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Tips for an effective online chat: I

These days customers are increasingly using live chat as a communication channel to interact with websites to get instant help in case of any queries. Here are some tips to leverage online chat in order to reassure lead nurturing:

1. Offer a copy of the transcript to the customers:

Customers contact the live chat agents so that their queries are resolved instantly. The whole chat process provides them with valuable information. But, most people don’t record every conversation so this information can get lost or can be rendered futile. So, provide your customers with transcripts at the end of live chat sessions.

Transcripts
Transcripts

2. Include chat button in email campaigns:

This feature allows your customers to provide direct feedback on questions they may have regarding the email they’ve received from you. Emails could be anything from periodic newsletters or follow-ups to individual questions or grievances and embedded chat button along with it provides an ease of instant query resolution.

Embedded chat button
Embedded chat button

3. Provide chat agents with previous chat transcripts:

Providing your chat agents with a chat history for returning visitors allows the agents to come up to speed on issues that the customer discussed previously, and to proactively follow up with any questions. This will hasten up the live chat process and customers will appreciate the fact that they don’t have to repeat their previous problems to newly assigned chat agents.

Chat history
Chat history

4. Initiate an automatic response:

The only way to guarantee a quick response is to accept all incoming chats immediately. Once a customer initiates a chat session, the system should accept the chat automatically and convince the customer that a chat agent will respond shortly. Pre-canned messages can be used to welcome the customer and let him know that action is taking place immediately.

Auto accept chats
Auto accept chats

5. Inculcate pre-chat survey forms:

Pre- chat survey forms allow customers to set the direction of the conversation. They include questions that allow your chat agents the necessary background so they can provide a quick and courteous answer.  The pre-chat survey forms also allow you to quickly route the chat session to the agents who are most qualified to handle the respective conversations.

Pre-chat survey
Pre-chat survey
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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part III

1. Let your customers know how much you appreciate them:

Fans who show their loyalty every now and then by sharing your content on social media deserve to be rewarded, right? So, you can actually embed social media posts from fans who have shared your content or said something great about your brand to their followers. Put them in the spotlight and let them know how much you appreciate them and their efforts. They’ll make your brand a priority, once they see the reciprocity, The most common example is that of Soda Stream.

Soda Stream
Soda Stream

2. Send surprizes to your fans:

Who doesn’t like surprises? So, make it a point to send surprises to your fans so as to show your gratitude. Take a look at their social accounts to see what kinds of things they are fond of, and then send them something you know they’ll love. They’ll definitely share this experience with their friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else who will listen. Make sure that you do a little research and find something unique or, at the very least, different from what most people are talking about rather than sending something obvious.

Surprizes
Surprizes

3. Provide full experience to active customers:

This means keep your fans updated with your products and services. For example, if you have a product line, send them something they aren’t familiar with. If you have a premium service, give them the upgrade free of cost. This is truly the most effective way of increasing the customer lifetime value.

Service upgrade
Service upgrade

4. Acknowledge your customers’ suggestions:

Convince your customers that their suggestions are always welcomed. For this, always leave room for your customers to make suggestions that you didn’t list, and always offer some kind of incentive for participating in the poll. Even if it’s just a chance to win something small like a gift card or early access to an upcoming feature, it will make a huge difference in the number of people who actually participate.

Customer suggestions
Customer suggestions

5. Help your customers with their interests:

You can help customers do something they love. If possible, you may start “sponsoring” customers’ things that they are compassionate about.

 

 

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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part II

1. Manage all communication channels available:

Having multiple points of contact, allows customers to choose the most convenient medium for communication. According to a research, sixty percent of consumers don’t want to be contacted over the phone about special offers, information, and upgrades, while 75 percent prefer contact via email or text message. Social network tools give you the opportunity to connect and engage with your customers at any time of day, as per their convenience.

Managing communication channels
Managing communication channels

2. Offer convenient and affordable services:

Convenient and affordable services make it easier for users to enjoy what they’re paying for. Make sure that your users/customers should spend the least amount of time possible trying to use your product or service, so they can spend the majority of their time making the most out of it.

Affordable services
Affordable services

3. Create brand loyalty:

As per a research, 64% of participants said shared values were the primary reason for maintaining a relationship with their brand. Clearly communicating your brand’s philosophy or higher purpose has become very important to today’s consumers. So, you must choose a technique, which reflects your consumers’ beliefs and demonstrates them through sponsorship, events or anything relevant. Be sure to brand all marketing efforts consistently and keep your product quality high, so consumers keep returning to what’s comfortable.

Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty

4. Be there in your customers’ hour of need:

Being there in customers’ hour of need means holding their hand while the problem is solved, helping them cut through the confusion to find the solution, or getting them directly connected to the person who can help them as soon as possible.

