30 INCREDIBLE EASY WAYS TO ACHIEVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Putting your customers first doesn’t always come easy. Hence, customer satisfaction could be a big deal if you don’t know how to go about it.

As a matter of fact, it’s so easy to annoy customers and so hard to do everything they want you to do.

Want to know why this is?

It’s simply because customers’ demands can be so unrealistic and they don’t understand what goes on behind closed doors to bring about what happens on the front end.

So when customers are asking for all of these crazy demands, they’re most likely thinking that you’re doing the bare minimum to get things done.

But putting your customers first is something you should always strive to do, especially if you’re struggling to reach the number of sales you want to be reaching or you are trying to achieve business success as these people did.

There are some tried and tested methods that will definitely help you to reach the customers that you need to, and therefore reach the sales that you so badly need!

So keep on reading, and find out how you can do just that!

1. Simplify Complicated Processes

Complicated processes can simply ruin a business.

Not only does it take time out of the day that could be used for other things, it really does make life harder for everyone involved.

When it comes to customers, you want to make sure things like ordering and contract management is as smooth as possible.

Contract management, in particular, has always been a hard one to manage, simply because there’s so much involved in it.

But to try and ease the process, as well as save a ton of time, you could look into things such as contract management through outsourced companies around the world.

If you check out links such as https://www.templafy.com/contract-management/, you could just find one company that can help you with contract management which will, in turn, help your customer relationship.

It’ll also boost your reputation, and keep things running smoothly in other areas of your business. I need not tell you that poor contract management really does have a negative impact on business.

2. Know What They Want Before They Do

This is a skill that can be hard to master, but one you won’t regret when you do.

Knowing what the customers want before they do, is done by knowing your market, and knowing what it’s missing.

By looking at your own company and others around it, you can start to understand the trends that people are following, and the things that people might be missing.

So, do a bit of market research, and see what that brings up.

You might realize a thing or two that will greatly benefit your business and make you life better.

As long as you’re being innovative and thinking out of the box, you’ll find you’re always finding what people want before they even get to know you!

3. Minimize Complications

Complications with customers will most likely not be few and far between.

As aforementioned, it can be hard to master the relationship between you and your customers, but one sure-fire way of doing so is having someone on customer support who possesses these skills.

Someone who is always going to be there to deal with the problems as and when they come in, and who will greatly benefit your business.

4. Develop Customer Service Communities

The most advanced companies now use customer service communities to generate product ideas and test new products.

A Get Satisfaction survey was used to identify how existing products are used. 67% of companies used those surveys to collect ideas for new products or features customers expect while 46% rely on them for feedback on prototypes or beta products.

So, you too should have a community (a group of people who buy your products) where you can get feedback about the use of your products.

You should ask those who buy your products what they think about using them and let them know that you need a sincere answer for possible improvements. Ask if the products should be limited edition your products or not; let them suggest ways of improvement.

5. Treat Customers like You Would Want to Be Treated

Remember the fact that your customer wants to see the sunny side of you and your business, so put yourself in their shoes.

We all get to patronize other people’s businesses, and we love that they treat us well even though we first have to treat ourselves well.

Hence, as the saying goes “Do unto others what you would want them to do to you”, there is a need for every entrepreneur to assume the position of their customers.

Treat them appropriately as though you were the customer. By implication, love yourself first and then, extend the love to your customers in the same measure.

6. Make Employee Satisfaction a Priority

Simply put – When your staff are happy, it’s easy for them to provide better customer service”

Studies have proven that employees usually are at their best and perform better at their jobs when they feel appreciated. You should give each employee or assistant a personalized ‘thank you’ every now.

Trust me, you can help your employees take pride in their jobs and show them how to choose a career path in your business. This will improve their work performance and keep your customers satisfied and consistent in patronizing you.

7. Turn Customer Survey Data into Action

Good data reflects the experiences your customers actually have with your product or services.

Furthermore, these data should equip you to take action on feedback gotten from your customers, which will help you satisfy them better.

When your customers realize that you have worked on their complaints, they will keep coming back.

8. Figure out what your Customer Really Wants

Figure out what the customer really wants and find out the problem. If you can solve that problem they will gladly pay.

The value they enjoy from you is often not in the discount you can offer but rather in the solution you can provide.

So, you should ensure that your survey entails what your customer wants and see how to offer it to them.

However, since customers’ desires vary by person, it can be sometimes hard to satisfy all your customers.

The best way out of this dilemma (trust me, it can be a big one), is to find a common ground for all your customer’s wants.

