If you want to grow your business over the coming months, you probably realize that focusing on customers and providing them with a top-notch experience every time can make a big difference to your bottom line. Having a customer-focused organization can lead to a higher conversion rate, increased loyalty, and many more referrals from raving fans.
However, to really wow your clients with the customer experience you provide, you need to have all of your team on board so that shoppers are impressed at each touchpoint and through each interaction they have with your business. If you’re keen to lead a truly customer-focused organization, read on for some top tips you can follow today.
Improve Your Leadership Skills
The first step in creating a venture that concentrates on customers at all levels is to make sure that you are the best leader you can be. It pays to enroll in an online MBA accredited program or similar degree that will teach you the ins and outs of leading a team and being the type of manager that gets the results you need — something that involves having a team around you just as focused on satisfying customers as you are.
When you increase your leadership skills, you will learn how to effectively motivate, inspire, recognize, and reward employees. By knowing how to interact with your team well and get the best out of them, you will, in turn, ensure that they deliver the best to your customers. Being a top manager will also help you to lead by example. When you show your employees that you’re committed to customers, and that decisions are made based on what is best for them, your team will see that they need to follow suit.
Being a good leader is also about having strong communication skills and knowing how to effectively get across your organization’s vision, mission, and short-term and long-term objectives to your employees. After all, it’s only after understanding what the end-goal is (that customers should come first) that workers will be able to follow through as you would like.
Hire the Right People and Train Them Well
Of course, another factor in leading well is actually choosing the best people for every position in your firm to start with. You will really only ever have the customer-centric business you’re after if you hire the right people with the necessary skills, experience, and characteristics.
When selecting new staff members, it is important to look at not only the standard things normally considered for a role (such as training, and time spent in a similar role), but to also examine whether each candidate’s personality traits and core values happen to align with your goals and expectations.
Search for people who can demonstrate empathy, communication skills, adaptability, and problem-solving traits; and those who are passionate about the job and dealing with people on a regular basis. It also pays to look for candidates who have an optimistic outlook on life, since they’re going to be more likely to stay calm and looking on the bright side even when things get very challenging with customers.
Focus on Customer Retention
Next, as you run your business, keep in mind that the companies around the world that really focus on their customers don’t just think about how to land new clients all the time (acquisition), but who also concentrate energy on keeping customers once they have them (retention), and continually finding ways to turn clients into raving fans.
While seeking out new customers is certainly important, so is retaining the ones you have. This is done by following up regularly, listening to and being there for clients, and appreciating and rewarding them on a regular basis (e.g., with access to new products or services before others, loyalty points, discounts and bonuses, free services and upgrades, and more).
Your current customers should want to stay loyal to your company because they get treated so well they have no reason to go elsewhere. They will then, in turn, drive new business to your firm because they’re so happy and recommend your service to their friends, family members, and colleagues.
To ensure that your team members, especially your customer-service representatives, are concentrating on keeping customers happy, it pays to make retention rates one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) within your business. This will keep employees focused and working on customer satisfaction every day.
Be Open and Flexible
Lastly, a good way of leading a customer-focused organization is to remain open and flexible in your dealings with clients and in the way that your business operates. Be aware that while your customers may be similar in certain respects, they’re all individuals with different needs, wants and lifestyles, and come from varying backgrounds. As a result, your customer service shouldn’t be set to a one-size-fits-all approach.
It is helpful to empower your employers to personalize customer interactions wherever needed, so that customers come away from making a purchase, asking a question, mentioning an issue, etc., feeling satisfied and heard. Be open and flexible enough to cater to different tastes, problems, and situations and you will increase your customer loyalty to boot.