You know the value of customer experience to your brand, don’t you?
Good. So do thousands of business owners.
At this point in the 21st century, many businesses have realized the value of customer experience. To a lot of brands, customer loyalty seats at the top of their priority. A ton of them pour in thousands (even millions) of dollars into improving customer satisfaction annually.
While this is an excellent thing to do, it can have adverse effects on your business.
How, you ask?
Through overzealousness.
Let me explain…
Too much of anything is bad for you. I mean anything – food, clothes, data, money (yes, money), tax, etc.
The same goes for improving customer experience.
Some brands tend to overdo it. They tend to push their team too much into attracting, engaging, and delighting customers without stopping to observe the effect.
And when they do, they cause these 3 subtle problems I outlined in this post.
Do you want to know what the 3 problems are?
Stay with me.
These 3 problems are subtle and can go unnoticed for years.
You may observe a customer churn and think your customer experience programs aren’t doing enough. This in turn will cause you to put in more resources and effort into such programs, thereby compounding the problem.
And so, without further ado, let’s check out these 3 problems and their cures.
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Too Much Review/Feedback Requests
Surveys are already chores of their own. Pushing too much of them on your customers is adding insult to injury.
Don’t take this the wrong way. Requesting for reviews/feedback from your customers is great. It helps your customers service team see their lapses and make proper adjustments. We at Spotonwifi encourage our clients to do so.
But the problem starts when you overdo it.
Sending out review request every time your customer sneezes can be overwhelming. You customers begin to see you as a pest. It makes your brand seem needy or pushy.
And this can lead to a significant customer churn.
The cure
Slow it way down. Don’t hand out a survey every time a customer blinks. Send out surveys at specified periods and only after a customer has made considerable transaction over that period.
A better way to go is to look to multiple channels.
As you will learn from this article, surveys can be limiting. Try looking to channels such as social media, emails, call centre logs, etc.
Using VoC programs that run on Artificial Intelligence, you can capture amazing and useful insight. Robust AI algorithms can help you analyse large amount of data from different channels and paint a clearer picture.
With this, you don’t need to pester your customers for feedback to know what they think about their experience.
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Inconsistent Responses To Customer Queries
Now this happens to many brands, especially big ones.
Want to find out?
Try making enquiries to some big brands through different channels. You may discover that the response on each channel will be inconsistent.
You know why?
Because many brands fail to disseminate information to every department. Therefore, each department may have different answers to the same question based on the information they have.
As a result, it leads to inconsistency in their response to customer queries.
Some brands give different responses on different social media platforms. While they will say one thing on Facebook, they may say something else on Twitter.
This is bad because it makes your brand look incompetent, or worse, dishonest.
The cure
This inconsistency doesn’t happen because of lack of information. It happens because the information is not shared equally amongst staffs.
Create an in-house platform through which information is shared to your team. And then ensure that new information is promptly shared on that one platform.
This will make it easy for your team/staff to get the latest information.
Above all, it creates consistency in your brand’s response to customer queries.
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Tardy responses to emails
How many times have you sent an email and not get a reply for hours, days, or even weeks?
I imagine quite a few times.
We have all been there.
Customers want quick responses to their queries. And they are right to want it. They are trying to make a decision and delaying a response to their enquiries can cause them to feel frustrated.
And worse still is not responding promptly to an irate customer. That’s like adding fire to a powder keg. The end result is not pretty.
I’m sure you can see how this can cause a customer churn.
You will definitely lose your customers to a brand that responds faster to them.
The cure
Customers usually ask questions around the same things. If you keep answering every question, you will not be able to cater for every customer.
Create self-service chatbots to provide responses to repetitive question.
With it, your customers will quickly find answers to everyday questions. This helps your team channel their time and energy to more pressing queries.
In conclusion…
It is easy to get carried away with attracting, engaging, and delighting your customers. Your fancy new VoC program and kick-ass customer loyalty strategy can blind you from seeing the adverse effects on customers.
You want to pay attention to these subtle churn symptoms and take action to cure them. Or risk losing your customers to your competition.
You don’t want that, do you?
POSTED ON February 6, 2020Share:
