Published on 9th May 2018 by Gemma Harding
When it comes to providing the best possible service to their customers, larger businesses can feel at a disadvantage compared to smaller companies.
Large companies often have far more customers than smaller companies. As a result, they sometimes struggle to provide each customer the time that they need to resolve their problem. And when you can’t solve a customer’s problem, it’s only a matter of time before they start looking elsewhere.
However, big businesses actually have a number of advantages over their smaller counterparts. If wielded properly, they can plug the leaks in their customer loyalty strategy by ensuring that their customers feel like they’ve been listened to.
Below, we’ve taken a look at the best ways larger companies can boost their customer loyalty.
1. Be available whenever a customer wants to contact you
In the internet age, customers expect big brands to be contactable at all times.
Even as far back as 2013, British Airways had to learn this the hard way, when a complaint from a customer called Hasan Said went viral. After the story broke and BA’s lacklustre response, Said asked: “How does a billion-dollar corporation only have 9-5 social media support for a business that operates 24/7?”
Now, social media support has become an industry norm, and those brands that aren’t fully embracing it — and its around-the-clock nature — are falling behind. Recent studies show that 63% of customers expect brands to offer customer service on social media, and 1 in 3 social media users say that they would use the platform to contact a company for help before any other medium.
The good news is that large businesses that embrace social media can enjoy some huge benefits, as 65% of people say they feel more loyal to a brand that reaches out to them on social media. That makes platforms like Facebook and Twitter essential customer retention tools.
A great way to capitalise on this is to invest in a customer service team that can use live chat and social media to respond to customer queries at all hours to help build brand loyalty.
2. Provide customers with all the information they need
One advantage that larger companies have over their smaller counterparts is that they typically have more CRM resource to produce detailed email strategies.
One of the first and most important steps in building customer loyalty is ensuring that all potential customers are given a proper welcome to your brand. Over the course of your initial emails, a customer should learn about your company’s mission, about other products relevant to them, and any key features relevant to them that they have access to across your site.
A successful welcome journey can also prove lucrative. Research from Experian showed that welcome emails typically generated three times as many transactions per email as other promotional emails.
Create a welcome journey that introduces your customer to your brand in the best way possible. Use this opportunity for them to provide feedback and ask questions, either via an online portal, an independent review website or by replying to the email directly.
If you have access to more advanced CRM systems, you can create welcome journeys that react dynamically to a customer’s decisions; if they choose to go to your FAQs and leave, you could follow up with an email allowing them to ask their own question for a customer service representative to answer directly. This gives you the edge over smaller companies that don’t have the same resources.
3. Subvert expectations
Customers tend to trust big brands less than smaller ones. According to Forrester, consumer trust is at an all-time low, with media stories of fraudulent dealings on a wide scale continuing to diminish the belief that brands are acting in the public’s interest.
Many larger companies have customer services departments that are struggling beneath a backlog of calls, so, unfortunately, many people have had at least one call with a big brand in recent years that was a little tenser than it should have been.
However, you can use this common conception to your advantage.
Investing in your customer services department is the first step. If your customer services department has to deal with too many calls each day, overall customer satisfaction will be lower as a result. Ease congestion by hiring a call centre that can help with call overflow during peak times.
That way, your staff will feel more relaxed and empowered to spend more energy resolving each customer’s issue in a friendly, proactive manner. A great customer service experience can turn even the most difficult problem into an opportunity for brand advocacy, so the more you invest in your people, the bigger the returns when it comes to customer retention and acquiring new customers.
4. Invest in your people
Boosting customer loyalty when your business is growing can be tough, but the solution comes down to investing in the right kind of people. Having more staff on hand to respond to queries in a timely, friendly manner — whether that’s on social media, with proactive emails or over the phone — is the best way to ensure each customer is given the best possible treatment. That way, you subvert the negative expectations that your customers might have, helping you stand out from the crowd.
To find out more about how CALLCARE can help you keep more of your customers happy, get in touch today.
Posted by Gemma Harding
As Head of Client Services, Gemma is an expert in the customer service industry. With over 20 years of experience in the call handling process she will guide your organisation to an improved customer service strategy. Hobbies include all thing equestrian.
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