Research has found that 70%* of customers who take their business elsewhere leave due to poor customer service. This statistic should be enough to make any business take a step back and review the level of customer service they provide.  

We all know that gaining new clients is a difficult, time consuming and often costly task. In fact, statistics generally suggest that it is up to 7 times more expensive to attract a new client than keep an existing one. Yet looking after existing clients just doesn’t seem to have the excitement that new business carries.

So what can you do to enhance your customer service to stop clients from looking elsewhere?

Here are our 3 top tips:

Put yourself in your clients’ shoes:

When you’re busy going about your daily business life, finding time to evaluate and reflect is difficult, if not impossible. Every now and then, however, you should make the time to think about the touch points a client has with your business and the impressions these might leave. Phone up your main office line from time to time to see how clients are greeted or re-read emails to clients as if you were receiving them, all the time putting yourself in your clients’ shoes. If you want to take it a step further and obtain independent feedback along with key action points, we can carry out a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise.

Look out for innovative ideas:

Customer service isn’t something us Brits are necessarily famous for. Yet in this day and age, people have come to expect a better level of service across the board; whether in a shop, from a utility provider or from a business supplier. Look out for ideas as you go about your life as an everyday consumer – from the simple and straightforward to the clever and creative – ideas from any industry can be adapted and brought into your business. Think about when you were last impressed with a company and why that was. It’ll no doubt boil down to customer service!

Ask clients what they want:

This may seem obvious, but when was the last time you asked a client what they wanted and how they felt about the service they receive from you? At best you will get a great testimonial to use in future marketing material and maybe even a referral and at worse you will receive feedback on how you can improve your service to them. Surely this is better than finding out once they have already left or made the decision to leave.

For more help on how to turn poor customer service into a great one, or for help to find out what your clients want from your relationship and how they feel about the service they receive, please get in touch.

 

*Statistics provided by McKinsey & Co

Featured image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gazeronly/7639756506