Overview
Every business desire to have many loyal and long-term customers who would always prefer their brand instead of their competitors. However, building a loyal customer base is not easy, it requires various factors to be fulfilled from your end. When we talk about small businesses, most of them do not have a brand value, but they have loyal customers whom they provide excellent services such as After-sale services, offering discounts, and most importantly a good Customer Experience. In this article, we will talk about various ways to manage Customer Experience for small businesses in India.
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What is Customer Experience?
Customer Experience is the perception of a customer towards your brand, product, or your business based on their experience with the same. Customer Experience can be derived from every interaction that a customer has with you or your business on an offline and online basis. A good or a bad Customer Experience would affect your business’s reputation and your customer base, and this would indirectly affect the sales of your business.
Why is Great Customer Experience important for your Business?
As we read above that a good or a bad Customer Experience would indirectly affect the sales of your business and maybe even the future of your venture. Although there are several other reasons as well that would force you to take the necessary steps for building a Great Customer experience or managing it at a personal level.
Building Loyalty and Trust
You can get many customers throughout your business venture, but to survive and turn your business into a successful endeavor you need customers who are loyal and stay in the long run. However, to create your loyal base you need to earn their trust accordingly, and what better way to build trust than by providing a Great Customer Experience?
Impact on Word of Mouth
Imagine having a few customers who have various complaints related to your services, products, or your staff. This would definitely affect the future of your business and even impact the survival itself. Word of mouth works wonders; you do not want your customers to spread negative sides about your business and hence you should focus more on providing a Great Customer Experience.
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Trustworthy and Happy Staff
Your staff is the key to driving your business into success and prosperity. Along with Customers, you also need to take care of your employees and gain their trust. If your staff are happy with the job, they would dedicate their time and efforts with all their heart and perform well. A great Customer Experience would automatically send a message that you care about them as well.
Top Ways to Manage Customer Experience
After realizing the importance of providing a Great Customer Experience to your existing customers, let us drop directly on the various ways through which you can manage and provide a Great Customer Experience.
1. Understanding Situations that Lead to Bad Customer Experience
One of the basic ways to manage Customer Experience is to understand the various ways or situations that may lead to a Bad Customer Experience. If you know the situation then you can take the necessary measures to avoid those instances that may lead you or your business into the bad books of your customer.
2. Avoid Bad Practices
Sometimes your business activities or dealings may be a bad practice in the eyes of the customers, or you may be engaged in some bad practices which you are not even aware of. The best way to avoid this situation is to analyze and evaluate the way you deal with your business, how you respond to your customers, and so on. Remember, self-analyzing is the key to avoiding mistakes and focusing on creating a good Customer Experience.
3. Train your Employees
If we talk about Small businesses, you would hardly have 1 or 2 staff or employees in your business. However, in your absence, they are the face or the representatives of your business in the eyes of your customers. To manage Customer Experience effectively, you should focus more on training your employees on how to reply courteously and deal with them in a polite manner, thereby giving them a great Customer Experience.
4. Be a Good Listener
Some of you may not agree with this point, but you should always be a good listener and listen to what your customers have to say, value their opinions, take their feedback seriously, and so on. Everyone wants someone to hear them out, you can spend a minute or two and listen to them casually, thereby building relations and providing them a good experience.
5. Assuring After-Sales Services
As a small business owner, you can afford to spend a little of your time on making sure that the customer receives proper after-sales service if necessary. After-sales service is the key to building a loyal customer brand and thereby giving them a great Customer Experience. You can ask customers’ feedbacks through your brand qr code , making it an innovative way of collecting customer reviews as well as increasing customer engagement. This would also help you with positive Word of Mouth.
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6. Taking their Opinions
Suppose you have any expansion plans or adding a new product to your store, or some marketing campaign, it would be better to ask the opinion of your customer regarding the same. You can also ask their opinion regarding your services and where you can perform better. This would again help you to build relations and create a Good Customer Experience.
7. Take feedback from your Employees
Yes, you read that right. Your employees are the ones who face customers most of the time. Now considering a small business, customers would engage with your employees as well in your absence. You can take feedback from your employees about the various situations which made the customer happy or the situations where they were unhappy with the service, and accordingly, you can improve your methods to manage Customer Experience.
Conclusion
Customer Experience is the key to building a loyal customer base which would impact the sales of your business indirectly. Various ways to manage Customer Experience are by Understanding situations leading to Bad CX, Avoid Bad Practices, training your employees, being a good listener, assuring after-sales services, taking their opinions, and taking feedback from your employees.
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