How to Offer Amazing Customer Service as a Small Business, and Why It’s Important

No matter what your business is, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or large corporation, a florist, an accountant, a legal firm or anything in between – customer service matters. We know that customer service is important, that’s instilled in us, but how many people know what the purpose of customer service is and how to offer a positive customer experience? Here, we’ll discuss all things fabulous customer service, from how to offer a great experience for your consumers to the benefits you’ll reap if you follow our advice!

We’re passionate about offering amazing customer service to our clients, and helping them to provide a positive experience for their consumers too. Want to find out more about how we do this? Get in touch with our team today! You can call us on 0345 056 8888 and we’ll be happy to help and answer any questions that you have about our services.

It all starts at home
 
Before implementing systems and technology to go above and beyond for your customers, you should look a little closer to home first. Offering amazing customer service starts with taking care of your employees. Quite simply, when your employees are satisfied with their role, they become more productive and therefore more likely to offer amazing customer service. If they recognise that you, as an employer, are going the extra mile to look after them, then they’ll be proud to represent your company and they’ll want to help you build a strong, positive reputation, by offering great customer service. Not only that, but they’ll genuinely want your business to succeed and they’ll want to be a part of that success!

Offer a personal touch

Offering a personalised service starts with using humans, not robots. Whilst bots and interactive voice response (IVR) systems might seem like the cost-effective option, they could drive potential business away. Put simply, they could actually lose you money rather than help you to save it! Humans can offer an unrivalled, personalised service that bots and IVR systems simply can’t match. So, how do you offer a personal touch? It all starts with being friendly, empathetic and proactive – show the customer that you truly care. 

Then, tailor your service to meet their needs. There are technologies to help you do this, such as CRMs, which are systems that manage important customer insight and data, to help you track their previous interactions with your business. That way, you can pick up where your colleague left off if they’ve contacted you regarding an ongoing enquiry. If you’re a small business on a tight budget and you don’t have a CRM, listening carefully to the customer and being proactive will go a long way.

Build relationships with customers

Building positive relationships with your customers will pay off dividends – not only does it increase the likelihood of positive feedback, but it increases customer retention and customer satisfaction! To build strong relationships with your consumers, there are a few things that you can do quite easily. The key is communication. Make sure you and your employees respond to all messages and emails promptly, whether these are new enquiries or customer complaints. Don’t wait for poor customer service to become an issue – whenever you employ a new member of staff, train them effectively so they understand the importance of communication for business success.

Besides communication, you should also always aim to exceed the expectations of your customers, engage with them online through the likes of social media and always ask for feedback so that they know you’re committed to listening to their needs and making changes where necessary.

Make user experiences enjoyable

As we’ve already mentioned, creating an enjoyable user experience starts with offering services delivered by humans. When it comes to providing enjoyable user experiences for good customer service, the key is to make things as easy as possible. If customers have a problem that requires a solution, they don’t want to spend ages trying to find that solution or trying to get in touch with your customer service team. Make your communication channels and your website easy to use and navigate. Make it easy for customers to find solutions to their issues online, with comprehensive FAQs and other content for example, and if they do need extra support for their issue or enquiry then make it easy for them to get in touch with you and avoid long response times!

Have the right attitude

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or have a team of people to deal with your customer enquiries, having the right attitude will go a long way! No matter who you’re talking to, whether it’s a potential consumer or even a customer that has a complaint, it’s important to keep your cool and maintain the right attitude and tone. Having the right attitude means remaining positive, empathetic, proactive and actively listening to the customer’s problems so that you can tailor your service accordingly. 

Showing that you have the right attitude can be as simple as emphasising, or even asking, what your company can do to help a customer, rather than explaining what can’t be done to help them. Being positive doesn’t just bring benefits to customers either – remaining positive can also create a positive work environment and can influence the rest of your team to adopt the right attitude!

Stick to your word

It’s always wise to avoid making promises that you can’t keep! In business, it’s usually best to under-promise and then over-deliver, exceeding customer expectations and going above and beyond by doing so. If you do promise something and then don’t stick to your word, the customer will feel let down and will lose trust in the business. It may even prompt them to post online reviews, which could affect your reputation.

If you do promise something and cannot stick to it – for example, if you don’t follow up with a customer in the agreed timeframe or your customer doesn’t receive a delivery on time – then offer something to make up for the broken promise. Whilst offering a freebie might come at an extra cost for your business, you’ll likely gain a loyal customer in the long term, so it’s definitely worth it!

