You Can Hardly Meet Every Customer’s Needs

Every time when we speak about customer service or customer loyalty, it seems there is nothing easier than satisfying customers. Be polite, be attentive, be patient, be respectful… But can a rep meet every customer’s needs? Not sure…

There are different customer types and various solutions to satisfy them. Gone are the times when customer couldn’t reach a company. Besides an email or a phone call, there are also different social channels to connect with the company and solve the problem in no time.

But today’s customers became more difficult to deal with. People are more aggressive and they think if they pay for the service they should have no problems at all. They may cry loudly at the rep and never respond to excuses – “An ill payer never wants an excuse”.

It’s even worse while dealing with chronic complaining customers – they are never satisfied and will always find something to complain.

The most dangerous customers are those which never complain to the company, but post a comment in social channels. But even here where is a way out. The rep should take the customer offline through direct messaging or an email and clarify the problem as quick as possible.

And finally the best customer type - the ones who want a good service and are ready to pay for that. Their complains are reasonable and they are much interested in the results.

For sure customers cannot be always right, but anyway they should be treated with respect and sympathy. As the proverb says: “He who pays the piper calls the tune”.

It’s a reality - “Your customer makes your product”, so let’s at least try to meet their needs.

Be Where Your Customers Are!

Gone are the times of waiting on the phone to talk to a rep or waiting for an email response. Multi-channel marketing replaced many different activities and positioned in the first place.

“72% of online American adults now use social networking sites” (PewResearch Center)

Is it really so important to be where customers are and why?

The reason is that you should be in all the places where your customers are searching for information and help them find it, answer all their questions and do this as fast as possible. Customers raise their issues through social media and they don’t like to wait. If you’re late, you lose your customer – that’s the reality.

25% of consumers who complain about products on Facebook or Twitter expect a response withing 1 hour (AmericanExpress OPEN Forum)

Being on social platforms not only gives you direct access to your customers, but also gives your customers direct access to you.

“97% of customer issues can be resolved by proactive social intervention. On top of that, 40-50% of those customers end up saying positive things about the company online” (Dell Investigation).

Whether these are social media channels, different forums, blogs, comments section of articles written about your company, you should be everywhere and be ready to take action.

And which social channels to use? Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are must-channels for nearly every field.

“Facebook has 1.11 billion monthly active users ” (Facebook)

“61% of social media users primarily use LinkedIn for professional networking” (Lab42)

“Twitter has over 550 million users” (StatisticBrain )

From my own practice, I can say that I made great relationships with many authorities in my field via Twitter  and I become happy with every new thousand followers I have.

I cannot ignore Google+ too, as once I noticed to have the most link clicks from this channel.

“70% of brands have presences on Google+ ”(Simply Measured)

Pinterest? Yes, it also became a very popular one and the number of users is rapidly growing.

“Pinterest has around 50 million users” (Reuters)

To conclude I’d like to say that social channels are not only a must, but should also be something like “useful and pleasant” – that’s the secret to your success!