Helping customers
Helping customers

5. Try building long term relationships:

Building and maintaining long-term relationships is a simple, effective method for increasing your CLV. While it may take a little extra time, care and consideration, it’s a great way to leverage your existing customer relationships to boost revenues without simultaneously increasing your expenses.

Long term relationship
Long term relationship

 

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How to increase customer lifetime value : Part I

Increasing your company’s customer lifetime value means:

i) increasing customer loyalty

ii) general profitability

iii) marketing allowance

In order to increase customer lifetime value:

1. Always strive for making your product better:

When you want to build your business on loyal customers and brand evangelists, you have to do something that is beyond mass consumer expectations. As a matter of fact, people love to feel like they have the best thing, no matter what that thing is. Once they feel like it’s the best, they’ll do way more than talk about it.

2. Try upselling and cross-selling:

Upselling means persuading a customer to buy something more expensive or an advanced version of a product. You sell a more expensive model, additional features or upgraded version of something. This adds value to the product.

Cross-selling, on the other hand, means selling a new or a different product/service to an existing customer. In other words, you’re selling additional products to the customer.

Both these strategies are highly effective and profitable when trying to boost the customer lifetime value (CLV) for your business, no matter, what scale or size.

3. Differentiate yourself from your competitors:

You need to differentiate yourself from your competitors in terms of features, services, resources, or whatever else your customers will place some value on.

4. Be careful when choosing incentive schemes:

As a matter of fact, choosing the right incentive structure means your customers won’t be the only ones leveraging the rewards. Utilize your rewards system to increase customer retention, and boost your customer lifetime value without compromising your bottom line. Instead of discounts, offer exclusive products or value-added services. This will further increase your CLV by promoting customer loyalty and increasing profitability in the long-term.

5. Resolve customers’ queries:

Make it quicker and easier for your customers to get their questions answered. Go above and beyond your actual product and give them something that makes their life easier on a regular basis. In other words, you need to understand your customers, figure out what would make their life easier, and build it.

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Types of sales promotions: II

1. Provide free shipping:

Providing shipping that’s free of cost is one of the greatest and most profitable sales promotions! Free shipping and return instill in the customers a sense of security that they won’t lose out if the delivered product did not meet their expectations and they wanted to return it back.

You can always incorporate the shipping cost into your product if you are worried about your margins. You may even think about offering free shipping when a customer spends over a certain amount.

Free shipping/free returns create customer security and make it hassle-free.

Free shipping and returns
Free shipping and returns

2. Implement flash sale campaigns:

Flash sale campaigns are a great way to create a sense of urgency for the customers to buy. Many retailers are now adopting this strategy as a way to sell more products and get rid of surplus stock.

The more successful flash sales are ones that don’t last very long and 50% of purchases occur during the first hour of a flash sale, hence, helping the businesses clear the surplus stock.

3. Entice customers with holiday promotions:

Holiday promotions are the most enticing types of sales promotions as customers always like to spend more on the holidays, making it the perfect opportunity for you to get your brand out there and sell more products. You don’t have to overdo your offers, but enticing customers with slight discounts will always work in your favor. It basically requires your creativity to sell out the stock through holiday promotions.

Holiday promotions
Holiday promotions

4. Offer discounts for spending more:

This kind of deal attracts the customer to buy more of your stock. Giving them a discount if they spend more is one of the greatest types of sales promotions. It may further drive them in the right direction. You don’t have to offer a huge discount, but make sure it’s attractive enough to convert visitors into buyers.

Buy more save more
Buy more save more

5. Run a competition:

Running a competition will not only help raise your profile but every person that enters will then become an email contact that you can try and convert into a sale.

Clever way of triggering sales promotions, isn’t it?

Well, if people are entering your competition, chances are they are interested in your products, so running a competition is a great idea for deepening that interest, particularly for start-ups.

 

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Types of sales promotions – I

1. Reward your customers:

Customers love discounts and stuff like that. Thus, rewarding your customers will help you build a solid base of loyal, long-term customers and it will entice people to shop more at your online store. Providing great customer service is crucial to the success of your business. These days offering a loyalty point system is a popular form of sales promotions.

In this case, the customer can gain points every time they buy and then use their points to get money off future purchases, or if they buy more, they save more.

Loyalty points
Loyalty points

2. Give away freebies:

Giving away freebies not only gives potential customers the chance to test out your product but also entices people to buy your stuff!

Now, the question arises, what to give away as freebies? Well! Branded keychains, bumper stickers, magnets, pens etc. are some options. Customers will appreciate the gesture, feel valued and will think of you whenever they see their branded gift.

3. Add discount to your products:

Offering your products at a price lesser than the regular one is the most popular sales promotion strategy. Adding a discount to your products is possibly the best type of promotion. Customers love to grab a bargain, so it makes sense to offer discounts every now and then to boost your sales. Always consider your bottom line and be sure to not constantly have a sale, as people will just come to expect this as a norm of your business.

