How satisfied are your customers with the quality of service that you deliver on a daily basis? Customer satisfaction is the bread and butter for service oriented businesses and delivering on a high standard of customer service will keep your clients happy. Understanding your customers’ services, products, mission/vision and goals are key factors in developing, nurturing and retaining a trusting relationship/partnership with your clients. Not understanding these factors could lead to lost business and revenue for both you and your clients. Therefore it’s important to measure, track, improve upon and remain consistent with the level of service you and your team provides. Coupled with a commitment to quality of service, these core factors lean heavily on your team’s willingness to engage in and deliver on quality service. Achieving a high level of customer satisfaction will require a commitment from all team members. To service your clients with understanding of the key factors, a commitment to quality and a way to measure that level of satisfaction is key. Here at mediate.ly we use Net Promoter Score® to rate each customer and find out just how happy they are with your organization and learn early on the areas for improvement. But before you scroll down, here are a few tips that we believe in and practice daily with our clients.
1. Be Authentic
This might sound cliché and someone once said if you have to talk about being authentic then you’re not authentic. But the factor of the matter is you have to practice this over and over again in order to truly deliver on it. Clients know when someone is not authentic. Take the time to learn about their business struggles, celebrate their wins and show genuine interest in their personal well-being. They are humans first before they are customers. Make find something in common and make a personal connection.
2. Be Loyal
Who doesn’t want loyalty. Some of us demand it from our friends and family so why not be loyal to our customers. Loyalty requires going to the extra mile or often offering them something special to show them how much you value them and their partnership. Here are some of the trends that highlights loyalty:
- 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers.
- 80% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
- A 2% increase in customer retention can lower costs by as much as 10%.
3. Communicate Often
Here are mediate.ly we have weekly touch points with our clients and in between that we communicate via Basecamp around our projects’ to-do’s, files and campaign optimization notes. Otherwise email, phone or text are table-stakes in our communication to clients. The old school in me, prefer that phone call over email or text. For me the phone call or video conference is the next best thing to being in person. Both phone call and video conference show that we’re available. These types of communication techniques don’t require a formal meeting. Talking to your clients often is a great way to get a temperature and know early on when something is off balance. Customer engagement goes a long way in fostering that relationship/partnership.
4. Encourage Feedback
Clients always have the final say. You can make recommendations, provide statistics to back up your recommendations but ultimately the client has the final say and they need to feel comfortable in provide you with feedback. So listen, ask questions and encourage candidness. This leads to results from our recent Net Promoter Score®.
5. What Our customers Are Saying About Us
Relationships are built over time and once you have built a solid foundation with trust, loyalty, professional connection and great communication, it will take a great level of effort to keep it that way. Here are some quotes from actual mediate.ly clients.
"You manage our account like it was your own business."
“They are part of the team. They are responsive and care about what we do […]. We could not ask for better Media partners.”
Final Thoughts
Happy customers won’t entertain offers from your competitors. They will be reference-able and gladly interact with prospects on your behalf. If you and your team practice daily to be authentic, be loyal and talk often then you will maintain a high level of satisfaction among your clients.