Here are a few critical do’s and don’ts of referral marketing that help create return customers.

Do: Capitalize on the Momentum of a Happy Customer

When a customer expresses satisfaction, it becomes the perfect transition to invite more business.

The dialogue can start as simply as, “Thank you for your business, I’d love to work with you again. If you have any friends or family that might be interested in working with us, please pass along our business card.”

Business cards can offer a more tangible reminder to customers and potential referrals how your organization can help them. You can print business cards for less with discount companies and still have a 3.5 by 2-inch card that packs a punch with branding and a message that aligns with your company’s vision.

You can also seize a customer’s good experience by providing an incentive like a coupon discount, which can be incorporated onto your business card. This simple marketing gesture demonstrates your appreciation for your client while giving them extra motivation to spread the word about your business.

Don’t: Ask for Referrals if Services aren’t Completed for Customers up to Satisfactory Standards

Your product or service should also be so exceptional that it can stand on its own, so don’t follow up poor or incomplete business transactions with a bribe to achieve referrals.

Do: Use Personalized Direct Mail Techniques

Customers deal with floods of junk mail. Sometimes the only letters that don’t get tossed in the recycle bin may be handwritten ones from family and friends.

Take a cue from these personalized letters to show customers how much you care. A handwritten note specifically addressed to the customer and signed by you can create a positive association with your business. If possible, you can mention your interaction with the customer, provide referral incentives and follow up with continued interest in serving their needs.

Don’t: Succumb to Mass Mailing Techniques

Not only will you look like just another greedy advertisement, but also your inability to stand out through custom mailing means you may miss out on more referrals.

Do: Simplify the Referral Experience

Inc. Magazine suggests that word-of-mouth produces a better caliber of customers compared to solicitation.

Existing customers can reach these potential referrals better when you make the process easy for them. Provide them with accessible links to Facebook or Yelp on business cards, emails and home pages. Create a program where their honest review qualifies them for a future discount.

Don’t: Complicate the Referral Process with Extensive Forms for your Database

While these forms can help you quickly identify and mail existing customers, these extra steps may cause their enthusiasm for your business to fade quickly. The last thing you want to do is complicate their interaction with your business in a way that fosters negative feelings.

About the Author
As a graduate of business management and communications, Crystal Doyle utilizes her knowledge of public relations and applies it to her methods of managing.

However, you will have to be very careful with the way you respond to them. You want to make sure that you address the real problem and don’t alienate them. You also need to make sure you don’t look like a jerk to the other customers. Here are some guidelines you should follow.

Keep a Cool Head

Most managers will be offended when a customer insults their company or tells them they suck at their job. Your first temptation may be to retaliate by throwing the customer out of the business. However, you can be assured that they will spread lots of nasty rumors about your business.

You will also make a bad impression on other customers if you act unprofessionally or cause the rude customer’s behavior to escalate. Make sure that you act professionally and don’t forget to use good customer service practices.

Customer service should always be your goal, even when the customer is acting uncivilly.

Try to Empathize With Them

It can be very difficult to empathize with an obnoxious customer. Unfortunately, managers don’t have the luxury of trying to appease only the most pleasant customers.

Keep in mind that the customer may have a legitimate reason to be upset. They may also be projecting their frustrations with other issues in their own life. Either way, you will need to try to understand where they are coming from before you respond to them. They will be more likely to open up with you and tell you what the real problem is if you are polite to them.

Find Out What the Issue Is

The issue that the customer is complaining about may seem obvious. Suppose a customer is making a scene about how their food was a little cold. That must be the reason they are upset, right? Not necessarily.

The customer could be upset because they were offended by something their server said. Their outburst could just be a way to retaliate against them. You will need to talk to the customer and find out what the real issue is.

Ask leading questions to get them to divulge what their real issue is. Make sure that you are sympathetic to them. Do not interrupt them unless they become hostile or abusive.

Responding to the Customer

First and foremost, you should always try to help the customer with their problem. You may be able to appease them and get them to come back as a happy customer. You will also want to try to keep them happy so that they don’t speak negatively about your business.