Discounts
Discounts

4. Offer virtual coupons:

Offering digital or virtual coupons is an effective sales promotion technique that will make the promotion seem more exclusive and will give the customers more of a push to visit your online store. You should send coupons to loyal customers who have spent a certain amount. You could also consider sending coupons to visitors who have experienced bad customer service. This may help convert them back to happy customers!

 

Digital coupons
Digital coupons

5. Lowest price guarantees:

Price match promise has become one of the most popular ways to promote your brand these days, particularly if you have a lot of competitors trying to leverage the lucrative market. It allows your customers to shop with you and will be safe in the knowledge that if they can get it cheaper somewhere else, you’ll refund the difference and keep your words. There’s nothing to lose for them and it means that you still get to keep a solid, long-term customer base.

Price match promise
Price match promise
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Best customer retention strategies: Part IV

1. Ameliorate your content management:

For making choices between different services or products, people usually go with the products and services which we have heard about from their knowns or came across while browsing the web. Thus, to entice the visitors and ultimately achieve customer retention, you need to produce content which you, yourself would read and share with others.

Moreover, you need to find marketing channels and spend the time to learn how to leverage the numerous free and paid marketing channels out there. Twitter, Google+ and other communities can help you find commonly discussed topics that you can write about.

2. Overcome buyer’s repentance;

Buyer’s remorse is defined as a sense of regret after having made a typically large purchase.

Buyers are usually afraid of 2 different things:

i)Their money was worth more than the product

ii)Their colleagues won’t approve of the product or service purchase.

Therefore salespeople should effectively address buyer’s remorse before its occurrence. The salesperson should be able to convince the customer as to why this is the best option for them. If your customer is not convinced and still wants a refund, try supporting your words with case studies or testimonials that show how your product was able to efficiently solve problems in similar cases earlier.

3. Indulge in live chats or Skype calls to know your customer’s requirements:

One of the most efficacious techniques of creating an impact with your customers is to get on a call with them. This will help you get really useful feedback that you can use to improve your business. Moreover, you will stand out in that customer’s mind and make the impression that you genuinely care about their needs.

4. Make use of the system of unearthing complaints:

As a matter of fact, 96 percent of discontented customers don’t complain. They just walk away! That’s because they often don’t know how to complain, or can’t be bothered, or are too frightened, or believe it won’t make any difference. Whilst they may not tell you what’s wrong, they will tell their friends or knowns.

A system for unearthing complaints can, therefore, be a savior for your business, because customers who complain are giving you a gift, they’re still talking to you. In other words, they’re giving you another opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction.

5. Send targetted campaigns to your customers:

You can target your customers with personal and optimized marketing campaigns with the help of some amazing email and marketing services. Services like Vero and MailChimp are great for data-driven email marketing and event-triggered email marketing.

 

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Best customer retention strategies : Part III

1. Employ a proactive approach towards customer service:

Instead of waiting for problems to occur, a company that implements anticipatory service can curb problems before their occurrence. And the best way to do that is to employ a proactive approach. Knowing the problems beforehand and being ready with the best solutions helps a lot in customer retention.

Anticipatory service
Anticipatory service

2. Inculcate courtesy system:

A courtesy system refers to a powerful system that enhances the interpersonal skills of your team and changes the spirit of your organization. It involves speaking to colleagues politely and pleasantly and treating them just like you would want them to treat your customers. This will help your team to feel worthwhile and important, which will further result in pleasant social contacts at work. It also motivates them to provide extraordinary service consistently. This results in long termed loyal customers.

3. Be an expert in your particular field:

As a matter of fact, if you know every bit of your business you will likely retain more customers. Your customers will trust you, rely on you for the best pieces of advice, and recognize you as an inevitable part of their business success. All you need to do is inform them of upcoming changes. Also, you need to provide some insightful recommendations regarding their business. This proactive, approach will render customer retention strategies more effective.

4. Do whatever it takes to woo your customers:

Going that extra mile for your customers to provide customer satisfaction is an easy way to build strong relationships. By doing this, you can build some serious long-term loyalty. Moreover, if your clients know you are more than ready to go above and beyond, they will stick with you when competitors enter the lucrative market.

 

Wooing customers
Wooing customers

5. Loyalty Programs:

Loyalty programs are defined as structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program. In marketing generally and in retailing more specifically, a loyalty card or rewards card identifies the card holder as a member enrolled in a loyalty program. With these cards, customers typically earn the right:
i) either to a discount on the current purchase

ii) or to an allotment of points that they can use for future purchases.

Loyalty programs
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Best customer retention strategies : Part II

1. Reactivate the lost customers:

Customer retention can be easily achieved by dedicating resources to entice your lost customers. You can further regenerate business by approaching them in the correct way, with the correct offer. In other words, reactivating customers who are familiar with you and your product helps increase your sales.

