Whether you are an online or offline franchise business, exceptional customer service is crucial to the continued success and growth of the brand.
When customers are happy with your franchise they are more likely to purchase your products or services and recommend you to their friends. With so many people now communicating with businesses online it’s important to improve your online customer service to attract and retain potential customers.
Great online customer service can help to build your brand, increase your good reputation, gain loyal customers and grow your franchise.
Here are some tips to help you improve your online communication and customer service.
Train franchisees
If franchisees are communicating with customers online on behalf of the business it’s important to train them on how to provide exceptional customer service.
If one franchisee provides a customer with a negative experience online it has the potential to turn into a major crisis and damage the reputation of the brand.
Training your employees to communicate effectively online may involve providing them with guidelines for online communication or a social media policy. These guidelines can outline how franchisees should respond to customers, what the franchisee’s role is online, what tone of voice to include in their writing and more.
With the proper training franchisee’s can help manage your interactions online to create more happy customers.
Find your target audience
It’s no use communicating online if you are not reaching the right audience. A major part of providing great customer service is knowing where your customers are online and talking to them directly.
An online marketing strategy can help you to find where your customers are online and get your franchise in front of them. This will enable you to improve customer service by keeping customers informed and speaking to them directly.
Social Media
With so many customers now using social media it’s important to maintain exceptional customer service on this channel to build a great reputation for your franchise.
Great customer service involves always responding to comments in a timely manner, providing interesting and relevant information, posting appropriate images, being helpful and maintaining a polite tone. It also involves engaging your customers in a conversation with the business to build a relationship with them and improve their customer loyalty.
You also have the opportunity to make your customers feel special by offering discounts, promotions or insider knowledge about the franchise.
If you feel like your social media skills are not up to scratch you may consider doing a training course to learn how to engage customers on social media.
Keep customers informed
Customers like to be updated with current news about the franchise, especially in areas that will affect them. It’s then important to stay in regular contact with customers to inform them of current news, products or changes to your franchise.
The internet provides a quick, easy and inexpensive way of communicating with customers through online channels including online business directories such as FranchiseBusiness.com.au, your website, social media and eNewsletters.
Keeping your customers informed can help your brand to stay top of mind, increase sales leads and improve customer satisfaction.
Help customers find what they are looking for
Your customers will become frustrated with the franchise if they are unable to find the information they were looking for. Make it easy for potential customers to find your franchise online by improving your website and search engine optimisation.
This involves including keywords in your content, regularly adding fresh content to your website and gaining backlinks to your website. Your information will then have a better chance of appearing in customer’s relevant search engine results.
Once customers land on your website it’s important to enable them to find the right information quickly. You can make your website more customer friendly by having visible contact details, an easy navigation system, links to internal information and clear specific content.
Improving your online communication and customer service can lead to greater customer loyalty, improved sales and business growth.
