Besides the obvious mistakes like pricing issues or poor-quality products, there are other blunders that could be affecting your company’s success and customer loyalty. In these cases, it mainly has to do with customer service. How well you conduct your business with your customers will largely determine how loyal they remain to your company. In that respect, it’s vital to be aware of these possible errors and correct them before they drive customers away from your business for good.
Miscommunication between employees
If you have multiple employees working on the same project or with the same client, then it’s important that they’re able to easily communicate with each other. If you don’t, miscommunication can become rampant. This isn’t just annoying for you and your employees, but also for your client who might soon grow impatient with all of the mistakes. In order to correct this, it’s best to have ways to keep all of your employees on the same page. This involves having a CRM where notes are available to all employees, or a call recording feature that lets you easily share phone calls between employees.
Refusing to evolve
It’s very common to become complacent in the way you conduct your business. After all, if ain’t broke, why fix it? However, in many cases something may seem like it’s working, when in reality it’s not and could be causing you to hemorrhage customers. With ever-changing customer preferences and frequent advancements in technology, your old ways will eventually become outdated and may not meet the needs and wants of your customer base. As a result, you’ll not only need to update your business strategy, but also how you conduct your business. You should be implementing new technologies such as software integrations, softphones, and more.
It’s difficult to contact you
While it’s impossible to be constantly available 24/7, you should at least try to be available as much as you can. If your customers are calling or emailing you without success, then they’ll end up growing frustrated and eventually leave your business. There are several ways for you to address this problem. The first would be to ensure that you can be contacted inside the office. This means having proper phone systems such as auto attendant or call queueing that can direct incoming calls to the intended recipient. The second would be making sure that you can be contacted (or, at least, able to stay in the loop) outside the office as well. Softphones are great features for this, as the software can turn any device with a mic and speaker into a business phone. In addition, having voicemail to email transcription will also be helpful for those times when you just can’t pick up your phone to chat.
You’re making promises you can’t keep
Any company would of course love to offer a guarantee to their customers that they’ll deliver, but you can’t make a promise that is undeliverable. Employees need to be aware that going above and beyond for their customers can be done without making promises they can’t keep. Give yourself reasonable margins to deliver to your client, no matter the product or service, and you will never disappoint.
The customers wait too long
Let’s face it, people hate waiting, and our patience will only last for so long before we give up and leave. While your customers will have to deal with some waiting (you can only attend to so many things at once), making their wait too long will ensure that they’re out the door in no time. There are two ways to solve this: cut down on waiting periods, or make customers think you’ve cut down on waiting periods. Both of these strategies can be accomplished using an auto attendant. Not only can an auto attendant redirect your customer’s to available people, thus limiting the amount of time they’re waiting on hold, but it can also keep them aware of what position they are in the queue. By knowing how long their wait is, your customers will be more patient with you.
You have poor marketing
Bad experiences aren’t the only reasons why customers will leave you; sometimes they’ll also be lured away by your competitors through aggressive marketing tactics. These tactics convince your customers that they’re wasting money, time, effort, etc. by staying with you, and they try to prove that they’re the better choice instead. In order to combat this, you’ll need to invest in quality marketing not only to bring in new customers, but to convince your current customers to stick with you.
Your services are costly
Sometimes, all it comes down to is price. Customers are willing to shop around for the best deal, and if that’s not you, then they’ll turn to someone else. You need to make sure that your pricing brings in enough revenue while also being competitive. Vaspian, for instance, prices itself 25% below 90% of all providers and gives away more than 30 features for free.
In order to retain your customers, you need to have the right tools for the job. A VoIP business phone system provided by Vaspian can help you do just that. Give us a call today at 1-855-827-7426 to learn more!
