As a business owner, it’s crucial to understand just how important your customers really are – they’re everything, and that’s not something you should ever forget if you want to be successful in whatever it is you do. So of course, if your customers are so important (without them you wouldn’t have a business, and if that doesn’t keep them in your mind at all times as a priority, nothing else will!), you’ll need to work out the best ways to give them the very best customer experience you can at the hands of your business, won’t you?
Boosting your customer service and experience levels to something better should always be something you take seriously, and it’s something you should do at every opportunity, but knowing that and knowing what sort of things you need to be looking out for are two different things. Don’t worry, though; if you keep reading you’ll soon get a good idea of how to make the customer experience a better one, and you’ll rise above the competition as a result.
Know What Customers Want
If you want to make the customer experience a better one, you’re going to need to make sure you meet your customers’ expectations one hundred percent, and to do that, you need to know what your customers want – there’s no other way to manage it.
Easy, isn’t it? Surely you just put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think about what it is you’d want to see and how you’d want to be treated? Well, yes and no. That is definitely one way to go about things, and it can be helpful, but you need to bear in mind that you won’t be objective – you’re always going to have the success of your business in your head, as well as any preconceived ideas and notions you have about how to run it. So although you might think you’re putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, you’re still a business owner first and foremost and that can get in the way. So if you’re going to do this, you should also carry out plenty of market research (or even get a third party to do it for you) to ensure you’re getting the right information. Once you’ve got it, make sure you act on it, otherwise it’s no use at all.
Use Third Party Logistics
Sometimes it’s better to let other people do work on your behalf – in fact, as a business owner, that’s often the best thing to do, and then you can focus on working out how to grow the business while everything else is still in hand and you don’t upset your customers, employees, investors, and so on.
One thing that can take a lot of the burden off you and free you up to do other things is using third party logistics, for example. This can make everything your business does a lot more streamlined when it comes to the supply chain (a crucial factor to think about) and that in turn is definitely going to make the customer experience a better one. When you’re able to outsource warehouse management, inventory control, fulfillment, and much more, you’re going to be making your business more efficient – put any of these jobs (and ideally all of them) in the hands of experts, and you won’t need to think about it anymore, which is really where you need to be when you’re a business owner and you’ve got a lot on your plate. Really, when you’ve got the support of a third party logistics provider, you’ll be able to give your customers loads of benefits, like faster delivery times, better stock levels, and even flexible shipping options, so they’re not going to have much to complain about, are they?
Measuring And Making Changes
What’s the worst thing you can do as a business owner? Well, there are a few different things that could be pretty bad, but something that’s got to be in the top three terrible ideas is to think you’re done and everything is as good as it’s ever going to be and won’t ever need to be changed.
That’s never going to be the case.
We’re not trying to be mean or harsh, it’s just a fact – if you stop pushing your business forward, the fact is that it’s all going to fall apart because other business owners will get ahead of you, you’ll fall behind in terms of technology and being up-to-date, and your customers could forget you, especially if other businesses are making an effort to keep ahead.
That’s why you constantly need to be changing what you’re doing and making sure you’re never getting lost in the crowd (a crowd that’s getting bigger all the time). When you take the time to measure your key performance indicators, which should include customer satisfaction, of course, as well as customer retention rates, and when you get feedback from your customers about what’s working or not, you can adjust what you’re doing and make the necessary changes you need to be the best – and to make the customer experience a better one, which we’ve already learned is exactly what business is all about!
Invest In Employee Training
Now, as much as you might like to think you’re the only one who can possibly work in your business, and as much as you might want to try to do everything yourself, that’s not a great way to become as successful as you’ll probably want to be. We’ve mentioned about outsourcing above, but it could be a good idea to have employees too (or instead, depending on your preferences). If you’ve got a team to help you, you can work on the core of the business and they can do everything else, and although it does mean losing a little control, the overall outcome will be a positive one that you’ll be glad you made happen.
If you do want to have staff and if you do want them to be the people who make your customers’ experiences much more positive, they’ll need to be trained, and that’s something you’ll definitely need to organize (although you don’t necessarily have to do the training if you’d rather outsource it – if you don’t have the knowledge or the time or both, that’s the best thing to do). A good training program means that employees have all the knowledge and skills they’ll need to deliver great service, which is what your customers will want.
A Good Returns Policy
How about we get a little bit more practical now? It’s a good idea because putting one extra policy in place could be what makes your business stand out for its excellent customer service. We’re talking about returns.
True, you won’t want to have to deal with returns on a regular basis, but remember, the bigger you get, the more returns will happen, and it’s far better to have a good returns policy in place than it is not to think about it because you’d rather not have to deal with it. If you can create a clear and hassle-free returns policy, you’ll find that even if people aren’t satisfied with what they bought for any reason, they won’t take it out on your business because you’ll do all you can to help them, whether it’s a refund, a replacement, a credit note or anything else. When you can make the returns process simple and transparent, customers will be more willing to take a chance on you as well because they’ll know they can return things if they’re not happy. Ideally they won’t have to do that, so you’ll get more customers as a result.
