Now that you know what ‘The Mushroom Treatment’ is, and the steps that you should avoid while providing service to your customers, let us move ahead. In this lesson, we shall learn about what you can do and also provide tips from industry experts to upp your game in customer service.
Take this lesson to learn more and don’t forget to take the accompanying quiz at the end of the lesson.
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Frequent Communication – The ‘How-To’ Element
Where do you come in?
In the previous lesson, we established the need for frequent communication, and outlined the benefits and consequences of getting it right. But what does frequent communication really entail? What do industry experts recommend when it comes to frequent communication? And how do you decide which measures are best for you and your business?
What industry experts recommend when it comes to frequent communication
Even with technological advances and an overall increase in professional knowledge levels in today’s contemporary business world, service through communication is something that many firms, businesses and even internal departments struggle with these days. And there are some very compelling statistics that point out why everyone needs to be on the ball when it comes to communication with customers.
Consider, for example, a few research findings that SCORE (Counselors to America’s Small Business) published on their website:
- In the average business, for every customer who bothers to complain, there are 26 other who remain silent.
- The average wronged customer will tell 8 to 16 people (about 10 percent will tell more than 20 people).
- 91 percent of unhappy customers will never purchase good or services from you again.
- If you make an effort to remedy customer’s complaints, 82 to 95 percent of them will stay with you.
- It costs about 5 times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.
The writing’s on the wall.
Now, when you’re up against a topic like this, the best place to start might be to have to look at what industry experts opine on it. Imprezzio Marketing, an online marketing company that currently works with over 1,300 small businesses in the United States and Canada was recently referenced in a study that covered best practices on communicating with clients. Interestingly, these nuggets can also be applied to internal PSF setups.
1. Make sure you initiate contact with every customer at least once a month.
Far too many businesses/departments are reactive when it comes to customers. Businesses/departments wait around for their customers/stakeholders to contact them about services and issues instead of proactively reaching out. Generally speaking, we engage our customers more frequently than once a month due to them asking questions about their account or us getting information from them to do our job better. These interactions however, can be compared to visiting a doctor. Sure, you speak with your doctor on running problems, but you don’t go through a full body check-up every single time, do you? At the bare minimum, if you aren’t contacting each customer/stakeholder at least once a month for any level of a detailed conversation, you will notice significant service issues cropping up. And as you’ve seen in SCORE’s research findings, most unhappy customers keep silent and become brand assassins.
2. Make sure you reply to all customer inquiries in less than 1 business day.
This reassures the customer that you actually got their message and that you consider their questions and concerns valid. This is huge. Imagine being on the receiving end of complete radio silence from your service provider after you approach them with a query. Leaves you with a big question mark, one you want to act out upon, doesn’t it? It is amazing and simultaneously shocking to see the number of emails customers send to companies that don’t get responded to for several days. This 1 business day timeframe also depends upon the nature of your relationship with your customers, but its better to err on the side of caution. Remember those silent disgruntled customers, and what they can do?
Nike is a great example of a company that does this right. On their Twitter account @NikeSupport, you’ll see replies every few minutes. With more than 4 million followers on Twitter, to say that Nike customers love it – is an understatement.
