Communication is one of the main components of a business. You see these applied in various forms. Written in the text as you see in posts and on ads.
For online businesses, communication is a massive key component. It manifests in everything that you see from the content shown, written or otherwise.
In customer service, communication is the most important piece. Providing excellent customer service boils down to how you communicate with the customer. Especially as you address their issues and provide resolutions.
We will look at how small businesses can boost their online customer communication. These include best practices that you can apply to your business. Thus, letting your customers stay and avail of your products and services more.
Use Live Engagement Tools
Live engagement helps in talking to customers and resolving their issues first hand. Make sure to have live engagement tools at your disposal. This will help customers with the questions and issues they have with the product or service.
These tools include live chat, video chat, and co-browsing. With these at your disposal, you get to know first-hand the issues that ail them.
Here, you can identify the issue and be able to offer the right solution. This helps with reducing the number of interactions. In this case, the interaction denotes customer effort in addressing the problem.
For instance, video chat lets you conduct a face-to-face conversation with the customer. This provides a personalized conversation where you find out firsthand about the problem. From there, you get to fix it without needing the customer to come back again with the same issue.
For technical issues, co-browsing helps you see what the customer is having a problem with. You get to see the details and information about the issue firsthand. This way, you can think of solutions faster and more effectively.
Setup Proactive Communication
A proactive approach provides customers a prompt avenue for resolutions. Instead of them writing about the issue and waiting for a long time, they can pick up this opportunity to do that right away. This is where the live chat function comes in.
With a proactive live chat, you can initiate the conversation. This catches the customer’s attention and it causes them to respond right away. It eliminates the waiting time and they get to converse with you.
In fact, 79 percent of customers prefer to use live chat due to its speed and convenience. It stands out more when compared to using email or phone to contact customer service. In using live chat, remember that you need to be as responsive as possible.
Send Follow Up Messages
You need a constant connection between you and the customer. Even after the end of the conversation. This is an important point in effective customer communication.
Make sure to establish customer retention so that they can come back to do business with you even more. This is where follow up comes to play.
In this case, you can send follow-up emails to your clients. This way, you can gauge their level of satisfaction with your services after a week or two of the sale.
You can also send a follow-up email to provide them updates on the services that you have. You can also send updates to inform them about their milestones and anniversaries.
One of the ways to make follow-up messages and emails effective is to make them less rigid. Give your emails a personal touch to elicit a response from your recipient.
Use Positive Language
In addressing customer issues and problems, using positive language is a helpful boost. It also helps when answering common customer questions.
This way, it helps remove the stress from the situation. Thus, providing a more encouraging tone in doing certain actions.
In customer service, language set on a negative tone can cause more tension than needed. You need to avoid killer words such as “calm down” or “You don’t understand.”
Improve customer interaction by saying yes to easy-to-understand terms when explaining the technical aspects of the issue. Make sure to not interrupt while they explain the situation and listen with intent.
In situations where you are on a live chat instead of a live call or video call, your choice of words can help improve the situation. Ask direct questions to get a direct answer. In instruction, provide a more positive language where you say “Try using this…”
Collect Customer Feedback
Make it a point to collect customer feedback as much as possible. This way, you have the means to gauge the performance of your services. Customer feedback helps your business as you can see possible points where you can improve and provide a better experience for your customers.
Customer feedback also helps you gauge what they think about your brand. It also opens a channel for customers to converse with you and with it, build relationships that last long. You can do this by encouraging them to provide reviews, insights, and suggestions.
This is where email and social media open up those channels. In the case of a conversation, this is the part where you listen to know how you can make everything about your business better than before.
Automation Helps
You also need to streamline the process of gaining customer feedback. You can set this up using automation tools where you have bots that can respond on chats to answer frequently asked questions. You also have tools that can help you gauge the bottlenecks that customers encounter on your website.
You can check this out to know what to look for when troubleshooting your website for its user experience. This allows you to see the issues that customers encounter when they browse your web pages and more.
Improve Your Online Customer Communication
Online customer communication is an important factor for businesses. By improving this aspect, you get to know what your customers need and be able to address them. Find ways in providing them a better customer experience and cultivate lasting relationships, letting you build their loyalty in the process.
Did you find this guide useful? Do you want to learn more about managing a business? Check out more of our guides to help your business grow today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.