How to Engage and Retain Clients or Customers Online
So many companies spend so much time crafting their brand message, developing new ways to drive revenue, stretching every advertising dollar to receive “the most bang for the buck”, striving to close more business – but fall short when it comes to customer service.
Once you get the customer, how do you treat them when an issue arises? In other words, how do you retain customers and clients?
When a question or challenge arises, a customer never wants to hear “well, that’s our policy” which invokes a complete disregard for your business. Clearly not the best approach, considering that a client may already be dissatisfied.
Most companies do not have a “customer retention policy” in place when dealing with a dissatisfied customer, but use phrases and terminology to simply get the customer off the phone.
In a world where social media is part of our daily communications landscape, you may not lose one customer but countless numbers. This concept leads to Social Media PR / Brand Management – finding out what previous and existing customers, prospects and affiliates are saying about your brand.
Creating a strategy as to how to handle those comments, positive or negative, is an essential component of social media marketing strategy.
In order to service clients effectively first you must be a good listener and address the issue, challenge or need of the consumer.
Engagement in valuable discussion also prevents negative situations from reoccurring, if handled correctly. If a particular issue is not something that can be corrected, then you may want to consider offering discounts on products or services to show appreciation, for example. With this backup policy in place, even if the customer writes about his or her experience on any social media or opinion site, they would be more inclined to also explain what the company offered in terms of correction or compensation.
This turns a negative experience into a positive one.
It is important to learn how to solve issues as they arise rather than to wait for a “PR nightmare” to occur. Unfortunately, many brands fail in the face of the digital landscape (which is clearly here to stay), but it doesn’t have to be that way! Be proactive, do the right thing, and your client/customer retention rate will be impacted positively and significantly.
That’s OUR Policy!
