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Why Bother With Post-Sales Follow Up?

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While continuously finding and acquiring new customers is great for business, maintaining good relationship with current customers is also crucial, ensuring repeat business and loyal customers.

Acquire New Customers, Keep Them Close

A new customer entails going through the process of introducing the business, its product and services, gaining their trust, and of course, convincing them to actually spend their hard-earned money. A repeat customer however, is already familiar with the business, knows what it offers, and has faith in the brand because they’ve already tried it for themselves. That’s why it’s important to have a good relationship with present customers, a stable base who can generate new referrals, bring in potential clients.

Post-ales follow up is vital in keeping and maintaining business-client relationships. It makes clients feel the business’s commitment to customer service and satisfaction, build rapport, and open doors for expansion.

It’s All Worth the Effort

Maintaining your customer base seems like a lot of work, but if it’s worthwhile if you consider the return on investment. Post-sales follow up is the company’s way of showing its sincerity to the customers that it cares. It’s as simple as sending them a thank you note after a purchase, calling to ask about their experience with the product or service, or taking it up a notch by offering warranties, repairs, updates on related products that they may want, and offering discounts and incentives for referrals. These build up the company’s presence to its customer base, eventually to its market. It always pays to build a stronger relationship with existing customers.

Post-sales follow up is a way for the company to ensure customer satisfaction. And with the feedback given by their clients, they’ll be able to find new ways to improve their business. In doing so, not only will they be able to cater to their existing market better, but also their target market as a whole. The little things add up, and that’s what post-sales follow up is all about.

Elsewhere on this blog:

5 Ways Customer Feedback Can Help Grow Your Business

Business 101: How to Widen Customer Network Using Social Media

Should You Outsource Your Customer Service?

Four Easy Steps to Calming Angry Clients

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Customer complaints are expected even in thriving businesses, constant reminders that there will always be opportunities for growth. The question is how to handle these complaints in such a way that both you and your customer come out as winners.

Actually, there is no sure-fire formula to effectively handling disgruntled clients. In many large businesses, staff leasing is considered the solution; a complaints department or team is created to make sure that grievance calls are addressed promptly. Sadly, even this is sometimes ineffective. When dealing with an angry customer, only four things should be observed.

1. Listen.

Some people are simply fed up with the customer service and just need to release that pent-up emotion. The call that they make serves as their outlet and your role is to listen patiently to what they have to say, without judging them in any way. At some point during the call, your caller will calm down. That will be your cue to offer a solution, but make sure that you fully understand the problem.

2. Repeat.

Once you sense that the customer has let down his guard, repeat the problem back to him to make sure that you got it right. Getting corrected at this point should be expected because how you tell the problem may not be what your caller wants to hear. Continue this “parrot” technique of presenting the problem until the customer agrees to what you say.

3. Empathize.

With the two of you agreeing on the issue, offer an apology for what your customer has experienced. Saying sorry may have become too common in many complaints cases, but if you say it with a sincere heart, it will always have a calming effect on your caller. Follow this up with the appropriate solution and an explanation as to why the problem came up, but without putting the blame on others.

4. Assure.

A strong assurance that the issue is an isolated case and is not a normal procedure will inspire your customer to stay with the business. In some cases, making a follow-up call a few days after the problem was resolved comes highly recommended. Not only do you get to find out if your client is satisfied with your service, your call can help bring back that all-important customer trust.

Empathy should be the first thing on your mind when handling customer complaints. It’s an important element of frontline service, and it’s crucial to resolving complaints. Nothing spells service better than effective, personalized customer service.

We can help you build an amazing support staff, request a quote now!

Elsewhere on this blog:

Competitive Advantages of Offshore Staff Leasing

5 Ways Customer Feedback Can Help Grow Your Business

Staff Leasing: What to Look For When Hiring a Support Staff

 

Should You Outsource Your Customer Service?

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Many businesses today, both big and small, are outsourcing their customer service and other parts of their company to third party service providers. Outsourcing customer service doesn’t only cut down manpower costs, it can also help improve products and services, end-user experience, and provide you with time advantage over your competitors.

The thought is very tempting but should you really be outsourcing your customer service? If you are unsure if it is the best solution for your company, here are some things to consider to help you decide.

Labor Cost in the Long Run

Always weigh in the possible costs of outsourcing your customer services versus hiring in-house call center agents. It would be wiser if you draw a plan and make some rough computations before deciding whether to outsource or not.

If your company has a large volume of customers calling in 24/7 and your customer service is not available all the time, maybe it’s time to go outsourcing. Some companies hire third party call center services because they are the experts when it comes to handling all types of calls and customer behaviors. There will no longer be a need to add office space, equipment, software and other office supplies to house a team of customer service agents, plus language and call training will never be a problem because it will be the responsibility of the third party service provider.

Outsourcing your customer service may not be a great idea if you only have a few calls coming in.

Consider Your Customers’ Needs

Once a customer has bought a product or service from you, caring for them should not stop there. Having a good customer service will add more smiles to your customers keeping them coming back for more.

If you want customers to keep talking about your great new product or the amazing service you offer, you should always be ready to answer all their questions all the time, but is your customer service ready for that? Are your call agents equipped with the latest technologies in call servicing? Because your customers are always equipped with the latest gadgets, you should be able to take clear calls all the time. Customers do not want choppy calls, buzzing sounds, low volume speakers or microphones, and they definitely do not want to wait while you Google the answer to their questions.

Outsourcing your customer service may provide you all the things needed to run a smooth call center and keeping your customers happy. So if you are having the aforementioned problems and can’t seem to find a solution, maybe outsourcing it is the right move.

Communication is Key

Some people and business owners will warn you about language barriers when planning to outsource your customer service, because many businesses today are opting for outsourcing call center services in Asia to save more on costs and to intensify manpower and call servicing. But did you know that even your own in-house customer service agents can mess up customer calls? Language accents and different nationalities have nothing to do with delivering a good or bad information over the phone, what’s important is the quality of communication.

It wouldn’t hurt to sample your own in-house customer service and then try a local call center and an offshore call center to see the differences. If you feel that outsourcing your customer service will provide better communication between you and your customers, you might just be right!