However, there are some customers who you just can’t help. Some customers have a chip on their shoulder and need more help than you can give them. You should remove a customer who has become:

• Threatening
• Verbally or physically abusive
• Overly intoxicated
• Refusing to stop disrupting other customers

Make sure that you exhaust all other options before resorting to removing a customer. Most customer complaints can be dealt with in a way that makes everybody happy. However, there are some rare instances where customers need to be asked (or forced) to leave.

Respond to Customer Complaints

You want to address all customer complaints in a fair and impartial way. Try to empathize with your customer, and assure them that you will take care of the problem. This may be difficult when they aren’t being respectful to you, but you need to preserve the business’s reputation.

About the Author:
Kalen Smith is an entrepreneur, business advisor and freelance business writer. He is currently working with http://www.clevertim.com/.

Put simply, when customers are treated with care and respect, they appreciate it. This can be done in big ways and small ways. For instance, be sure your website is easy to navigate and storefronts are welcoming and inviting. Whenever possible, emails and other correspondence should be personalized with the customers’ names.

Please, Thank You, and You’re Welcome

Good manners are essential when dealing with customers. And sometimes it’s the simple things, like saying “thank you” or offering a sincere apology that can make a real difference in a customer/business relationship.

Gifts and Special Bonuses

Giving customers small gifts, bonuses, and discount offers can make them feel special. But more than that, it can help ensure the customer will remember you. The gift doesn’t have to be anything fabulous — even inexpensive items can convey the message that a business is worthy of loyalty.

Guarantees

Most businesses are more than happy to right any wrongs or problems with customers. And the reality is, when companies provide solutions to customer problems and complaints, the result is usually a resolved commitment and loyalty to the company.

However, not every business is open about their commitment to customer satisfaction. A solid guarantee policy can help make a business more memorable. The policy sets the company apart from others and makes it appear more trustworthy.

Setting Up a ‘Forget-Me-Not’ System

While all of the ideas mentioned are effective tips, they are nothing more than guidelines that can be helpful in nudging customers into remembering your business, product, or service. In order to ensure your business stays on top of the ‘forget-me-not’ game and stays in top-of-mind awareness with customers, it is wise to set up a system to organize some of the methods used.

Build a Database – Collecting basic information about customers will be helpful in creating a useful system. Ideally the information collected will include the customer’s name, address, contact information, and birthday.

Decide on Contact Points – The next step is to decide when you will contact the customers. For instance, you should send a thank-you note after a purchase – especially if the purchase was for a substantial amount. You may want to follow up with an email or other type of contact at least once every three or four months.

In addition, birthday greetings, holiday wishes, and appreciation for being a customer with the business for six months, a year, or more, can be sent. This is also a perfect time to send a small gift or discount offer.

Templates Work

Even though the goal is to add a personalized touch, it is important to make the process simple. Creating templates is an easy way to do this. The basic content can be used over and over. Names, dates, and other such information can be updated as needed.

The business of finding new customers is competitive. When you find customers, it just makes sense to do your best to keep them loyal.

Taking extra steps to be memorable doesn’t have to be costly, and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time or effort. It all begins with excellent customer service, but businesses who achieve top-of-mind awareness with their customers go beyond that, they take those extra steps.

What about you, have you found unique ways to make customers remember you?

About the Author
Debbie Allen, founder of TheThingsWomenWant.com, is a professional writer and blogger that specializes in topics of interest to women and online business management strategies.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean the company doesn’t have its rules or that customer service professionals should forget their training and start bending those rules the minute they’re faced with an irate customer. It does mean, however, that your business, your company, and probably the entire industry you’re in wouldn’t function without careful people like you taking the time to address customers’ concerns and inquiries, no matter how badly mistaken or repetitive those concerns may be.

Customers Come in All Kinds

If you’ve been working in customer service for any length of time, you will start to get a feel for the type of customer interaction to expect almost as soon as the customer verifies the contact information on the account. Some of them will have questions for you that may be answered on the company website, or some may want to know the features of a product your company discontinued nine years ago. Customers will sometimes have real problems that demand immediate solutions, while others — perhaps most amusing of all — will just want to vent their frustrations against you, as the public face of the company they’re mad at.

