What are you doing to make your business as accessible as possible for your customers, especially in today’s digital age?
When it comes to outdoing the competition, one of the ways to go about this is by providing stellar customer service. Such service should be the norm, not something that occasionally appears out of the blue.
That said some business owners simply drop the ball when it comes to going out of their way for customers, something that can ultimately lead to them becoming former and not current customers.
At the end of the day, making your business mobile enough for today’s customers is a necessity, something you need to make sure you are doing.
Keeping Your Clients First and Foremost
In order to make sure your customers get top billing, remember a couple of important pointers:
- Accessibility – First and foremost, how accessible are you when it comes to your customers? With both customers and businesses on the move these days, it is important for the latter to make life as simple as possible for the former. From receiving customer payments to answering customer inquiries (including when they are not happy), it is important that you are as accessible as possible. For example, if your business attends networking events like trade shows, fairs, community functions etc. do you have a way for customers to buy your goods and/or services on the spot? By having a mobile credit card reader on the spot, you can accept payments anywhere and anytime. In doing so, you make it rather convenient for consumers to do business with you. The same holds true when it comes to being accessible for customer inquiries, be they online, in-person, over the phone etc. While you physically can’t be available 24/7, do your best to get to customer questions and issues as quickly as possible. This is where your website can play a major role. Always leave an area on the site for customer feedback and/or consumer inquiries. That said make sure you also read each and every one of them. Also do the same with your social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more. When consumers and/or current customers see that you are in fact taking an interest in what they have to say, the seeds for a relationship can certainly be planted. By doing so, many customers will see that you are putting their interests and needs first, something that almost always proves a winner;
- Technology – As mentioned earlier, technology is playing an even bigger role in how businesses are run these days than it did just a few years ago. As a result, never turn your back on opportunities to add some of the latest tech initiatives to your business. Sure, you may fear that adding new technology to your business will up your expenses, leaving you potentially in a precarious position with your finances. Always explore not only how expensive a new tech initiative might be, but how it can help your business over time. If the potential positive impact of the technology doesn’t meet up with the costs to deploy it, either look for a less expensive alternative or bypass it altogether for now. Also do your best to get the pulse of your customers (current and potential ones), seeing how they think technology might improve your relationships with them. Some technology initiatives don’t have to cost your business an arm and a leg, so don’t automatically discount them for fear of it hampering your ability to stay within budget. One of the best tech options to deploy these days is mobile marketing, something more and more brands are doing. If you have not already, look to see how mobile marketing could very well lead to more customers and ultimately added revenue.
Your goal as a business owner should always be to extend and improve the life of your business.
By staying up to speed on what today’s technology has to offer, you can do just that.
With a New Year just around the corner, now is the time to assess where your business is at, where it could be headed to, and how mobile you will have to be to reach your desired destination.