Improving Customer Satisfaction: A Guide

Without customers, your business will very soon be worthless. It’s not just about getting them either; for a business to be successful, it needs to keep them.

To retain your customers, their satisfaction needs to be a high priority. In the long term, it’s good for your business reputation and keeping current customers is a far cheaper alternative to acquiring new ones. Bad or dissatisfied customers can be very detrimental for your business, so it pays to keep them on your side. How do you improve customer satisfaction? There’s no magic solution, but there are a few principles that have been shown to make a difference, such as those below.

Make Things as Easy as Possible for Them

Your customers will be wowed if you make the purchasing process seamless and simple. Having to negotiate their way through several different pages will soon make any potential customer switch from your site to a competitor. They might buy one or two things from your online store but will quickly look elsewhere for their purchases if it proves too complicated. Amazon is an excellent example of a good way to do it, with its one-click option. Customers are kept informed of the latest offers and effortlessly directed to making a purchase; SellerCloud is an integrated, powerful platform that can help you do this with your business.

Ask for Feedback

How are you going to keep your customers happy if you don’t know how they feel? You can look at your service from their point of view and hope to get things right. However, there is no substitute for getting feedback straight from them. Provide a way for them to give you feedback, and be prepared for not all of it to be good. If your customers can’t complain to you directly, they will be more likely to do it on social media or to their friends. Having a mechanism they can use will allow you to react quickly and remedy the situation, allowing you to turn a bad situation into a more positive one.

Keep Customers Informed and Answer Their Questions

There are very few customers that don’t have a question every now and again. You should aim to answer them swiftly, either manually, via your interface or by providing documentation. Customers who can’t find the answers to their questions are going to be very frustrated and end up looking elsewhere. Conduct your own experiments and see how good your system is. If you can’t find the answer to the most popular questions, as well as some of the obscure ones, how can you expect your customers to do it?

Make Them Feel Special

Treat every one of your customers as though they are a VIP. Each one of them should be afforded the same excellent treatment. Think how you’d like to be treated. Always thank your customers for their purchases, help and assist them at every opportunity, and importantly, if you make any promises, you need to keep them. Even if the promise is something as simple as getting in touch when a product is back in stock. The small things can be easily forgotten, and your customers might well look for another supplier.
If a customer is unhappy with the service you provide, it’s almost certain they will not come back again, even if your product is better. That’s why it’s important to keep them on your side at all times.