Small businesses are renowned for their customer experience. Being a small business means that they can tailor their services to their customers by adding a personal touch to their delivery. These personalized touches and exceptional service do not go unnoticed by customers.
It is the quality of the service combined with the personalization that has customers returning to small businesses time and time again. Additionally, it is what helps to set small businesses apart from larger corporations.
Many of these larger corporations cannot offer the same personal touches as smaller businesses. Of course, the goal for many small businesses is to grow. They want to expand their services, grow their team, and serve a wider customer base. Often when small businesses grow, they can lose the personal touch due to the extensive workload.
When growing their company, small business leaders need to ensure that they are still delivering the same service and maximizing the power of customer engagement. It will help them tremendously in their plans for growth. Here are a few ways a small business can maximize customer engagement.
Improve The Customer Experience
Something that cannot be stressed enough is the importance of customer experience. Customer service is a vital component all companies need to ensure that they deliver on. As mentioned, small businesses excel in delivering exceptional services with a personalized touch, which is what customers adore and entices them to return.
The positive experience they have encourages them to tell their peers and recommend the services of a small business. Finding ways to improve the customer experience can be worthwhile in the end. It could help to increase revenue, as customers can return, recommend the services to others, or even see the positive reviews left by the company.
Encourage Customer Feedback
One of the ways to learn about your areas of weakness is to ask for feedback from customers. The feedback customers provide could be a powerful resource to utilize. As a business, you only see the process of your company from your side.
You know the process and how employees respond to queries and handle a customer’s order. What you rarely see is the perspective of the customer. You do not know how they find the process, areas of weakness, response times and the quality of support provided by the team. Asking them for their feedback could be insightful information that could help to transform the company tremendously.
You could send a follow-up email asking customers to leave reviews or send back any feedback they have about the company. Alternatively, you could have a live poll for them to use. Consider using a trusted polling platform like Vevox. This platform allows you to create live polls that your customers can use to answer your queries on ways to improve your small business.
Engage On Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool in business. It can help companies to expand their target reach, allowing them to connect with a wider group of potential customers. Some customers often hear about companies and brands through social media. Having a strong social media presence can help to entice potential customers to learn more about the company and inquire about its services.
If successful, these leads could turn into sales for a small business. Encourage your marketing team to engage with customers on social media and share some of the discussions they have had. The insight from these interactions could help find new ways to improve the business, ones that have not been considered previously.
Interacting with customers on social media is a simple and effective way a small business can maximize the power of customer engagement.
Benefits Of Maximizing The Power Of Customer Engagement
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways a small business can maximize the power of customer engagement. It is worth spending time to see which method works best for you and your company. You might choose one option or a combination of a few to help engage customers with your business.
Regardless of your choice, there are benefits to reap from maximizing the power of customer engagement. Keep reading to find out more.
Use In Marketing
Engaging with customers and delivering exceptional service can work in the company’s favor. In today’s digital world, many people use online reviews of a company to formulate a decision about whether or not they should invest. Whether their experience was positive or negative, customers will likely leave a review about the business.
If reviews are negative, companies can use them to improve their services and rectify the issues in the customer experience. However, positive reviews could be used to help market the company. If you received a positive review from a customer, ensure that your marketing team are utilizing this perfect opportunity for the next campaign.
Customers Feel Heard
Whether they have a query, concern or issue, customers want to feel heard. Whomever they speak with, customers want them to listen to what they have to say and respond accordingly. It could be actioning their requests, sending them the right correspondence, or connecting them with the person who can help them.
Actioning on their requests or improving the business following their reviews shows customers that you have heard them and are actively working to improve the company. Seeing this could entice some customers to return to the business in the future. Of course, repeat business is what small businesses love to see!
Generate New Leads
Through the power of marketing and customers sharing in their reviews that they felt heard by the company, small businesses will likely notice a rise in the leads they generate. The positive reviews left online and the frequent interactions with customers on social media can help to influence potential customers to learn more about a small business. They see these positive elements and are intrigued to learn more.
Some might reach out to a small business on social media to learn more. When they do, ensuring that your marketing team responds promptly and with a friendly tone will help generate new leads for the company. If these interactions were enough to entice a person to learn more, your team could work at turning the lead into a sale with their positive communication and friendly approach.
The Bottom Line
A company should be aware of the power of customer engagement. Small businesses should utilize all of the resources available to them to help improve their customer service, which can lead to positive engagement from customers. As you can see, the benefits from harnessing the power of customer engagement should be enough to persuade small businesses to implement any of the tactics in their company. The sooner they do, the sooner they can reap the benefits.
Before they realize it, their business will be on the rise, bringing new customers and opening the door to more opportunities. Keep some of the tips mentioned above in mind when looking for ways to maximize the power of customer engagement. Monitor the difference it makes to your small business; you will likely notice the rise in leads and sales. Both of these can help tremendously in moving your small business forward and expanding in the future.