As a matter of fact, re-contacting and overcoming their remorses and convincing them that you still value and respect them will surely result in exceptionally increased sales and boosted customer retention.

2. Utilize computerization:

Automation is yet another customer retention strategy that helps to minimize downtime. It further helps keep clients’ networks performing at their best. Moreover, leveraging automation tools and streamlining repeatable processes, companies can meet their commitments more efficiently. This further leads to customer loyalty.

Automation
Automation

3. Provide an impeccable customer service:

What is an impeccable customer service? – It means moving the product or service you deliver into the realm of the extraordinary. And how’s that done? – By delivering higher than anticipated levels of service to your customers. It includes:

i) dedication to customer contentment

ii) providing instant response

iii) no buck passing

iv) on-time delivery

v) error-free-delivery process

vi) recruiting outstanding people to deliver your customer service.

Exceptional service leads to fortunes in repeat customers, whereas poor service will drive your customers away.

Excellent customer service
Excellent customer service

4. Inculcate customer feedback survey:

As a matter of fact, customer feedback surveys are invaluable for learning whether you are meeting your clients’ expectations or not. So, Instead of comparing feedback across a broad range of customers:

i) narrow the data down to a specific client

ii) see what that client thought

iii) and take action from there.

You need to trend feedback across a period of time. You should track feedback survey in order to compare which areas have benefited and which have not. It will provide you with data regarding:

i) what customers are at risk

ii) which areas of your business need improvement

iii) and where you excel.

5. Avoid ethical shortcuts:

The design, build quality, reliability, and serviceability of your product or service should meet customers’ expectations. The way you handle the small things, as well as the large, demonstrates service integrity. Moreover, customers will be attracted to you if you are transparent with them, care for them, take a genuine interest in them.

Product integrity
Product integrity
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Best customer retention strategies : Part I

Customer retention is termed as a process of inculcating those techniques by the companies that help in the exemption of customer defections. The sole purpose of customer retention programs is to help companies retain as many customers as possible through customer loyalty and brand loyalty initiatives.

As a matter of fact, customer retention begins with the first contact a customer has with a company and continues throughout the entire lifetime of the relationship.

According to a research an average business loses around 20 percent of its customers annually due to customer dissatisfaction. In some industries, this leakage is astoundingly 80 percent. However, following some preventive measures can help curb this loss.

Here we have mentioned some of the best customer retention techniques that will enhance your customer retention significantly once implemented and will have a gigantic impact on your business.

1. Build relationships online and develop trust:

In today’s era majority of people are glued to their computer screens for hours due to those enticing social media platforms. so, connecting with your clients through these mediums can benefit you to a large extent. Majority of your clients will have active profiles on websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. So, it makes sense to connect with your potential customers through such sites. Moreover, trust is crucial in business, and building relationships with clients will cumulate that trust for you.

A study by the African Journal of Business Management found that commitment tends to grow along with trust. So you should take an interest in your clients and their business. Simply providing a service is not long enough. You further need to start building shared values with clients and showing you take an interest in them and their success.

2. Let your interest in the leads be consistent:

Though every business loses some customers virtually, not all of them measure or recognize how many of their customers become inactive. Ironically, many businesses spend lavishly on building that initial customer relationship. Then they leave that relationship unattended, in some cases even losing interest as soon as the sale is made. The easiest way to grow your business is to avoid losing your customers. Once you stop the emanation, it’s often possible to increase your growth rate quite efficaciously.

3. Identify customer expectations:

Set expectations early and lower than you can provide, so that you can eradicate uncertainty as to the level of service you need to offer to ensure your clients’ satisfaction. This technique enables your company to ensure you are always over delivering.

Since clients tend to remember negative experiences, so, your client will no doubt cite a negative experience as a reason to cancel his or her contract with you.

4. Use a rolling calendar of communication:

Building relationships with your customers are not enough! You need to be in touch using a rolling calendar of communications. This is a programmed series of emails, events, phone calls, “thank you’s”, special offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or notes with a personal touch etc. that ensure constantly and automatically at pre-decided points in the pre-sales, sales, and post-sales process.

People not only respond to this in a positive manner, they really appreciate it because they feel valued. It acknowledges them, keeps them updated, offsets customer remorse, augments the reason they’re doing business with you and makes them feel part of your business and that too an important one!

5. Implement a monthly email marketing campaign and start a blog:

Email your existing customers once every month. Touch base with them, keep them updated with your services and share a couple of great articles you believe will help them profit from their business. You should also link to your articles as a way to drive your customers to your blog.

Write a weekly article on something interesting, say, an accomplishment you feel your customers would value. However, you need to be consistent with your blog. You need to start using it as a medium to build relationships with your customers.