Every savvy marketer knows that good customer service implies more than just distributing your service or product to the audience.
It implies all steps of a customer life cycle: starting with initial engagement, passing through conversion and ending up with retention and extension. It’s like walking your customers throughout a long alley, showing them what they have to do at each step. An important component of customer service is also represented by customer renewals.
However, regardless of the stage where the customer finds himself at, you must ensure him a smooth and satisfying experience all throughout. In this regard, there are two main parts which need to be considered:
PART 1
Boosting Potential: Customer Acquisition
Although your customers come check your website because they’re interested, they might not yet be committed – this represents the profile of the potential customer, who waits to see what you have to offer. This process is known as customer acquisition, and it can be deemed as the most important process since, in its absence, nothing will follow.
Developing The Potential: Customer Acquisition
They come to your Web site looking around, interested but not yet committed – the potential customer, waiting for the right offering to meet their needs. This is what we all know as customer acquisition – the most important stage because, without it, nothing follows.
If you want to convince customers to shop with you, than you have to adopt the right attitude. This conception often requires you to:
- Identify which the first-time customer is
- Understand what his interests are, and see what is going to trigger the buying decision for him
- Designing a product which meets exactly his needs and presenting it in a unique way
The wrong way to do this would imply to ask for payment information before the visitor is committed to buying your product and not keep the registration process short and concise.
Customer Support: What Happens After The Deal is Closed
If you want your business to prosper, than you have to take into account the entire customer life cycle process. If you ignore the rules of retention and extension, than chances are that things will go down south.
In this regard, you have to remind the customer constantly about the benefits he gets from your product, the time when his license expires, and why he should continue to follow up with your product.
PART 2
Continued Engagement Rules: Customer Retention
Customer Loyalty
After making the sale, it’s important to keep up with your customers and find out how satisfied they are with your product. This can be a done through a simple phone call, a live webinar, or even through web links to a users’ forum.
A live chat system such as LivePerson could also do wonders in this regard, since it allows the customer to easily get in touch with you. With additional tools such as WalkMe, you can create avid fans and advocates.
Prevention of Loss
If you want your customers to not get tempted by your competition, than you have to provide them with the best possible.
Technology can be quite a great asset, and enhancing your website’s functionality through an interactive guidance system or live chat will really help in boosting customer retention and preventing inadvertent loss.
Lowering Total Costs
By investing more on the training and education side of the consumer, you can actually lower the sum that your business spends with customer service agents, employee training, and so on.
Remember, it’s all about maintaining the customer’s interest in your product. If it need be, introduce tools that encourage self-service and lower costs for the business at the same time. It also adds to the user experience if they see cool tools helping them. It shows you care.
Part 3
Customer Extension
If you want customers to renew their contract with you, than you have to make it look like what you have to offer is really the best on the market. Make sure to highlight the advantages of your product in the emails you send, and provide relevant customer testimonials on the site which will boost the users’ trust in your product. Additionally, make sure to explain customers (in a nice way) what they loss if they don’t continue using your service.
If you make an active effort in engaging the customer and present your product’s advantages in an appealing manner, than you’re highly unlikely to fail. Remember to approach each part of the customer life cycle support in order, as only this way you’ll manage to convert an anonymous visitor into a satisfied and returning customer.