Always remember that, however trivial or unnecessary their inquiries may seem to a trained pro like you, they haven’t been through your training and years of experience. This means that to them, the right thing to do is to get in touch with you. When they make the decision to ask you for help rather than take their business elsewhere, the customers are always right.

Customers Need You and Your Service

Every customer is special, and every customer is beautiful. At least, this is something you can tell yourself while you’re dealing with them. Often, the easiest way to deal with a customer is simply to listen. Sometimes, he or she is just worked up, and five uninterrupted minutes of venting on the phone with you will cheer a customer right up. Listening carefully, even to the abusive customers, will also greatly increase the odds that you’ll pick up on some detail others have missed, which very well may be the key to resolving an issue. The customers are always right in this highly specific sense: they need a professional like you, even if their inquiries could have been solved in other ways.

“Customer” is the first word in “customer service,” and you aren’t going to find a field to work in which has more extensive hands-on experience with the customer-centered mindset than the service sector. As long as there’s an economy, there will have to be customers. The great majority of those customers will happily trade money for what your company sells. Unfortunately, you’ll rarely hear from those people, and quite a lot of your contacts will be with confused, irate, or even hostile people, many of whom are really just in need of a friendly ear to raise their voices at or a friendly voice to explain what is hidden. Resolving these potentially fraught situations is part of what makes customer service the exciting, engaging work that it is.

About the Author:
Nancy Anderson is the communities and article editor for Beyond.com. Nancy has 10 years’ experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/BeyondJobs.

You can create goodwill in a number of ways, from creating customer appreciation programs to going the extra mile when you are providing a service. In return, your business will reap a number of benefits. Here are just a few ways that creating goodwill with customers can help your business.

Encourages Brand Loyalty

When you feel good about a company, you want to do business with them again and again. Creating goodwill with customers encourages brand loyalty by making them feel good about doing business with you. Not only does it encourage customers to contact your company the next time they need a product or service that you offer, but it also encourages them to recommend your company to their family and friends, helping you to expand your customer base.

Encourages Forgiveness

Think about how you feel when your neighbor brings you a big tin of cookies at Christmas time. You are probably less likely to be upset when that same neighbor parks in front of your yard or doesn’t bring in their newspaper, letting a pile form in the driveway. The same concept applies to your business. When you create goodwill with your customers — by going the extra mile, by exceeding their expectations, or by showing them personal attention — they are more likely to overlook your mistakes when you make them.

Sets You Apart from the Competition

When customers are having a hard time choosing between companies who have similar products and price points, the goodwill you create can help set you apart from your competition and push them in your favor. Maybe you went the extra mile by tracking down obscure information to answer a question. Or maybe you made a point to learn their children’s names and then made recommendations based on their interests. Whatever it is you do, creating this goodwill can help you stand out from your competitors and gain your customers’ business.

Improves the Value of Your Business

Investors understand the importance of goodwill and what it builds with customers. If your company has a positive reputation as a result of the goodwill it has built, it will increase its value. This will help you to attract more investors or secure credit more easily if you are looking to expand your operations, and it will help you to command more in a sale if you choose to sell your business. Building goodwill builds value.

Never underestimate the value of a kind word or deed in your business. Every time you go the extra mile for your customers, you are building goodwill, and you are securing the future of your company. Actively take the time to search out ways to build goodwill with your customers. It is an investment in your company.

About the Author:

Chloe Trogden is seasoned financial aid writer who covers specific opportunities such as free student grants. Her leisure activities include camping, swimming and playing her guitar.

Fostering Urgency

If you’d like to foster a greater sense of urgency in your company, start by soliciting feedback from customers and employees. Put comment cards in highly visible places for your customers or print comment forms on receipts. Make it a rule to ask customers for their feedback, giving special attention to your top customers. Use those comments to set standards for your business, and communicate your new standards to employees. If you’ve had a problem with customer service in the past, let customers know that you are actively seeking ways to serve them better. Give them ways to communicate directly with management, like email addresses and phone numbers.