Another way to achieve this is to assess your customer’s ability, and depending on what they would like, you should attend to them in such a manner.

It sometimes might differ from the general product standard, but either lesser or more, you should ensure to please your customer depending on their ability and request.

Don’t make it compulsory for your customer who can afford less to get a product that your rich customer can afford. Let your customers get to choose a variety of products depending on their abilities and capacities.

9. Personalize your customers

To achieve customer satisfaction, make sure the customer feels like he or she is the only one that matters. Yes, make them feel important.

Use the customer’s name, refer to personal information, and wish them a happy birthday.

Try as much as possible to master the names of your customers, it has a way of making them feel they are close and important to you.

10. Slash Wait Times

The truth remains that everyone is busy, and you as a company or business need to provide the highest levels of service to your customers. Else, they might start looking for alternatives.

You can minimize their waiting times, hasten up your processes, and offer same-day couriers especially when a purchase is about to be made.

You should also ensure to earn a reputation for being consistent and dependable.

This means if you promise a product to be delivered within 48 hours after the purchase, then you’ve got to make sure that delivery occurs within that time frame.

11. Focus on A Company Culture To Achieve Customer Satisfaction

Begin to put a focus on culture. You could have a promo that you give to those who patronize you, especially on special days like Christmas day, Valentine’s day, and other important days.

It has a way of making your customers look forward to meeting the requirements in getting those extra goodies. Everyone likes, at least, a little free gift.

12. Be on Social Media

Customers are increasingly demanding responses at the speed of light.  Sometimes as quickly as in real-time to their numerous complaints.

The easy way you can meet up with that is an online presence on social media. There are numerous benefits of social media that your business can enjoy.

A company that doesn’t listen to its audience can wreak havoc on its brand and reputation. You might even be seen as a scammer or fraudster if you’ve got no response for your customers.

Therefore, putting up several social media plans will help to make your customers get quick feedback on their questions, orders, complaints, etc. 

Also, you could put up customer reviews on your social media page. It has a way of encouraging other customers to know that they can trust your products because they have others to testify about your products and services.

13. Benchmark Customer Satisfaction

Try benchmarking which is the process of comparing your own organization against similar organizations or competitors in your industry or sector.

Try comparing your customers’ satisfaction with your competitors’ and make amends where necessary. In fact, exceed theirs by providing better customer service and satisfaction.

Read: An Excellent Marketing Strategy

14. Set Clear Expectations and Exceed Them

Ensure you set a clear expectation of what your customers will get from patronizing you and exceed them.

Let your customers know upfront what your standards and practices are. It gives them an idea of what they are getting and they can be sure of your products and services.

Knowing that they won’t get lesser, but rather a better product from your products and services will build their confidence.

15. Rethink your Approach to Doing Business

Embrace change! Change happens because consumers are operating differently today, and differently tomorrow.

Similarly, you must embrace the changes that happen in the environment in which you’re operating.

You must be flexible and upgrade your business to satisfy your customers as times and seasons change.

You must also keep reviewing your approach to offer satisfaction to your customers, and improve your products and services often.

Read: Services that can take your business to the next level

16. Equip your employees

It’s necessary for you to equip and train all those who work with you.  This will make them competent and capable to meet customers’ needs accurately and appropriately.

You should also empower and train your employees to make decisions, perform their activities and also come up with creative ideas.

Your customers do not have to feel they need to talk to a superior or more experienced person before they are satisfied.

17. Ensure transparency and admit your mistakes

There will be days when things don’t go as planned.

Instead of denying the problem, be honest with your customers about the bad news.

Mistakes happen and customers have many platforms to share their experiences with your company.

Don’t get defensive or sensitive if you get called out on something that was your fault. Instead, use these platforms to take responsibility and resolve the issue.

However, you must be careful not to make a habit of making mistakes, because you know you can apologize. This will make your customers lose interest in your product or services in the long run.

18. Offer incentives and discounts

Offering incentives and discounts are also a powerful way to publicize your brand.

You will want to give your customers a reason to keep coming back to get your products, and that’s when incentives come into play. In fact, discounts and deals usually influence customers to buy more products or services than they initially planned.

They love to ‘take the opportunity’ because the same products may not be so cheap tomorrow.

People often see discounts and deals as a huge opportunity to save money or enjoy a service for a whole lot less.

It could be something as simple as a discount when next they purchase your products or giving them a free drink after their tenth purchase.

19. Use the Word-of-mouth approach

Most times your customers are your best advertisers. That can only happen when you give your customers a reason to advertise and market your business for you.

