How to Build a Culture of Customer Responsiveness

Getting back to your customers quickly – and with the right answers – will help earn their loyalty. Here’s what you need to know to make that happen.

Key Takeaways: What Customers Expect from Businesses?

• Customers expect businesses to respond instantly to their questions and concerns.
• Companies now have to be ultra-responsive to their customers.
• Customer responsiveness means getting back to people quickly with solutions to their problems.
• To create a culture of responsiveness, companies must:
• Create goals shared by the entire team
• Use the channels customers want to use
• Put self-service options in place
• Utilize the right automation tools
• Show customers that they matter

Nobody likes being ignored. It can make them feel like they don’t matter, which easily leads to detachment from a relationship and sometimes even resentment. And what’s true in life is also true for business. When companies ignore their customers – even inadvertently – they risk losing them forever.

This means that companies can’t afford even one slip-up. According to a report, customers will walk away after just one bad experience – even if it’s a brand they love. Providing exceptional service is just one step, though. Companies also need to make sure that they are focused on customer responsiveness.?

Here’s what you need to know about customer responsiveness and how to make sure it stays top of mind in your company’s operations.

Making customer responsiveness a key part of your business

Being “responsive” requires your team to get back to customers and potential customers when they make any sort of outreach or inquiry. But that’s just the bare minimum. You also must respond in a timely manner and have their questions answered or problems solved. If it will take a little while to do that last part, you at least need to keep your customers informed and updated about the progress.???

Being a more responsive company doesn’t have to be difficult, though. You just need to create a gameplan, which should include:

Putting procedures in place

The first thing to do is to implement processes and rules for how quickly team members must respond to your customers. Everybody should know what these goals are and strive to meet them. Timeframes may vary depending on the channels you use, too. Most customers expect to get their emails answered within a day, for example. On social media, they want a response within four hours.?

Incidentally, studies show that most companies are falling woefully short when responding to both emails and social media accounts. That means your company has a great opportunity to differentiate itself in the customer responsiveness department.

Meeting customers where they want to be met

These days, there are many different ways for customers to contact a business. That means companies have to be prepared to interact according to their customers’ preferences. You might have people eagerly manning the phones, for example, but could be missing messages coming in through email. Find out where your customers are, and make sure you’ve got a plan in place to monitor those outlets.

It’s also important that you provide your customers and potential customers with a seamless experience. Someone who starts an interaction via live chat should find it easy to move to another channel, like a phone call. Think through these contact journeys and do your best to minimize hiccups.

Letting customers find their own answers

You don’t have to be actively involved at every moment to be responsive to your customers. A large number of people – around 40 percent – would actually rather find answers on their own than have to speak to another human. Companies should thus have several self-service resources on hand. This could be as simple as an FAQ page or as advanced as a knowledge base. In addition to helping customers solve their own issues, this allows team members to focus on more pressing and time-consuming matters.?

Using automation tools

Another way to free up your team is to utilize automation for customer responsiveness. Chatbots are an example that many companies have adopted in recent years. These can do an excellent job of answering customer inquiries, and it’s a win-win for everybody. Service reps aren’t bogged down with simple questions, and customers don’t have to talk to humans.?

An additional big benefit of chatbots is that they offer responses even when a business is closed. There are also tools you can use on your social media pages that will send out quick replies or alert you to any comments or questions that customers have left.?

Not losing sight of the ultimate goal

The ultimate goal is to give your customers an outstanding experience so they stay your customers. This means you have to truly listen to what they are saying and understand why they are contacting you in the first place. It can be easy to quickly reply to that email or pick up the phone on the first ring, but it won’t matter how fast you are if you’re not able to provide the help and support they need. Above all, you need to prove to your customers that they are important, that their queries matter, and that you care about helping them solve their problems.?

Get help creating a responsive sales team

You need to have the right team in place to be able to respond to your customers quickly and effectively. That’s where MetaGrowth Ventures can help. We help you find the best salespeople, make sure they get proper training, then track and monitor their performance so you can be sure they are doing what’s best for your company.?

Customer responsiveness starts with the right team. Contact us to get started.