The Magnet for Repeat and Loyal Customers in Kenya

There are growing numbers of businesses in Kenya that are offering products and services, similar to those that your business has up for sale.

In this regard, providing great customer experience is not an option but a requirement, if you want your business to gain a competitive advantage over your competitors and help you acquire new customers through referrals.

Many companies in Kenya put more emphasis on the sales and marketing of their products and services. While this may help in making sales at a particular period of time, in the long run, exceptional customer experience is the magnet that creates repeat and loyal customers.

As a business owner, the success of your company is highly dependent on providing great customer experience because as time has gone by, research has shown that customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service.

With this in mind,

 Does Your Team Understand What Customer Experience is?

 Customer experience is the overall sentiment that a customer will have after interacting with your company from the point of sales, during the purchase process, after a purchase and the interaction with service and support teams.

The entire workforce in the organization needs to understand that creating a positive lasting experience does not solely depend on the customer service team but that everyone has a responsibility towards this.

Great customer experience begins from the onset where a customer is looking for a particular product or service, the interaction with the service team and the guidance the customer receives towards purchasing what they want according to their needs, the assistance on how to use as well as resolving issues.

Why Be Good When You Can Be Great?

The differentiating factor between offering good and great customer experience is the Extra. The willingness to go that extra mile is what makes the customer feel valued and appreciated. It is being able to portray empathy to the client.

Take for instance…

A customer making an order from their favorite restaurant and excitedly waiting to devour the scrumptious meal but by the time the food arrives, the package is damaged and the food is all messy.

In order to create a positive customer experience even though the initial interaction was not good, the restaurant, in a timely manner apologizes and makes a refund or offers the customer a free meal for their next order.

 

Benefits of Excellent Customer Service

 1. Builds Customer Trust and Long Term Relationship

The key to exceeding your customers’ expectations is the ability for your business to provide consistent exemplary customer service experience. Ensuring the customers feel supported from the onset of their buying journey to the point when they make the final purchase, makes them feel appreciated and valued.

In the long run, customers who feel cherished by a company tend to trust this company and become loyal to them. In these modern times, customer relationships will mainly be based on the authenticity of a business and the trust that customers have in a brand.

2. A Pool of Loyal Supporters Who Become Your Free Marketers

   

Unlike years before, the modern customer now has access to multiple options and in this technological age, businesses are operating in a disruptive and an ever changing environment more than before.

With most of the new customers owning a smartphone and having access to the internet, word of mouth is now travelling faster than the traditional advertisements. In this regard, you want to ensure you have many satisfied customers who will then become your loyal advocates.

3. Develop A Solid Brand Differentiator

Having a very good product or service is great but businesses that pay attention to customer satisfaction gain a competitive edge against their competitors.

Market expansion has contributed to how customers make a decision in their purchases. A product or service may be great and well-priced but if customer satisfaction is not achieved, customers are willing to walk away because they have options from companies offering similar products or services.

4. Creating Better Products and Services

Feedback received from customers as well as information from the customer service reports provides a lot of insights on what is working and what’s not working.

Leveraging on the information received to create or correct a product or service will assist in building a more competitive offering, which in turn contributes to increased revenue and savings.

 

Top Strategies to Improve Customer Service Experience

1. Get to know your customer

A majority of businesses will go about providing a product or service and not focus much on whether the said product or service is actually addressing the needs and wants of a customer. When it comes to offering unparalleled customer service experience, the opinion of the customer is key.

If the customer is not satisfied with what you are offering, they will move to your competitors. In order to avoid this, you need to ask your customers what they think about your product or service offering.

Surveys are a great way to find out if you are meeting your customers’ expectations. The Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT) are a great way to learn the opinions that your customers have about your business or brand.

Ideally, the survey should be sent to the customer requesting for their feedback after a customer service interaction. It could be a question like;

“How would you rate the support you received?” or,

“How satisfied are you with the overall buying experience?”

With a scale score to choose from or options such as “Great, Okay, Not Good”. You could also offer a text box where customers can input their written comments.