Sometimes, word-of-mouth advertising doesn’t come automatically; you have to encourage, motivate or incentivize your customers to do it for you.

You can start a referral or reward program for your existing customers.

The more people they refer to you, the more free products, services, and discounts they will enjoy.

The reward should be large enough to trigger their interest and make them take action. It should be a win-win method, trust me, it always works.

Read: Agricultural business is an unending business

20. Ensure your customer gets the value for the money spent

Who doesn’t want to ensure that their hard-earned money is put to good use?

In light of this, ensure your customers get real value for whatever product they purchase from you or whatever service they get from you.

Every customer wants to have that satisfaction that their money was put to good use. They want to ensure that a penny could have been saved instead of getting your products or service.

Make them glad that they purchased the product or service they spent their money on from you. It brings satisfaction to a large extent to a customer, and you can bet that they would keep getting products or services from you.

21. Learn about and understand customers’ complaints and compliments

Not all customers will be satisfied with your products and services, in spite of your commitment to offering high-quality products.

When you receive complaints from such customers, it behooves you to study them intently so as to devise better ways of improving customer experience.

In the case of compliments, you will be able to identify areas where you need to intensify your efforts in order to keep giving value.

22. Get to know your customer’s preferred response channel

Different customers have different choices when it comes to how they want to get feedback on their requests or responses to their expectations.

Meeting them where they actually are is a great way to achieve a super customer experience.

You have to find out their preferred means of communication in order to get the response you desire.

23. Mentally refresh after every deal

One of the very burdensome challenges you will face while running your business is dealing with human beings—customers.

So interactions with every customer should be a whole new experience for you, fresh and exciting.

In that regard, you need to consciously hit the reset button in your head to clear it up for business with another customer.

It will be a bad idea to allow the bad energy from one conversation to flow into another one. Therefore, endeavour to anticipate a better outcome than the previous ones.

24. Empower your support teams to achieve success

There is a need for you to arm your agents and reps with the necessary tools and resources to satisfactorily cater to the needs of customers.

Endeavor to also get them trained in relevant areas of development so that they can function optimally.

25. Always be empathetic

Do not underestimate the value of putting yourself in your customer’s place all the time.

Empathy will make you try to reason from the customer’s perspective and then make an appropriate judgment.

Customers will never forget the bad experience they had when they contacted you, and they may never return to your store again if their first experience was terrible.

Learn to operate a customer-centric culture. This way, you are able to share your customer’s feelings and perspectives.

26. Create an omnichannel customer support

Customers want to rest assured that they can reach out to you on their preferred channel of communication.

So, if you have an omnipresence as a business, customers will be glad to relate with you.

You can offer them the options of sending Facebook Messenger messages, chatting with you on WhatsApp, sending emails, or any other channel.

27. Be quick to respond.

In the world of business today, speed is an invaluable currency that every business must adopt if they wish to break through the competition. It is one of the key factors for business success.

When customers visit your support channels, they desire a prompt response to their inquiries, orders, requests, etc.

If you’re able to meet their demands, you’ve won them over. Incorporate bots, automation tools, and apps that will lower your response time and allow you to record success.

This is also why you need to have multiple channels through which they can connect with you.

28. Always ask for feedback

Some customers may not share their experience with your product with you unless you ask them to.

By asking customers for feedback, you’ll get to know what they want, how they feel, and what their expectations are. Always ask for feedback.

29. Hold regular meetings with your team.

As matters arise, there is a need to quickly deal with them as they come.

What this means is that you may not have the luxury of time or the chance to sit in on meetings to thrash out issues.

Learn to hold meetings with your team even while standing, depending on the urgency of the situation.

This is one of the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur: the ability to take initiative and attend to issues as at when due.

30. Practice active listening

When having a conversation with a customer, you should give them all your attention. Listening is not only done with your ears.

Your entire self should be alert, active, and focused on the customer so as to get the necessary information from them that will enable you to offer the right solutions. These attributes are some of the ways to be more effective as a leader.

Summarily, there is a saying that goes “Customers are right”. Hence, you must do all to keep your customers coming through your door and calling your line to purchase your products or services.

That way you can be sure of a revenue increase for your company or business, and in turn, make your company or business the talk of the town.

Do I need to remind you that a business will run as long as it has customers keep coming back?

The goal of every business enterprise is to increase revenue which could be done by managing customer assets.

That way you are able to keep long-term potential and current customers.

I can assure you that if you apply the above measures, your customers will stay with you for a very long time. They will also refer others to your business.

Start implementing these tips ASAP.

Which of these strategies intrigues you most? 😉