For small businesses, the key to success is building a solid customer base. With reviews and recommendations, they can help you build a positive online reputation and spread the word about your products. The best to have a loyal client base is high customer satisfaction. Here are a few ways you can help your business
Quality Products
It’s crucial to maintain products at their best shape. For instance, materials like paint and epoxy work best when they’re kept at a certain temperature. You can use a silicone drum heater to ensure that they won’t harden and lose quality. They’re also very useful during winter months. Even if you have a poor heating system, your products won’t freeze in storage. With proper insulation, you can make sure that clients will get their order at their best quality.
The saying, “if it isn’t broke, why fix it?” isn’t always true for everyone. You can still continue to experiment with the ingredients to improve your products. One example is the skincare brand, The Ordinary. With its competitive prices and quality products, it has gained a solid following all over the world. Nicola Kilner, the CEO of the brand’s parent company, credits the success to its formulas that are frequently changed and improved.
To help you improve your products, you have to seek and listen to customer feedback. They can tell you what and what didn’t work for them. Perhaps you’re using ingredient that has a better and cheaper alternative. Or there are other tools that can do the job more efficiently.
Fair Policy
Mistakes are inevitable in business. There might have been mix ups in orders. A product might have been damaged because of different reasons. Or maybe you can’t deliver on services due to outside factors. For instance, the pandemic has had a terrible effect on the tourism industry. Millions of dollars worth of flights and hotel reservations have been cancelled. The problem is it’s been difficult for many customers to get their money back. Instead, some companies have been issuing flight vouchers instead of refunds. During a serious health crisis where it’s unknown when it will be over, people would rather have their cash back than travel within a certain period. While you can’t meet your customers’ expectations with your service, you can still provide fair treatment. Even if you business sells products instead of services, you can still have a generous policy. Some of the most successful retailers have really considerate policies. It builds trust, improves customer satisfaction, and encourages better customer retention. Because people associate your brand with great policies, they’re bound to return and recommend you to others.
Accommodating Customer Service
Contrary to the popular saying, the customer isn’t always right. It could be due to lack of knowledge or simple miscommunication. Nevertheless, it’s always important to address their questions and complaints politely and fairly. It’s one thing to provide an unsatisfactory product or service, but it’s another thing to be known as unprofessional. In the era of social media, everything is recorded and shared. One bad exchange can turn many people away from your business. On the other hand, great customer service can keep clients despite an error in their order. Because they had a good exchange, the lasting experience is positive. It can also help improve your online reputation. A study has found that 49% of consumers are more willing to post about their positive experiences rather than their negative ones.
When it comes to dealing with customers, it’s important to help them solve their problems. Avoid handing off their cases to others and personalize responses.
Good Packaging
When it comes to building a brand, first impressions are important. Unlike big companies, people have no clue about your business offline. All they know are what they heard from other people and what they read on the internet. One way to make a great first impression is with a good packaging. You don’t have to make it in a way that you’re spending more on the packaging than the product. You can keep it simple and work on the basics. Focus on the function. It doesn’t matter how pretty it looks, if it’ll make your consumers’ life harder not easier. It should also contain important information like what it contains and how it’s used. Consider using recycled materials which are better for the environment.
When it comes to customer satisfaction, the crucial thing is to see things from their perspectives. Your products and services should be helping them, not inconveniencing them. Listen to what clients have to say and improve on your processes.