The consumers of today are more interested in brand integrity and quality customer service than they have been in the past. This makes it especially important to maintain positive contact with your customers due to the transparency that the internet provides. If you’re not very tech savvy, or if you lack customer service experience, you may not know how to connect with your customers consistently. Here are a few ways you can build strong connections with your past and future customers.
Keep Up With Your Blogs
Many small business owners don?t realize how much each blog post contributes to their overall marketing results. Every post you create will help to further cement your reputation as an authority in your field. As web crawlers recognize your site’s blog as an authoritative source, it will begin moving your web pages up in their rankings for search results.
However, the opposite is also true in that letting your blog fall by the wayside means another site will take your place in those rankings. In terms of connecting with consumers, your blog serves as the gateway that introduces consumers to your business.
Interact on Social Media
One of the things that consumers love about social media is that it provides them with an opportunity to interact with their favorite brands. However, if you’re not responding to those interactions, your online followers will devote their time to the brands that will respond to them.
You should spend some time interacting with your followers even when you just “like” their comments on your posts. If they ask a question or post a complaint, your answers should be informative and satisfactory to the individual. You can also increase consumer engagement by liking statuses in which your brand is tagged or when your posts are shared.
Offer Free Gifts to Past Customers
You can reduce customer churn and entice new customers by offering free gifts to consumers who return to your business. As you make a sale, use the opportunity to collect the email address or phone number for each customer. Later, you can use your email account or a mass texting service to send messages to those customers.
You can ask them to rate their experiences with your business in a survey, or you can offer them a free gift upon their next visit to your store. By using customized products that bear your brands logo, you’ll be marketing your business with each free gift that you give away.
Send Out a Monthly Newsletter
You can also use those email addresses to ask your customers to sign up for your monthly newsletter. Once you have customers receiving your newsletter, it will be up to you to come up with an interesting and engaging mailing every 30 days. Your newsletter can include highlights and links to your most interesting blog posts from the past month. You can also notify your customers about changes, new products, and other events your business is hosting. You can even offer a discount code that returning customers can use to get 10% off their next purchase.
Respond Promptly to Questions and Complaints
When a customer contacts your business with a complaint or a question about a product, you and your employees should respond to them quickly. This is an opportunity to change the customer’s impression of your business, while also helping you forge stronger relationships with your customer.
Try to use their name and smile when addressing them. It’s also a good idea to find out how they would like their problem remedied. If possible, give them what they want. If that’s not a possibility, look for some other means of satisfying the customer. If they can leave feeling valued and satisfied, they will be much more likely to return to your business.
As you implement these suggestions and use them regularly, you’ll observe a positive change in your business’ growth. You’ll find that consumers value brands that treat them better, and make an effort to provide a higher quality of customer service. As you take a bigger interest in connecting with your customers, your brand’s overall image will improve.