Likewise, talk to your employees and customers. Let them know what you’re doing differently and what employee expectations are. When employees understand exactly what they need to do in order to measure up or excel, they’ll step up their performances. Gradually raise standards as they are met in order to maintain that sense of urgency, and make sure to reward your employees when they perform well.

Be an Example of Urgency

Look for ways you can streamline your business and eliminate waste. This may include sacrificing some of your own perks. If your employees see you giving things up for the sake of better customer service, it will tell them how important customer service is and allow them to see that they need to improve their own performance in this area.

Make management more visible, both among your employees and with customers. If you stay in the back office all day, employees assume you don’t know what they’re doing and customers get the impression that they are not important. In addition, when you don’t make yourself readily available, you don’t hear about problems as they happen. It is especially important that you are visible during times of crisis. Increased communication and visibility both add to the sense of urgency while you’re getting through the crisis together and give your employees reassurance that things you need to do are being done. Look for ways you can make that crisis work for you, building team spirit or demonstrating how critical preparedness is to your business.

No matter how you do it, fostering a sense of urgency will improve your customer service. Increased management visibility and communication reassure employees and encourage them to work harder, while also demonstrating to customers that their needs matter to you. Continual improvement, fostered by setting and raising goals, keeps your employees looking for better ways to serve your customers. Streamlining your business makes it more efficient and profitable, and it indicates how important core business processes are to you. If you don’t have a sense of urgency right now, the steps you must take to instill one are a bit rocky at first. However, the end results of improved customer service and higher productivity make it all worthwhile.

About the Author
Nancy Anderson is the communities and article editor for Beyond.com. Nancy has 10 years experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/BeyondJobs.

Build Trust with Customer Service

Customer service is a way to gain your customers’ trust. Every interaction with a customer is a chance to build on your relationship with that customer, so anyone in a company who deals directly with a customer has the opportunity to cement that relationship. Good customer service starts at the moment a potential client walks into your business and continues during the initial interaction. A customer will appreciate a welcoming atmosphere, and your success may hinge on the greeting your receptionist offers your client. If you deal with customers only over the phone, this becomes even more important. They can judge your attitude based only on your tone of voice. If you solve their problems in a pleasant, efficient manner, they will remember you.

Small businesses have a chance to shine in the area of customer service. They can offer the personalized customer service that large companies can’t. One of the main reasons that people like to deal with small companies is that small companies want to develop a direct, long-term relationship with their clients. When you deal with a small company as a client, you often meet the owner and many of the key decision-makers in the company. Whether you are a sales or customer service representative for a small business, your one-on-one interactions with clients will keep them coming back. Business and individual clients want to have vendors that they can rely on to keep their word and that solve problems quickly.

Customer Service Can Close the Sale

Customers do not always shop for price alone. Customer service can be the deciding factor in their choice to do business with you. Many business owners assume that all clients make decisions based on price alone. This assumption is completely false. A large portion of customers make their final decisions on where to buy based on customer service. Customer service becomes a higher priority to a client as the amount he or she is spending goes up. This type of situation may be a great opportunity for small businesses, and a customer service representative can make or break a deal based on his or her attitude.

All of the improvement in technology for businesses in the last few years has not negated the need for human contact and personal relationships between customers and vendors. Customers cherish a good relationship with their vendors, and they pay for it with return business and referrals. It is much easier to earn the trust of a new client that has been referred by another satisfied client. Therefore, a customer service representative is one of the most valuable employees in any company.

About the Author
Nancy Anderson is the communities and article editor for Beyond.com. Nancy has 10 years experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/Beyond_com.

Make Customer Service a Priority

Businesses that provide excellent customer service quickly become recognized as being companies that are honest, trustworthy, and of high integrity. They are the kind of companies that consumers want to do business with.

Good customer service puts the customer first in every way possible. This includes making the brick-and-mortar store more customer-friendly as well as making websites more user-friendly. Assistance provided to customers is not only courteous, it is provided by trained professionals that can answer questions and more.

Companies with websites can provide excellent customer service around the clock, making it possible for consumers to receive customer care when it is requested – not according to “store hours.” This can put these companies ahead of brick-and-mortar businesses, which often force patrons to shop and do business according to the store’s schedule.

