With such a competitive market in many industries these days, brands are looking for a way to reinvent themselves; to offer something different to their current client base with the same goal in mind: referrals.
What’s with referrals and how does impact our company’s performance? Let’s put it this way: Your e-store gets around 15-20 orders a day, and 2 of them happened to experience issues on the user’s end. You can say: well, it’s the client’s fault for not reading carefully how the product is expected to be used, but also you can look at this from the customer’s side and help the user to solve the issue experienced, thus getting a thumbs-up in what Customer Service respects.
The first answer to the scenario we showcased will undoubtedly lead to bad propaganda, as you simply don’t care about what your clients do with your products as long as you get enough sales a day. And bad propaganda translates into lower sales, eventually to a business bankruptcy. However, if we choose the second approach, we will not only experience the customer’s gratitude but also good, free advertisement on how does our company responds to customer’s complaints. That’s the power of referrals.
Tactics to Improve Customer’s Experience
There are countless ways in which we can help our clients to feel more comfortable at the moment of acquiring our products or services. Depending on the style of business we have, then we can trace strategies that certainly will help our company to reach a broader audience in no-time.
For e-shops, it’s all about Customer Service. Since you don’t have a physical place in which your clients can claim assistance, or even in some cases you don’t count with the services of a phone line for which your clients could get assistance, then the best shot you got is to acquire the services of a Live Chat provider. There are multiple clients for these tools, as we can name TidioChat or Zopim; therefore, weigh pros and cons of each Live Chat client prior making your choice. The essential aspects you need to take into consideration are:
- 24/7 service
- Possibility of getting email notifications in case your operators are away and clients request help
- Interaction with Social Media Platforms as Facebook
- Ease of Use
- Amount of operators allowed per plan
- Price
In case you have a physical office to sell your products or services, you need to work essentially on infrastructure and extra services that can sum up for the user satisfaction.
For starters, make your goal to build a cozy office: designer’s furniture, coffee machines available for clients without paying any extra fees and a television streaming music videos or news broadcast (for those cases in which clients need to wait a long time). It’s also important to acknowledge potential issues that your office space may have, as is the case with low-signal coverage, as tends to happen in certain buildings or city areas far too crowded with antennas and overlapping Wi-Fi signals. Further information on this behalf can be studied in this infographic courtesy of ForRent.com
How Good Referrals Translate into Increased Sales Numbers
Our endgame in getting referrals is to boost sales, the prime goal of any company. However, to fully understand the impact that client’s input can do for our business, it would be best to explain, in clear numbers, how good referrals can be a game changer.
Thanks to a study hosted by the communications marketing firm Edelman in 2014, we can assume that 68% of customers trust the reviews posted online, being 84% of those customers’ potential buyers due to the recommendations made at credible sources of information (i.e.: Amazon, PCMag, CNet, etc.). Therefore, how does a proper referral system works?
Start by building a name out of your brand: you can do this by getting review blog posts of the products you are offering to your clients at authority websites (or respected websites if you cannot reach an authority website’s editor as your brand hasn’t grown enough yet). That way, you are making a buzz about what your company provides, but that isn’t enough to bring clients on its own.
Invest time and resources in hosting a place at your website where clients can upload their thoughts about your products/services as “customer reviews”. Visual aids also help, and many plugins on the market can offer these services without much hassle. Be sure also to give something back to encourage those reviews, like an exclusive product that cannot be acquired by any other mean, or a discount code for an upcoming order.
By putting these strategies into practice, you are not only growing your brand’s name but also giving something back to the community. Be creative, make a name out of yourself.
Good luck!