The insights received from the surveys helps you as a business owner to find out where you are going wrong and an opportunity to correct or improve on it.

 

2. Offer Different Methods of Communication

Providing multiple customer service avenues to your customers such as a phone number, text, email, website and social media channels, allow your business to reach the customer in whichever way that works best for them

90% of consumers are more likely to consider doing business with a company that offers multiple ways to communicate. Consider having multiple options as an important part of a good customer service experience.

As you plan to provide the various channels of communication, you must ensure you have the capability and human power to manage each of these avenues. It is one thing to have different channels but if customers don’t get the assistance they need or get delayed assistance from their chosen avenue, it will lead to a bad customer experience.

 

3. Make The Process Simple To Get Assistance

Customers don’t want to wait or go through a long tedious process to get the help they want. Most customers will abandon your brand if they feel that they have to jump through hoops to get their issues sorted.

A majority of business owners have implemented bureaucratic processes to cover their businesses forgetting that if these procedures inhibit the smooth and quick resolve of customer’s issues, may result to a bad customer experience.

 

As a Manager or Business Owner Consider Introducing Ways to Simplify the Process Such as;

• Ensure you have your contact information – location, telephone number, social media handles to make it easy for customers to reach out to you, should they need assistance. Having in-app support such as a live chat may also be highly effective.
• Phase out those restrictive procedures that make it difficult for customers to get the help they need.
• Create a knowledge base especially for those frequently asked questions. This will ensure your clients get the information they need quite quickly without necessarily having to contact your business. For instance, on Instagram, one can include a highlight for FAQs that customers can easily access.
• Quickly responding to customers cannot be overemphasized. A timely response is considered a great customer service experience. Focusing on reducing the wait time for inquiries and assistance as well as ensuring that customers feel that their needs are prioritized, is a step towards providing great customer service.

 

4. Hire The Right Team

Making sure you have the right people in your customer service team is key in ensuring that your customers get a  great customer experience. Customer service skills are diverse and key to providing high quality customer service. As manager, do not limit the hiring to those with specific customer service experience but rather hire based on skills.

Some skills are in-born while some can be learnt. Be open to bringing in new non-traditional agents who can introduce a different and unique viewpoint to the overall business strategy, all this while ensuring everyone goes through the customer service training.

 

5. Build A Culture of Empathy

A majority of businesses in Kenya are losing in customer service because they tend to forget that customers are more than just another sale point for the company.

When customer service teams are aware that the customers have emotions and apply the same during the purchase process, they will apply empathy while dealing with customers and “humanizing” the customer service experience.

Customers identify friendly service as one of the most crucial aspects of a positive customer service experience.

It is important to build a customer centric culture in the organization as it has a ripple effect across all decisions.

Eventually, no matter what effort you put into providing great customer experience, if the employees of the organization are not motivated and committed to caring about the customers, all other efforts will fail.

 

Extra nuggets to remember…

•  Upon hiring, make sure that the customer service team is empowered to make decisions should they need to make those extra steps to make the customer feel appreciated and valued.
• How a customer will act after an interaction with your business; for instance, if they feel they are satisfied and chose to tell a friend or if they didn’t have a pleasant experience and decide to never come back or share the feedback, is highly dependent on the customer service experience provided by the company.
• Offering great customer experience goes a long way to build loyalty from the customer, provide an opportunity for repeat purchase, get brand advocates by word of mouth which in turn grows the company’s revenue and sustains it.
• Building a customer-centric company goes beyond the service mentality that customer service/ care is the responsibility of the support team. Ensure that each department acknowledges and submits to the customer mindset.

This should begin from the top management, showing that the business owner or manager cares deeply about customer service experience. This makes it easy for the rest of the team to follow.

Customer expectations are speedily changing and with digitalization, customers expect businesses to know, meet and exceed their expectations. So it is important to provide outstanding customer experience so that your customers feel free to engage with you and provide you with insights of their needs and expectations.

All in all, ensure to develop a customer service experience worth shouting about.

As a manager, is your team trained in providing a lasting positive customer service experience? Reach out to Customer Centric Kenya to help you tailor make training for your team.