As the digital age continues to change consumer behavior, there are several ostensible pros and cons that businesses must adapt to in order to stay in the race. One noteworthy change is that it’s become trickier, to say the least, to add a personal touch to your service. Even in the traditional sense of operating, businesses have always striven to trim inefficiencies and make day-to-day operations streamlined. As a result, it’s cut off time and opportunities for businesses to interact with their consumers. Nevertheless, strategies exist to help businesses reach out to their clients in a more personal way without affecting profitability and long-term success.
Inbound Advertising
Rather than looking for consumers high and low, build a digital trail for them to find you. Create highly useful and original content that is worth reading and sharing. To do so, you’ll need a solid handle on search engine optimization or SEO. You can’t simply publish good content and hope it reaches the right audience. SEO is a set of practices that allow your content to be displayed at the highest possible search engine results pages on a web browser, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The higher your SERPs are, the more people who can view your content.
Robust Channels of Communication
Customers feel more comfortable when talking with an actual person and not a robot. Investing in an established telecommunication service provider, can help make sure your customers can reach you whenever needed. You may even want to look into a few different reviews and information sources, such as those for ACN to get more information on what would be best for you. In addition, hire people who are competent to stand as your customer service representatives. Over time, this will make the key difference between customer retention and churn rate for your business. Keep in mind, however that you shouldn’t over-serve your customers. This is especially true for brick-and-mortar businesses that serve customers firsthand. Overdoing customer service can make your brand look needy and desperate, which your customers can then use to take advantage of.
Send Customized Gifts
Customized gifts are a way to show appreciation to your most loyal customers as well as to earn the business of new ones. It can be difficult, however, to balance affordability and quality when trying to send gifts to a large customer base. Without proper budgeting, this can end up financially debilitating your business. To avoid this possibility, start a loyalty program that provides some sort of structure on how customers get these customized gifts. Customers love the special treatment, which is why giants like Amazon and Zappos have such strong VIP rewards programs. Good examples of rewards include restaurant gift cards and free upgrades on your service plans.
Capitalize New Technologies
While technology is creating a gap between businesses and their customer service initiatives, they can also be used for good. Augmented reality, for example, is one of the popular technologies that are being capitalized to strengthen existing customer relations and build new ones. This makes sense since augmented reality integrates well with the technology that people already have and are using on a daily basis. Everyone carries around smartphones today and these devices can be utilized to scan and access embedded content. For instance, you can place an image of your product on direct mail, which can be scanned and manipulated via mobile phone.
Reaching your customers has become easier, thanks to the worldwide connectivity that people enjoy. However, in some sense, it’s also become more challenging due to the ever-changing unpredictability of consumer behavior. The tips above can help you add a more personal touch to every customer interaction that you encounter on a daily basis, whether it’s a face-to-face meeting or an email message routinely sent to your leads.
