Customer Support Guide for Startups
Get to Know Your Customer
(Part 1)
Customer support should be the highest priority in your business. Running a startup requires immense amounts of attention paid to a long list of strategies and initiatives, but customer support should never be overlooked. Every successful business has spent time developing their customer support system, and our monthly series, “Customer Support Guide for Startups”, will shed light on the support elements that every start-up and entrepreneur should remember. This month’s volume focuses on the first and most vital element, getting to know your customers.
As a startup, the customer experience presents an obtainable opportunity to elevate your brand, and impress clients while you are establishing your position in the marketplace. The foundation of a world-class customer experience is engagement and collaboration, which will inform perspective of your start-up and the landscape in which it operates. Listening to your customer is the most important step in acknowledging and addressing their needs. If you are in search of methods to deepen your knowledge of your customer’s needs and experience, here are a few simple approaches that have been proven to increase satisfaction and inspire lucrative strategy if conducted effectively.
Face to Face
There is no better time to organically engage with your customer than during moments when you are with them face to face. Whether they initiate conversation due to satisfaction or dissatisfaction in regards to service, or you naturally guide conversation towards their experience and overall thoughts, a discussion in person will provide insightful and immediate feedback.
Social Media
The constantly morphing social media landscape has bestowed upon every startup, the opportunity to innovate and disrupt customer support processes. Now that the playing field has been leveled, and essentially everyone’s voice can be heard, companies should be exploring all relevant social media platforms for methods to engage with their customers and improve their experience.
Events
Holding an event can be one of the most fruitful forms of client engagement your company can implement. A successful event will put you face to face with your customers in order to engage and educate yourself on their needs and expectations. While developing a relationship with customers at an event, you are simultaneously opening up avenues for future business. These customers may just be interested in your service, or considering continuing their use of it, either way the atmosphere of a well attended and exciting event often leads to sales.
Surveys
As you may know from our last blog, we are super fans of the coveted “customer survey”. The implementation of an effective survey will lead to more informed decision making and to increased customer satisfaction, and provides a great platform for your customer’s voice to be heard.
John Russell, president of Harley Davidson sums it up perfectly:
The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.
An informed perspective of your customers needs and experience is the first step in the development of exceptional support processes. Next month, we will explore the importance of cultivating a clear service vision, and workplace culture that supports it.
Interested in developing and incorporating a successful survey into your process? Contact one of our many experienced team members, and let us be your competitive edge in the marketplace. At Touch Support we align diverse people, processes and knowledge to create customized, world-class user experiences for our clients and their customers. We turn IT headaches into opportunities through our relentless drive to do things better. https://b449bdd3.ithemeshosting.com.php72-4.lan3-1.websitetestlink.com/