How to improve communications with customers tips

Better customer communication starts with structured client-facing workflows. Here is how Tallyfy helps organizations deliver consistent customer experiences.

The bottom line of any business is increasing sales. As a result, many business owners focus on attracting new customers through various means - traditional advertising, digital marketing, inbound marketing etc. This article covers a very important aspect of decision-making from a customers’ point of view - improve communications.

Research firm TARP has found that for every person who complains, there are 26 who do not. That means if 10 customers complain, another 260 may have quietly dumped you, never to call again. To know what customers are thinking, ask them.

— Ben McConnell, co-author of Creating Customer Evangelists

But it’s important to keep in mind that keeping buyers is as important, if not more so, than attracting new ones. In our conversations with operations leaders at commercial real estate and professional services firms, we consistently hear that retention efforts deliver better ROI than pure acquisition strategies - particularly when client-facing workflows are standardized so customers receive the same quality experience regardless of which team member they interact with.

As this article from Entrepreneur points out, “Your existing customers are 14 times more likely to buy from you than a new customer.” This is especially true when you are selling the kind of product that needs to be bought frequently, like clothes, groceries, cleaning supplies, light bulbs etc.

There are also products that only need to be bought once a decade or even less frequently, like refrigerators, cars, and homes. But even when it comes to these, customer retention is important.

Someone who just bought their starter home through you might remember what a great experience they had and what a great deal you managed to get for them. As a result, they might consult you ten years later, when they are looking for a larger home for their family. Hence, the reason to improve communications changes in this context.

In such cases, one sale counts for a great deal, because the product that is being purchased is an expensive one. So even if you can get the customer to come back to you once every ten years, you will be turning a profit.

The question is, how do you get this to happen? How do you get customers to turn to you when they are purchasing products for both, the short-term and the long run? It starts with trust. Here are a few tips:

Communicate to improve communications

The key to customer retention is improving communication. And it’s important to remember that if you want to improve communication - it goes both ways. You need to communicate better with your customer and they need to communicate better with you.

As this article from Phoenix Business Journal points out, it is important to create an emotional connection with your customer and this is best done via communication.

• Ask the Right Questions: Unfortunately, your customer isn’t going to sit down and think about how they can communicate better with you. They are just going to come to you and expect you to understand what they want. So it becomes your job to read between the lines. You have to ask the right questions and elicit the information that you need.

• Simplify the Purchasing Process: Let’s say someone comes to you to buy a house. Now, houses come in many shapes and sizes. They are constructed at various locations and different amenities might be available at each one. A customer might come to you without having thought about exactly what they are looking for in a house.

So it is up to you to ask them where they work, how much they are willing to commute, whether they have children, how much they make per year etc. And based on the answers you receive, you will be able to come up with the best house for that person.

• Build Trust: How do you get so many personal details from someone who is a virtual stranger? It is important to make them feel at home, to make them trust you, to make them feel like they are speaking to a friend. That is why it is necessary to have a well-trained sales force with good communication skills.

At the same time, you also need to impress on your salespeople that you are not just trying to sell a product. You want to genuinely make sure that your buyers are happy with that product. This is what will make sure that they keep coming back in the future.

• Keep in Touch: In addition to training your salespeople, you also need to prepare your customer service representatives. As this article from Forbes emphasizes, your customers need to know that their interaction with you doesn’t end when they purchase the item they need.

You will still be there in case they need any help later on, if the product stops working and needs repair or replacement. Keeping in touch with the customer throughout the product’s lifetime ensures that they will remember you when it is time to buy a new one. Improve communications simply by communicating more and better :)

Embrace change to improve communications

As times change, so do people’s needs. When cell phones first started becoming popular, they didn’t have all the high-tech features we see in them today. People considered themselves lucky if they could just pick up a clunky phone, no matter where they were, and dial someone.

Now, people want sleek phones with a number of apps, internet access, a capacity to play music, read books, send text messages etc. A company in the forefront of the cell phone industry twenty years ago would no longer be in the forefront now if it did not change with the times.

• Stay in the Know: It’s not just the cell phone industry that keeps changing; the same is true of any other industry. You can’t expect to continue doing the exact same thing and still keep your customers. You have to know what is going on in your field, what kind of changes are being made and what people are looking for. And you have to embrace change.

• Overcome Resistance: Embracing change is something that a lot of business owners are resistant to. Feedback we have received from IT managed service providers and consulting firms suggests that once business owners find one thing that works, they resist change even when customers expect more. One MSP we spoke with saw improved client satisfaction only after implementing transparent, client-facing workflows where customers could track their project progress in real-time. The organizations that adapt fastest tend to win long-term.

But everything works for a limited period of time, after which people start looking for something better or, at times, just plain different. If you find that you or your team are being resistant, read this article from Inc. for some change-related quotes.

• Keep in Touch with Trends: Sometimes, people might merely be following trends rather than looking for something that is better quality. And it is important that you keep in touch with these trends. For example, if mustard-colored handbags are “in” this season, you will need to stop producing maroon-colored ones and start producing the ones that people want to buy.

Streamline processes to improve communications

As a business owner, you have to be in touch with everything that is going on within your company. This might seem difficult, almost impossible, and most business owners have struggled with it at one point or the other.

You might give someone a task to do and it may not get done, even if that person is one of your best employees. You will have to keep track of the status of the task, intervening a few times, to make sure it is accomplished. You may have to change the scope of the task or even assign it to someone else during the process. All of this points to one thing - improve communications.

Although many business owners might be tempted to do everything themselves, this is not an option, once your business grows beyond your garage. So what can you do to make sure that your business runs smoothly and efficiently, in order to keep customers you already have?

• Hire or Outsource: You can organize things within your company as much as possible by hiring or outsourcing specific tasks. You might be surprised at how many things can be outsourced nowadays, such as accounting, marketing, HR etc. Again, you need to improve communications if you are going to outsource.

So if you don’t need a full-time person in any of these departments, you don’t have to hire one. You can still simplify, organize and streamline, by hiring professionals who will take care of that aspect of running your business.

Just remember that assigning different tasks to different departments, consultants or companies does not lead to complete segregation. As this article from Entrepreneur points out, you have to “unite internally to improve externally.”

• Get Software: Software like Tallyfy can help you no matter what type of business you run. The idea behind the software is that the person who is performing the task can do so smoothly without constantly having to consult a supervisor.

At the same time, you, as the business owner, can keep track of everything that is being done, how well it is being done, how much time it is taking etc. In the long run, Tallyfy is not just going to help you to run your day-to-day operations but will result in streamlining your processes, improving efficiency and keeping customers.

Templates for better customer communication

Example Procedure

Client Onboarding

1Gather Basic Information

2Send Welcome E-Mail

3Conduct a Kick-Off Call

4Conduct a 1 month check-in Call

5Request Feedback

+1 more steps

View template

Example Procedure

Customer Complaint Resolution Workflow

1Acknowledge the Complaint

2Categorize and Prioritize

3Investigate the Root Cause

4Propose Resolution to Customer

5Implement the Resolution

+2 more steps

View template

Example Procedure

Customer Relationship Management Process for Service Teams

1Invest in employee training

2Create a fulfilling workplace for your customer service reps

3Improve first call resolution rate

4Set up a customer feedback loop

5Personalize customer interactions

+4 more steps

View template

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Do YOU have any personal tips & tricks for improving communication? Let us know down in the comments!