We’ve been talking about How to Leverage Your Business’s IT to Increase Your Competitive Edge on our blog recently, and the truth is, one of the best ways to gain a competitive edge is through great customer service and perks. Maybe you’ve never thought of how your IT setup directly affects your customers, but they are definitely connected. Here’s how:
Creating Unique Customer Experiences
Today’s consumers are always multitasking. They’re not just at your business shopping or getting a service, they’re also checking in with their kids, reading work emails, or looking at their budget. A great way to keep your customers happy is by providing a complimentary guest wi-fi they can utilize that is separate from your secure employee wifi.
Customer portals are another great way to serve your clients. In today’s world, convenience is king, and providing your customers with an easy way to check accounts, make payments, and/or schedule appointments while they’re at your business, especially if your service requires a wait time, will definitely make you stand out against your competition.
Using a Reliable & Modern Phone System
A reliable and modern phone system is essential to today’s consumer. We’ve all been on the other side of a bad phone system and no one wants that! The ability to see who’s calling and the ability to push calls to employees’ cell phones are great ways to serve customers.
Choosing the right VoIP is essential for many aspects of your business, including customer retention. Many cloud phone systems, such as VoIP, offer integrations with popular CRMs (Customer Relationship Management softwares). These VoIP CRM integrations offer key data and analytics to sales, marketing, and support teams within your company.
CRM softwares are an extremely useful tool that can help your company keep track of things like potential client interactions. CRMs can also allow third parties, such as cloud VoIP providers, to connect your CRM account to your phone system and actually exchange data between the two. Benefits of these systems include real-time calling data, better customer experience, closed loop analytics, increased efficiency, and improved management.
Increasing Response Times On Service-related Issues
Prompt and professional customer communication is an absolute must in 2020. In fact, most studies say customers expect a reply to an email or contact form submission within 24 hours. Everyone loves a thoughtful reply, but it could take the whole day to individually reply to everyone who contacts you, depending on your business size. So why not automate some of those emails? Whether you want to send an automated reply to contact form submissions on your website with helpful information or just send a thoughtful thank you email after every purchase, eliminating the time it takes to do so can free you up significantly.
Another way to achieve this is to set up an auto-reply on your social media accounts and emails, letting them know that their message DID go through (very important), and that you’ll get back to them within 24-48 hours. Head on over to your email provider and social media platforms to set these up there!
Protecting Customer Information
Depending on your field of service, privacy and compliance can be essential to your business, and they can also be extremely time consuming. It’s important to have proper channels and systems in place to ensure customer information is safe and secure.
It’s also important to have a clear line of contact and communication so customers know that if and when an employee leaves, exactly what happens with their account and who is now in charge of their personal information. Customers want to know their information is secure and there are tools your company can utilize through technology to ensure this happens as seamlessly as possible.
Conclusion
In today’s information-overload climate, not having the right tools and data can definitely lead to poor customer retention and ultimately put you at the disadvantage among your competitors. So it’s important to integrate and utilize the right systems, and there are plenty of options out there in every price range. We’d love to help you find the right system for your business.
