critiques will guide your company in the right direction at all times, but this will serve you only if you are able to employ true active listening with your customers.
The sales process is an unbeatable opportunity to learn about real customer expectations while talking about your products or services.
Listening to the customer allows you to record all the important nuances of what users are looking for in your brand. And also about what they definitely don’t want.
So what can you do? Start listening. It offers consumers fast, anonymous, and easy download pathways. This will allow you to have a real and unbiased picture of what is happening in the trenches of your business.
And in addition, it gives you the possibility to delve deeper into their tastes and preferences.
If you leave this process to your sales team alone, you’ll miss out on key information: Sales reps are always focused on closing, and you may miss out on important data that customers provide along the way.
Research shows that companies that focus on customer experience perform up to 80% better than companies that lag behind in CX.
Set up weekly touchpoints and surveys
As your company grows, you may lose touch with the way things are going about the real, material territory of the business.
Using weekly touchpoints internally to learn from your employees about any business bottlenecks, or potential frustrations from your customers, is crucial to any growth aspirations.
Employing simple surveys to gauge the level of customer satisfaction is the way to go. It’s not at all advisable to wait until there’s a problem to use a survey as the only channel for dialogue about what your customers want.
Having weekly points of contact with your consumers and employees is a good way to be informed in real time so that you can course-correct in the face of poor results or problems that need urgent resolution.
Did you know that 70% of the shopping experience is based on how customers feel they’re being treated?
Listening to needs and complaints is obtaining information that allows you to achieve a continuous improvement of your brand experience. The key? Offer consumers and collaborators Fast, anonymous and easy download routes .
Involve customer feedback in product development
When a company considers the customer experience to be central to determining how to act and what to do, then it means that that business has a customer-centric culture .
Involve your consumers in a real way in the process of developing your sales proposals. Invite them to try products that aren’t finished and take their feedback seriously. Make them feel like they’re important to your company.
Listening to their feedback and incorporating their ideas into the development of your products or services means that customers really feel part of the process. By doing so, you create ambassadors for your brand who are eager to| Continue to share their ideas with other people, because they know that in your business they are heard.
As Donald Porter , Managing Director of MSB Consultancy, would say:
“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect.
What they expect is for you to fix things when they get complicated.”
3 Core Benefits of Listening to the Customer
- Improve customer service
Use real feedback to improve your customer service and existing communication strategies. Over time, you’ll notice that consumers do appreciate that their needs are heard and addressed. And because of that, they’ll be back.
- Manage your business effectively and with prestige
Another benefit of listening to the voice of the customer is that it allows you to deeply understand how users interact, perceive, and understand your brand.
By constantly assessing the state of your business, you can keep your reputation high while increasing your sales in the market and customer loyalty.
- Develop innovative products
Listening to the customer allows you to use their feedback to design better products and services, capable of meeting their needs and bringing better revenue to your organization.
By listening to your customers, the products or services you provide can be adjusted accordingly. This type of feedback is the beginning of the journey to turning feedback into real profits .
Developing products with a clear understanding of what customers want and are willing to pay for is crucial to the success or failure of your organization.
How do you know what your customers are thinking and feeling in real time?
Your customers (and collaborators) are waiting to give you the information you need to innovate and improve. Give them that chance!
Global Metrics allows you to collect information directly from your in-store customers. In addition to working with real-time metrics, you can also count on alarm systems to learn about negative experiences.
This allows you to quickly and effectively serve disgruntled prospective consumers, which can be the difference between losing them or building loyalty.
If you need more information on how to get direct, regular, and real-time feedback, go to https://globalmetrics.io/contacto/
The vast majority of bad consumer experiences won’t reach your ears unless you do something about it. Understand it: the key, today, is to listen to the customer.
