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The key to growing your small business

Invest in Customer Service

Megan Yates, Business Sales Leader at Chess, discusses how small businesses can stand out from the crowd with great customer service. She covers:

 

 

When you own a small business, it can be difficult to attract your target customer’s attention when you are competing against significantly larger brands. These larger competitors are likely to have several advantages in that they have already established their brand identities, tried-and-tested processes, and regular customers. 

So, as a small business, what can give you an edge over your competitors? The answer is customer service. 

Excellent customer service can really make your business stand out from other businesses because consumers prefer to support companies that are easy to contact and have given them a positive customer service experience. Something which can get a little lost for those bigger brands but is easy for smaller businesses to get right. 


Why customer service is important 

Customer service is essential to small businesses. It sets you apart from your competition. A positive customer service experience can prove that your brand is worth buying from and makes your customers more likely to support you through social media, recommendations, and future purchases. 

Customer Loyalty

Getting new customers to purchase more than once can be difficult, but they are more likely to repurchase from you if the first purchasing experience was a positive one. On the other hand, if they found your customer service lacking, they are unlikely to repurchase or recommend your business. 

Customer retention is cheaper than acquisition

According to a study by global consultancy firm, Bain & Company, repeat customers bring you more money than newly acquired ones. Although the figures vary per industry, multiple studies indicate that acquiring a new customer costs up to five times more than keeping an existing one.  

Repeat customers are important because they already know the quality of your products and services. They are more likely to purchase again from you in the future and spend more per transaction than a new customer.

Customer Feedback Drives Growth

Getting customer feedback isn’t just a chance to improve your customer experience, collecting feedback also helps increase how trustworthy your brand is. Asking for your customers’ opinions about a product or service lets them know that you care about their feelings helps build trust and loyalty.

 

Customers are willing to pay more for better customer service

Whilst it might be tempting to focus attention on strategies such as new customer acquisition or advertising, small businesses shouldn’t neglect investing in customer service. Customers are often willing to pay more for a better customer experience, which means investing in customer service can directly impact your bottom line. 

 


Key Strategies to Improve Customer Service 

Below are some of the essential strategies for small business customer service: 

Be present on multiple channels

Customers have different preferences when it comes to contacting brands. Some find it easier to call a business, while others prefer to send an email. This means you have to offer various ways for customers to reach you – it’s important to be present in more than one channel so that customers can contact you in the ways they prefer. 

While newer communication channels like website chat features and social media are popular, phone support is a customer service channel that you can’t afford to ignore. Phone calls are still a cornerstone of business communications as many customers still prefer to talk to human customer service agents.  

We recommend replacing your traditional landline with Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP phone system. VoIP technology makes your business phone system more easily scalable and cost-efficient. It offers advanced call features, reduces your cost per call and allows your workers to access the phone network remotely. 

Being present on multiple channels might sound like a bit of a hassle, but it doesn’t have to be. 

Work Better Together

Leveraging technology and creating processes that help you work better together can help you provide a better and more efficient customer service. Doing so will not only make it easier for customers to send requests, but it will also increase the efficiency of your customer service team. 

This can be as simple as having dedicated phone numbers and email addresses for customer service, an auto-attendant as a friendly greeting to callers, or ensuring the same person is dealing with the same customer wherever possible. 


Chess’ Recommendations 

Cloud Voice Contact combines all the aspects of customer contact into one easy-to-use platform that simplifies customer interaction across multiple channels. It is the perfect solution for small to medium businesses who want to make it easier for customers to engage with them. 

Voice - With a comprehensive set of voice features, you can easily make and receive calls. You can even manage current and historical communication with customers. 

Email - Connect to your existing email services, such as Gmail or Microsoft 365 to send and receive emails. 

Wallboards and Live Data - See your live data from the minute an employee starts to handle a call, email or webchat. Easily see how many customers are waiting and which employees are currently available. 

Webchat - As one of the fastest growing communication tools, talk to your customers using webchat using a simple embed code on your website. 

Reporting - Gain insight into your business’ communication performance with reporting that can easily be created and viewed in the Cloud Voice Contact Portal. You can even schedule reports to your email. 

CRM Integration - With a fully integrated CRM solution, you can manage all customer interactions within a single consolidated database. 

 

Get in touch to start a conversation about how your business can deliver excellent customer service and how your people can work better together.

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