A Sale is Only the Beginning
by Mr Murali M
In today’s market, the bar of consumer expectations have been raised and the customer expects top quality service as an integral part of the sales experience as a whole. After-sales has become as important a part of the experience as the sale itself and bad after-sales service puts the company at risk of losing a valuable customer.
The game is now about delighting the customer by going beyond what is expected from a conventional sale. Quality service has become an undeniable part of the journey of a buyer and this is fast becoming consistent across all service providers. Good consumer service not only ensures customer retention, but also boosts brand image and ultimately its value. This style of putting the customer first in every scenario encourages a positive association with the brand and the notion of doing business with it over a longer duration.
To ensure a good rating from a customer and boost business with five-star referrals, incorporating these strategies into the customer’s experience is imperative:
Quick response: A timely response to a customer’s grievance is the name of the game. Although preventing problems remains the best thing to do, tending to them as fast as possible leads the way to a delightful customer experience.
Use customer feedback: Customer feedback is the best way a company can learn from its missteps. Thanks to the newer technologies, customers now have a voice that can directly reach the service provider. Taking negative feedback into consideration and turning it around could be the best thing to happen to a brand’s image.
Listen in: Pay attention to brand mentions online and actively listen in on the conversations that are carried out. Brand reviews and online feedback are great tools to gauge the perception of the brand and work on it. In fact, many brands employ online reputation management (ORM) professionals to handle their online image and it helps the brand image immensely.
Wise them up: At times, a brand could encounter a customer that lacks the knowledge to make the right decision and ends up having a poor experience. At times like these, injecting the right kind of knowledge and educating the customer could be the way to go. Ensuring that the customer has the right know-how to handle the product improves user experience and boosts business.
Go above and beyond: Customers do notice when a brand goes out of its way to provide superior service. In cases like these where brands are willing to go the extra mile, word of mouth becomes a powerful marketing tool and has the potential to boost business.
Give more, get more: This philosophy reigns in today’s market. The sentiment of sharing carries incredible power to command loyalty among customers. More than that, customers may go out of their way to become evangelists for the brand and put the brand in the good graces of other customers.
There’s an app for that: Messaging apps are fast becoming more and more popular to collect customer feedback. Apart from approaching customers individually, brands also have interactive chat-bot tools at their disposal, that can automatically approach customers and collect feedback on their behalf. Collecting and tracking feedback is integral to a brand’s image.
These golden steps have the potential to ensure a winning streak for any brand running a consumer-first business. Putting the customer at the centre of it all is sure to bring in a completely new perspective to the equation and establishes an atmosphere of high-quality customer service.