Blog posts tagged with "Small Business Customer Service"

As a small business owner, word-of-mouth advertising can be a powerful tool to grow your business and increase your customer retention rate. In a recent survey conducted by Alignable, 85 percent of small business owners overwhelmingly agreed that word-of-mouth referrals are the best way to reach and acquire local customers. However, knowing how to get referrals — or increase them if you already have positive word-of-mouth—isn’t necessarily black and white.

As a small business owner, attracting and retaining customers is critical to your ongoing success. However, it’s often difficult to determine which marketing tactics will reach the largest audience and in turn, generate the best results for your business. A common strategy many businesses use to differentiate themselves from the competition, incentivize first-time customers, and reward existing customers is to offer deals and discounts in the form of coupons.

As a small business owner, you rely on every cash inflow to keep your business afloat. Unfortunately, not all customers are diligent about paying their bills, so you might find yourself in the awkward situation of needing to chase down late payments from time-to-time. Although these conversations can be uncomfortable, it’s important to have a system in place to address these situations when they occur. In fact,  it’s crucial because nearly one-third of small businesses fail because due to low cash flow.

As you probably know, your small business’s brand will reveal to your customers what they can expect if they buy your products or services. Having a positive brand image can impact your business’s performance, because consumers won’t make purchases from entities that they view negatively. Plus, if you have a recognizable brand, customers will remember your business and potentially become loyal patrons.

When promoting your small business, you’ll probably try different strategies. From email marketing campaigns to sponsored social media posts, there are many ways to market your business and (hopefully) recruit new customers. Notably, one approach that business owners have utilized for years is cold calling, which is when a business contacts an individual to share their sales pitch. It’s important to note that cold calling is unsolicited, and typically the phone call recipient hasn’t heard of the business that’s contacting them.

With the importance placed on online reviews and social media, providing excellent customer service is more important than ever. According to research by Zendesk, 95 percent of people share bad customer service experiences with others, and also found that 88 percent of patrons have been influenced by a negative review while shopping. The bottom line: bad customer service could be detrimental to your retail business.

If you aren’t giving your customers the ability to leave product reviews, you could be significantly hurting your conversions and sales – especially if you’re marketing to Millennials.

Unpaid customer invoices are an unfortunate, but sometimes inevitable, part of doing business. While the experience isn’t pleasant, it’s still vital that you know how to deal with them.

There are numerous aspects that go into running a profitable, successful business. From helpful customer service to a sales strategy to financial management skills, there are many components that are required in order to operate a small business. In particular, having a clean business location is amongst the most crucial. If your small business is uncleanly, disorganized, or cluttered, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to earn consistent customers.

Boosting efficiency is a primary ambition of many business owners, but it can seem like an elusive goal to achieve.