Modern businesses have an entire arsenal of tools at their disposal. Fulfilling and satisfying the needs of customers has never been easier because of this. As a business owner, your main priority should be meeting client expectations. If clients walk away from dealings with you feeling as though their issues have not been resolved or that you have not been beneficial to them they will stray from doing business with you again in the future.
This post will tell you how you can use the technological tools afforded to businesses to satisfy your customers:
Managed IT Services
Companies not large enough to be able to justify staffing entire IT departments can benefit from hiring managed IT services instead. According to one specialist IT service provider dminc.com/federal/, these services can help organizations to improve existing operating processes. To find a reliable company conducts extensive online research, consult business journals, and prioritize reading reviews. An organization’s reviews can give you a clear picture of what it is like working with them. You should aim to find an IT provider that offers security services. Cybercrime has never been more of a threat than it is right now.
Video Communication
If you run an e-commerce store and employ human workers then you will likely make use of professional messaging applications like Zoom and MS Teams. Integrating these platforms into your organization’s operations can significantly improve your company’s work culture and how employees communicate. Giving a department like customer supports the ability to message order management directly will make managing customers’ orders and resolving tickets much easier. These apps allow video, audio, and text messaging, which is perfect for remote companies.
Delivery Tracking
Order management is arguably your business’s most important department. Unless you take great care in managing this department many things can go wrong. A lot of business owners underestimate the importance of order management, focusing instead on sales, marketing, and customer support. You can use POS tools to track your business’s sales and monitor the progress of deliveries. It is a good idea to send tracking information directly to your customer’s email addresses so that they can ensure they are at home to receive their orders. Make sure you specify to couriers not to leave parcels on people’s doorsteps without getting their express permission first.
AI Support Bots
AI support bots are a great way of answering customer inquiries. Ideally, these bots should be available on your website’s homepage. In order for them to be effective they should be immediately visible, popping up as soon as visitors arrive. Spend some time programming your bots so that they are able to answer important questions such as ‘Where is my order?’ or ‘What is the progress of my refund?’ In addition to offering AI chat support, you may want to outsource text support to a customer services agency. Having live chat on your site will make handling customer inquiries considerably easier.
Real-time Messaging
As referenced in the previous section you can benefit a great deal from having real customer support agents for your customers to talk to. There are some issues that cannot be resolved with the help of a chatbot. If you do not hire real customer support agents, your phone lines will get bombarded with customer inquiries. In the past, this was the only way for consumers to have questions answered and problems resolved. Outsourcing chat support will allow you to reduce the number of staff you employ to answer phone calls. It is also possible to outsource phone support, however, this can be expensive. If you can justify the costs of phone support then look into it.
Administrative Tasks
Up until quite recently employees would spend most of their days completing administrative tasks. Sadly, admin is an essential part of any department or business; it cannot be avoided. However, thanks to modern technology you can now automate most of the tasks that would otherwise have to be completed by real people. Automating tasks will save you time, and money, and improve employee performance. Administrative work takes up a lot of time, so automating it will give employees the ability to focus on more important things.
Social Media Marketing
Marketing is an essential part of modern business owners. Until you invest in marketing your business will never be able to achieve exposure. On social media you can communicate with customers directly, building positive relationships. Another advantage of using social media is that you can publish real-time updates, giving customers insight into what’s going on inside your business. Many social media platforms now offer companies the opportunity to launch their own social media stores, where customers can make purchases. Fees have to be paid to the platforms themselves, but social media stores are still great ways of boosting business.
Email Updates
Encouraging consumers to sign up for your business’s newsletter is an effective way of getting them engaged. Engaging customers is essential if you want your business to be a success. A good way of getting consumers to sign up for your store’s newsletter is to offer them a discount of around 5% or 10%. Ensure the codes given to customers are only usable once. Discount code abuse is very prominent online; there are entire sites dedicated to it. Track customer IP addresses so you can monitor their activity and see if they are misusing bonus codes.
Client Feedback
Finally, try to compile client feedback. When you have customers signed up for your store’s newsletter you can then send them emails asking for feedback. They do not have to post feedback on your store’s Google or Trust Pilot pages, however. Feedback sent directly to you by email is just as good, as it gives you insight into what’s going through your customers’ minds. It helps you, in other words, to get an idea of what customers think of you. Offer special discounts and bonuses to individuals who engage with your feedback requests.
Running a business has never been easier, thanks to modern technology. There is a multitude of tools you can use to streamline operations and improve customer experiences. Making use of them will benefit your business tremendously.