When it comes to business development ideas and moving forward, all areas of customer service are a major concern. This includes routine questions customers ask about products and services, product returns, complaints, or other negative feedback. Savvy businesses not only work to resolve the immediate problem, they also take measures to ensure the problem will not happen repeatedly.

Don’t Just Put Out Fires

The role of customer service representatives is to work with customers to resolve any problems and to ensure customer satisfaction. Some companies refer to this as “putting out fires.” However, when negative feedback is used in this manner, it is actually wasted. It’s as if the company is playing a never-ending game of Whack-A-Mole. There will always be moles to hit. Unless real action is taken, some fires or problems will continue to pop up indefinitely.

On the other hand, if negative feedback is analyzed and used to develop new systems that prevent problems from developing in the future, there will be fewer problems to deal with. Reacting to and using negative feedback in a positive way is how a business can turn what appears to be a negative into a positive.

Rather than shying away from the feedback, it is important to take control of the situation and turn things around – first by making things right for the customer, and then by making improvements for the company. This ensures a brighter future for the business and its customers.

Top Tips for Using and Reacting To Negative Customer Feedback

No matter how good a company, product, or service is, eventually someone is likely to complain about some aspect of it. Although the goal is to get positive feedback, negative comments are not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, they can be very helpful.

Below are some tips and ideas for constructive ways to react to and use negative feedback.

1) Respond to the feedback immediately and resolve the situation as soon as possible.
2) Go a step beyond what is expected. For example, in addition to providing a full refund, it is also a good idea to include a special discount offer or other savings. This encourages a continued relationship, and it shows a sense of friendliness.
3) Use the negative feedback for training purposes. Most companies record calls from customers. Many times these are excellent training tools. During training, the recorded call can be used to point out what should and should not be said to a customer that is already unhappy with the company.
4) Develop a Q&A website based on common questions received from customers.
5) Create and streamline systems according to suggestions and feedback – especially negative feedback from customers.

One of the easiest ways for consumers to see that a company cares is in the way the business treats its customers. When customer service is part of the company’s mission and each staff member works to make sure that every customer is truly satisfied, the company is going to succeed.

About the Author
Debbie Allen is a freelance writer who enjoys writing about online marketing and sharing tips and ideas from quality sites like Reputation.com.

See the graphic below for interesting data out of the UK about the importance of web self-service:

For more information on the importance of web self service and CIM software solutions, speak to numero

The first thing you need to understand is that complaints cost money by taking up the paid time of the employee you’re talking to. The goal of a business is to keep you as a customer by addressing your issue at the lowest and, therefore, cheapest of three skill levels that will do the trick.

Level one is usually the ordinary customer service rep who just finished the last call two seconds before the router sent your call to him. This rep is usually an entry-level employee with a handle time to worry about, so once he or she has gathered your information and identified your call as a complaint, he or she will probably run through the company-approved script for your kind of call. This script is usually written by experts who also worry about call-handle times. So if your problem is a minor one, this rep might solve it while you’re on the phone.

If the intake rep was unable to resolve your issue or you just wanted to vent and his or her call timer was running out, you might be moved along to the next level. Level two reps are often just intake reps who aren’t required to meet handle time requirements, so they can usually play solitaire until you’re all shouted out and ready to listen to the company’s solution. Having your call escalated like this isn’t always just a way of getting rid of you, however. Remember that this rep has all the time in the world to track down your problem and really fix it and can sometimes call you back in a few hours to let you know how it went.

Level three is for customers who repeatedly demand “a supervisor” or “the boss.” Unfortunately, the supervisor in this case is often an administrator who specializes in supervising reps, rather than resolving complaints. After the supervisor has addressed your complaint and retained you as a customer, your ticket is usually handed back to the escalation rep you were just talking to earlier and is resolved.

When you have to file a complaint, it’s a good idea to remember that you and the company share a common goal, that is, to make you happy and end the call. Keep calm, listen to what your rep is telling you and try to ascertain right away whether you’re going to need escalation or not, and your odds of justice improve considerably.

About the Author
Nancy Anderson is the communities and article editor for Beyond.com.  Nancy has 10 years experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/Beyond_com.