The start of a new year is a great time to reflect on the progress your business has made recently. It’s also an excellent opportunity to plan how to continue developing as you move forward. As we continue to social distance and work from home in 2021, many business owners are eager to learn how to stay connected with customers. If you’re hoping to prioritize customer connections this year, try these strategies on for size:
Communicate Frequently
It’s true what they say: when something is out of sight, it’s usually out of mind, too. When your customers aren’t actively engaging with your company, they may not be thinking of your products or services at all. That’s a slippery slope – go too long without communicating with your customers and they may forget about you altogether.
When it comes time to make business new year resolutions, prioritize frequent communication with your customers. This communication can come in many forms. For a designer, it may mean uploading photos of new trends and styles to social media. For a doctor’s office, frequent communication may take the form of a monthly wellness newsletter. Blog posts, videos, and even shared articles pertaining to your industry can all help to remind customers that you exist. Moreover, these opportunities for communication offer you the chance to demonstrate your value and knowledge. By presenting your organization as a thought leader in your industry and a reliable resource, customers will be eager to hear what you have to say. After all, customer connection ideas don’t have to reinvent the wheel to hold value.
Make Giving Feedback More Convenient
Customers like to have their voices heard. It’s even more satisfying when they see their suggestions and recommendations put into action. If you’re eager to learn how to connect with a customer, look no further than the feedback they provide via survey, focus group, or the data collected from other assessment tools. Dig into the comments left by both satisfied and dissatisfied customers alike. Both groups will have meaningful feedback about their experiences, allowing you to take the temperature of the average customer you serve.
Of course, not everyone enjoys taking a survey after they’ve shopped, phoned, or messaged with a business. As part of your new year’s resolution for business professionals, make it your mission to collect as much feedback as possible. This means transforming existing performance assessments into more convenient opportunities for customer connections. The process will look different for every organization. It might mean digitizing a paper survey you typically hand to customers in person, condensing lengthy phone questionnaires, designing a new assessment tool that’s more qualitative than quantitative, or even incentivizing responses. However you choose to pursue new feedback, make customer convenience your priority.
Reward Loyalty
Everybody loves a freebie. What’s even more satisfying than a random giveaway, though, is the opportunity to earn rewards over time. While you could certainly extend coupons and freebies to all your customers, it may be more beneficial to honor the relationships you build with repeat clientele. Anyone eager to learn how to reach your customers should understand, first and foremost, the power of loyalty.
Recognizing a repeat customer is just the beginning. To really connect with your customers, consider offering rewards as a thank you for their brand loyalty. This can take many different forms. Whether you decide to create a loyalty points system, a punch card, or put on a special customer rewards shopping event, be sure to emphasize your gratitude. After all, repeat customers are the bread and butter of any successful business – you’ll want to make sure your customers know how much they’re valued.
Offer Real Time Support
There are few things as frustrating as seeking real time support from a company after they’ve closed for the day. While many organizations have kept pace with the rapid demands of an increasingly globalized economy, small businesses often struggle to meet customer expectations. There’s no more clocking out and heading home at the end of the business day any more – instead, customers expect to be able to get a hold of a real, live human being on their terms, night and day.
As you make your business new year resolutions, consider what customer service looks like after you and your colleagues have gone home for the night. Are customers sending after hours emails or leaving voicemails? Are you frequently missing calls or feeling chained to your work cell phone? There are ways of balancing the demands of both work and home without sacrificing the customer experience.
Stay Connected, 24/7
MAP Communications has been synonymous with customer connections for 30 years. We work night and day to ensure there’s always a warm, friendly voice on the end of the line. If you’re eager to maintain consistent connections with your customers but are also hoping to prioritize a healthier work/life balance, MAP Communications is the solution.
Allow our team to take your calls for the next week. During a free week trial, you’ll be privy to all the benefits of a partnership with MAP Communications with zero obligation to continue using our services after the trial ends. Business new year resolutions are all about trying new things – why not try MAP?
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