What Can You Do to Keep Your Customers Happy?
Keeping your customers happy is a vital but, some would argue, greatly overlooked skill in the modern age. To pull off this feat, you do need to make sure that you are investing in the best services and tools to make your business work well for everyone that walks in the door. You need to make sure that you are listening to your customers and your employees to really make it work, however, and use your common sense to solve problems, especially in some key areas.
#1 Parking
First impressions matter. Therefore, you should be looking after your parking lot as your priority. You are likely to find that there are numerous benefits to making sure that you are using professional services, such as https://scsealing.com/sealing/, to make your parking lot smooth and far more robust. This is the first box to tick to keep your customers happy, as they don’t need to think about damaging their cars every time they visit your store due to bumpy, unkempt parking facilities.
#2 Accessibility
Accessibility quite literally opens so many doors to all kinds of people, not just the small amount you see in your shop. By catering to elderly and disabled people, you are tapping into a rich vein of new customers who want to buy from you but couldn’t before. You will probably find that looking after your parking lot, can help with this too, as can having ramps into your store, and wider aisles and doorways.
#3 Security
As you may have already discovered from bitter experience, security is really important. Your customers and your employees are going to feel so much safer when it comes to spending time or money in your shop if there are surveillance cameras up and working. This can help identify abusive customers, catch people stealing, and it can also help you to spot negligent employees who are slacking off.
This might sound expensive but can potentially be the savior of your business’s reputation, either among your employees or among your customers. You need to weigh up the cost of surveillance cameras versus the price of damage or stock going missing, or more importantly, to cover you if there is an incident on company grounds.
#4 Customer Service Training
This is an incredibly important step in making sure that your customers and your employees are happy. The equation here is a simple one – you can’t have happy, satisfied customers without happy staff. By offering and providing customer service training you are helping your employees to work hard and deliver a standard of service that both parties are happy with.
It can also help them deal with the stress of having an abusive customer, and help your employees become more confident in the workplace. Their happiness reflects on the whole business, and the customer can see that.
#5 Displays
Displays are a good way to get specific items to sell in greater numbers. You will find that they are your best friend when it comes to seasonal events, such as ‘Christmas’ and ‘Back to School’, even if you don’t provide things that shoppers need for these periods. People are out on high streets and in malls to buy something, and if your display is eye-catching enough, you are bound to draw in a lot of attention. This can bring in potential customers who might not have even considered shopping in your store before.
#6 Communication
You are also going to need to make sure that you are communicating with your employees and your customers. This is because, if employees aren’t in the loop regarding any changes, they are bound to make mistakes that will cause them to lose confidence and cost you money, as well as inconvenience the customer.
You should probably also be investing in external communication with the customer as this is likely to help increase their understanding of what is happening within your business, such as deals or package delivery, as well as help those all-important customer reviews and ratings on your website.
#7 Website
With that in mind, you are going to need to make sure that you have a decent online presence and a website. That way, customers can find you easily and get in contact with you when they need to. Getting this important step right will mean that you are likely to reach a wider target audience and make your business far more widely ‘known’.
This can provide you with a way to help your business and communicate with your customers, as well as allow people to look over what you have to offer before they come into your store. Quite simply, if you don’t have a website then you are taking a very big risk with the future of your business.
To Wrap Everything Up
In a world of increasing demands, keeping your customers happy can seem like an impossible task. However, there are steps you can take to help your business to grow and expand, while also staying popular with your customers.
By investing in your online presence, you are making it easier for customers to find your company in the first place. Then, by investing in eye-catching displays, you are making your company more desirable to window shoppers and generating curb appeal.
The next step is investing in parking lot maintenance and accessibility, and by doing this, you will find that you are more likely to attract a wider range of customers.
You will also need to spend time and effort ensuring the safety of your staff and your customers, and by offering and providing customer service training, you are helping your customers to get the best service possible. This also has the knock-on effect of helping your employees operate far more calmly and confidently within their roles, reducing the chances of mistakes and miscommunication.
There are a lot of other things that you can do which are far more business specific, but these can help you to make your customers happier, no matter what your business niche happens to be.
