Izzy James
Digital Marketing
We’ve guided many customers through the process of creating or recreating their online presence, and where everyone knows a website needs to look impressive, few business owners know how to ensure their site provides good customer service.
90% of individuals use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company, so putting your best foot forward on your website is crucial.
In this blog, we will be discussing all aspects of customer service and how you can build yours.
Benefits of Good Customer Service
Customer Loyalty
If your customers or website visitors have a good experience on your website or when talking with you, they are more likely to return to your website and service. A third of customers will immediately leave a brand after one bad customer service experience, so make every interaction count!
Brand Reputation
A reputation for great customer service will elevate your brand amongst competitors and associate a good experience with your company. If you create good customer service, you can also create good marketing. Customers are likely to recommend you to others when they’ve had a good experience or will even leave a review on your site, which is visible to people searching for you and can increase Search Engine rankings.
Increase Conversions
Good customer service can help businesses generate sales from leads. As 78% of customers say that they don’t go through with a purchase after experiencing poor customer service, your journey to convert someone starts the second they land on your site.
How to Create good Customer Service
Building trust and loyalty through tone
Most interactions with your customers are not face to face, so maintaining and trustworthy and characterful tone on your website is essential to create that sense of connection. The tone of a lawyer will be very different to the tone if you sell children’s toys, so you need to speak in a way that builds trust with your target audience.
You need to focus on the words you want to use and how you present them; for example, using pronouns like “you” throughout your website can create a friendly and inviting tone as you’re addressing the reader. Try avoiding negative words like “can’t” and “won’t” as these can bring a more negative tone to your website. The content throughout your website must be customer focused and explain how your service/business can help them, think from the customers’ point of view, what do they want to see on your website? Create content that creates the effect of “this is what we do to help you”.
Respond quickly
If a customer has a query, they will want this solved as soon as possible, so it’s important to reply promptly before they leave to seek help from a competitor. By answering queries quickly, customers will see that you value their time and are there to help, creating great customer service. This can be on a range of platforms, including social media, email, phone, or on your website.
To ensure you respond quickly on all platforms, have a member of staff dedicated to checking these aspects throughout the day, and ensure notifications are turned on, so any messages or emails are spotted when they come through. When creating your website, include various contact options, so your customers have multiple points of contact, and be sure to check these regularly to identify any issues raised. Not only can you actively check messages and contacts from your website, but platforms like Facebook and online contact forms allow you to build in autoresponders where you can reassure customers you’ve received their enquiry and will reply to them as soon as possible.
Customer focus
Putting your customers first is a great way to show you’re there to help. 40% of customers say they want better human service, meaning they don’t want to be considered a ticket number and would prefer to have a human conversation with a company.
A great way to do this is to make a creative team page with images of team members and a small paragraph about who they are and what they like to do, this shows your customer who they are working with and will be in contact with and not just a random employee at a business.
Equally, customer journey on the website is crucial – ensure you provide all the information a customer needs to convert and then make their Call To Action incredibly clear. A smooth journey will make customers happy and increase your conversion rate too.
Be Proactively Helpful
Customers often may not realise what you can help with, or what they can be doing better. Take efforts to reach them with advice and information using things like email newsletters, resource sections on the website, and automated responders asking how orders went. Be as proactive as you can to really make your customer feel you are taking the time to ensure their experience has gone well.
Here at Daneswood, we pride ourselves on having great customer service and focusing on website customer journeys. If you have any questions about creating great customer service or any other web-based enquiries, please contact our team today, and we will be more than happy to help.