Communication with customers is key to running a successful business. Especially with the rise of technology that makes communication instantaneous, there is little excuse not to remain engaged and in contact with your customers. Your company’s leaders will have to choose the best and most effective methods of communication. Below are four of the best ways to communicate with your customers and some tips on how to use these methods to the fullest extent.
Social Media
Social media is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to communicate with customers. They can interact with your company by writing comments on your posts and messaging you with questions. Customers will also share your posts, which reach other potential customers who may not have heard of your business before. This allows information about your business, your products, and your services to spread far and wide. Continuously updating your feeds keeps your company in the public conscious. It’s also important to choose the platforms that make it easiest to communicate with your customers. This includes platforms that can best show off the capabilities of your products and the platforms your target audience tends to use.
Newsletters
Newsletters are another way to keep your customers updated with helpful information, deals, and new products. Newsletters need to be sent out regularly but don’t do it too often because you must remember most customers feel overwhelmed by the number of emails they get. The key to writing effective newsletters is to only give the highlights. Don’t write too much. For longer articles, you can include an excerpt in your newsletter with a link to read more. Most sites and programs that manage your newsletters also offer insightful statistics such as how many people open them, who has subscribed, who has unsubscribed, and more. If you see a mass of people unsubscribing at once or a steady decline in subscriptions, you need to be looking for ways to improve your newsletter and its offerings. For example, you don’t want newsletters to be too promotional; a good balance is 90% educational and 10% promotional.
Responding to Reviews
What your reviews say about you and your company is going to be a huge determining factor in the success of your business. As Podium points out, 84% of people trust online reviews just as much or more than recommendations from friends and family. That’s a huge number, and if you don’t manage your reviews properly, it can create a huge problem. Luckily, review systems allow you to respond to your customers directly. If someone leaves a positive review, shoot them a quick thank you. This appreciation shows that you pay attention to what they say and makes them feel even more valued. If someone leaves a negative review, make sure you address that as well. Offering to listen to what they have to say and trying to fix whatever led to a bad review is important, even if they don’t take you up on it, because other people will see that. They will trust that you are listening to the good and bad, and this will increase their confidence in your services.
Live Chat
Live chat services are on the rise, and they are a popular and convenient option for customers looking to contact your business. A live chat widget can easily be added to your website, allowing customers to reach your customer service at any time during designated business hours. Live chat is similar but distinct from instant messengers used on social media platforms. For customers, waiting for a live chat representative to become available is more convenient than waiting on hold for a phone representative. Like with other methods for communicating with customers, live chat allows companies to gather information on what frustrates customers. That information should then be leveraged to improve your offerings. Chat logs can be stored for training purposes, which will help improve the quality of your customer service. Encourage live chat customer service reps to be personable. Customers prefer it to being fed a script.
Blog
Even in the era of social media, blogs continue to be one of the top ways to communicate with your customers. This is because they are vital to sharing useful information and critical updates. Users can leave comments on posts that you are capable of responding to, and you can gather feedback on the types of content customers like to read. You want to ensure your blog is optimized for mobile in order to work best for customers using mobile devices. Blogs are also a valuable marketing tool because customers can find the content contained in blog posts via search engines. Customers may find your blog thanks to a post that was made years ago. Your content stays on the Internet and thanks to keywords and phrases used in SEO it remains a way for customers to discover your blog. Customers can follow your blog’s RSS feed to remain up to date.
Companies have never had as many methods for directly communicating with customers as they do now. Use these methods to ensure everyone stays on the same page. Increased communication with your customers can have downsides as well, such as a higher possibility of saying the wrong thing and garnering negative publicity. Avoid this as much as possible, but embrace increased communication to cultivate a good relationship with loyal customers.