Outsource your customer interactions

If you feel swamped with all your customer interactions, why not outsource some of them? Thousands of business leaders trust us to manage their customer interactions and deliver fabulous customer service, and we can help you in the same way too! If your customer service is starting to suffer because you don’t have the resources to deal with every inbound call, live chat message or email effectively or efficiently, then perhaps it’s time to consider one of our packages. 

With our tailored, comprehensive packages that offer 24/7 customer support 365 days a year, your customer calls and messages never have to go unanswered – you’ll never miss another potential lead again! By entrusting us with your customer interactions, you can free up time to be spent on the customer interactions that matter most to you. Regarding any other interactions, we can take care of these for you, ensuring that the standard of customer service is truly amazing!

Customer loyalty and retention

When you go that extra mile for your customers by providing amazing customer service, it increases customer loyalty and customer retention. A retained customer refers to a person that hasn’t taken their business anywhere else yet – they have only bought services or products from you. A loyal customer buys from you repeatedly and encourages others to do the same with positive feedback, word of mouth, and online reviews. Their loyalty goes beyond spending money.
Retaining current customers is always a cheaper option than attempting to acquire new customers, so maintaining a great standard of customer service is well worth it! Providing a positive customer experience that keeps them coming back for more is cheaper, and probably a lot less stressful, than designing and executing advertising campaigns and marketing strategies that target a brand new audience. And, of course, customer loyalty and retention can drive sales, which is one of the best perks for business owners!

Brand reputation 

By making customers happy and maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction, this can only have positive effects on your brand reputation. Through online reviews and word of mouth, people soon get to know your business and are quick to form an opinion about it. Regardless of what sector you’re in and what business you run, first impressions matter.
You can focus on creating positive first impressions in two ways. Firstly, by offering fabulous customer service to your customers, you’ll help them form a great first impression of your business and values. Secondly, this will increase the chances of receiving positive feedback and an online review from this customer. This will then impact the first impressions of users that see your online reviews. Consumers trust consumers, and if potential customers see that other customers have had positive experiences, they’ll be more likely to get in touch or buy your services and products.

Business longevity 

By offering brilliant customer service to increase customer loyalty and retention whilst strengthening your business’s reputation, this can work wonders for business longevity! Whilst there are varying definitions of the term ‘business longevity’, it usually refers to a business being in operation for a long time whilst experiencing growth and prosperity.

Of course, business longevity is achieved by various factors, but there’s no denying that amazing customer service is one of the key components. After all, if you offered poor customer service that resulted in bad experiences, you’d damage your reputation and lose business, which would inevitably have consequences for your business’s lifespan. 

Reduce employee turnover

The purpose of a customer service team is to help customers. So, if the team makes the customer happy, then they’ve successfully done their job. Of course, these teams are sure to be up against challenges every now and then, especially when dealing with customers that seem angry and frustrated. With that in mind, you should equip your staff with the right tools and training, ensuring that they are well-equipped to deal with issues. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, make sure you invest in your own training and development too.

This can help to boost morale and job satisfaction, which reduces employee turnover. Not to mention, employee turnover can be rather expensive, so investing in the right training and tools from the outset can be a worthwhile investment. Besides employee retention, offering great customer service can also help you to recruit more staff when you need to. Prospective employees will be looking for a role within a company that has a fantastic reputation, so pleasing your customers to keep the bad reviews at bay is crucial here!

It adds value to your offering & customers are willing to pay more

When a high-quality product comes with good customer service, customers are willing to pay more for it. They know that for their money, they’ll be getting the service or product that they need as well as effective support and communication from the customer service team, whenever it’s needed. It beats cutting corners by paying for a cheap service or product that isn’t that great and doesn’t provide a good customer service experience either. Above all, offering fabulous customer service adds huge value to your offering!

Compete with the big companies

Big companies in your industry will likely be well-established with loyal customer bases and strong reputations. By investing in great customer service, as a small business, you give yourself a great chance of competing with the big companies, for many of the reasons mentioned above, such as customer loyalty and brand reputation. Investing in ways to provide brilliant customer service, such as a CRM and a telephone answering service, like ours, to ensure that your customer calls never go unanswered, are all worthwhile investments in the long term.