When complaining customers walk away from your business, it’s easy to understand why. What about those who go quietly? If you think about it and try to put yourself in your customer’s shoes, there’s always a reason why they get frustrated and leave. Most probably, you are losing your customers because of the following reasons:
# 1 You don’t care about your customers’ needs
Is your company customer-centric? If it really is, then the very first question you should be asking yourself every day is – “How can I help my customers?” instead of “What can I sell to my customers?”. The truth is your customers are the sole reason your business exists and brings you profits. But lots of companies seem to have forgotten that. If you’re focused on only your own needs and don’t put your customers at the core of your business, you’re most likely to be playing a losing game.
# 2 Your customer service quality is less than satisfactory
The number of consumers switching companies due to poor customer service experiences is growing year by year. Which means that whether you like it or not, customer service is more important than ever today. It’s the Age of The Customer. The quality of your customer service determines how successful your business is. So if it’s less than satisfactory, you’re in trouble and it’s about time to rethink your customer service strategy and define its weak points.
# 3 You don’t have a strong customer service team
Let’s admit it – Customer Service is hard. If anyone tells you it’s not, they simply don’t know anything about it. That’s why it should be done by the right people who not only perfectly know your products/ services, but who are also great communicators and problem solvers, who are trained to effectively handle difficult situations and equipped with the necessary tools. The key is paying a little more attention to hiring, motivating, training and managing your customer service team. In the end, happy employees mean happy customers.
# 4 You don’t provide multi-channel support
Which customer service channels do you use for customer support? While phone and email still remain the most frequently used channels for consumers to contact companies, they expect to be able to get in touch with a brand through a number of different customer service channels such as online forms, Live Chat support, SMS and social media networks. Not offering these options is likely to frustrate a significant proportion of your customer base.
# 5 You fail to deliver on the promise
There’s nothing more disappointing for your customers when your company fails to deliver on the promise. And that’s probably one of the worst mistakes you might be making as a business. Whether it’s the quality of your products/services, return policy, delivery times or anything else, you do make promises to your customers. By making them, you ask your customers to trust you. And if you break that trust, you run the risk of losing them once and for good.
# 6 You don’t learn from negative customer feedback
As Bill Gates’s famous saying goes: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” If you approach negative feedback with the level head and the right attitude, you’ll see a great value in it for your business. Your customers are your best critics and when they’re not happy with your products, services or customer experience with your brand, they simply show you where you need improvements. So why not use it to your advantage?
# 7 You haven’t given them a reason to return
How do you treat your loyal customers? Once earned, customer loyalty needs to be maintained and properly rewarded. Show that you really appreciate them being your long-term customers and that they are important to you. Adding a little extra WOW factor can be really huge for your business. The options are nearly endless here, from special offers and discounts to a series of exclusive perks. As a bonus, you might find yourself attracting new customers who see how you treat and appreciate loyalty.
What other reasons for losing customers can you name?
The main thing is quality of product or services that you are providing to your customer. If you can respond your customer instantly then you can be successful. As companies are now updating live chat software to see customer behavior and responding them accordingly to increase sales. Than information that you shared is really good and nice learning for business entrants to handle their customer nicely.
Thanks Harry, glad you enjoyed it. However, I believe that quality products or services is not enough to be successful, they should be backed up by a strong customer service.
Yes Mary, customer services is a major part of your business that you can`t deny. By reading the case studies of successful businessmen, I came on this result that customer services is key point for your business growth.
Fully agree about you wrote,
What we have to do, make the customer understand that we are in the same team and we are walking in the same direction, same goal, understand one another. The rest is quality of service
Thank you Angelo.
I totally agree with you, however, the effects of the above reasons could be minimized if the top management creates the culture of excellence that embraces the primary elements of TQM such as customer focus,results oriented………etc.
Thanks Nabil, you’re right, the mentioned reasons could be avoided with the right management and customer service strategy.