As a business owner, you will understand the need to keep customers on your side. You can do this by improving the customer experience with your business, taking steps to ensure the loyalty of the people who keep your business running.
Such steps can include:
- Encouraging customer loyalty with reward cards and special discounts
- Speeding up your shipping processes
- Making it easy for customers to get in touch with you
At a time when every business needs to remain competitive to survive, making the effort to take such steps is vital.
But what about the barriers that could impinge on your efforts to create a positive customer experience? If there are any that relate to your business, you need to overcome them as soon as possible. We will highlight two common barriers below.
#1: Website/app issues
The more ways customers can connect with your business the better, so with this in mind, you should take steps to create an omnichannel customer experience. Studies have shown that businesses can benefit from higher conversion rates when taking this strategy onboard and you can see examples of how it can work within the linked article.
But if there are problems with the tools your customers use to interact with your business, their experience will be a negative one. If your website is prone to crashing or if your business app refuses to function as it should, your customers will become frustrated. Instead of improving your conversion rate, the opposite could be true.
You can overcome this problem with website, app, and API testing, be that through the specialists you have on your team or by outsourcing to a third party. You should do this during the creation phase of your website and app and you should follow this up with regular checks. It’s also a good idea to encourage your customers to get in touch with you to report any faults, as they are the people who will be regularly using your services.
#2: Poor customer service
Would you use a business where you received poor customer service? Chances are, you wouldn’t, and the same applies to your customers. Examples of poor customer service can include:
- Being left on hold for too long after making a phone call
- Speaking to a customer service rep with a rude attitude
- Having your feedback ignored when communicating with a business
As a business owner, you should relate your experiences of bad customer service to the business that you run. If you suspect your business falls down in any way within any of these bad customer service examples, you should take steps to correct any issues. Such steps can include:
- Providing more communication channels, including a live chat option on your website
- Providing customer service training for your employees
- Monitoring the way your employees respond to your customers
- Taking active steps to respond to customer feedback
Your business reputation will be affected by the customer service that you show, so research other ways to ensure a positive experience for your customers.
Finally
We have only covered two facets of a negative customer experience here but there may be other issues that are hindering your customers. You can learn more by surveying them regularly, and then taking the necessary steps to put right where your business might be going wrong.
