Customers expect more from today’s small businesses than ever before. Here’s the 7 most common customer pain points and how to fix them.
Most Common Customer Pain Points
Providing Inaccurate Information
It doesn’t matter what kind of small business you have, clients who call you or contact you online are looking for good advice. If your customer service department provides bad information, you’re making the situation worse and harming your brand even further.
There’s a quick fix here. An accepting business culture where people comfortable enough to find the right answer even if it takes a few moments pays off in the long run. This type of atmosphere let’s people feel comfortable about contacting supervisors or other employees with more information.
Creating Hard-to-Navigate Customer Service Channels
A big percentage of shoppers will abandon their purchases if they can’t find a quick online solution for any issue. Hard to navigate channels give the impression that your company doesn’t want to solve the problem.
Having a variety of ways customers can contact you is the solution. For example, you can use online forms and telephone numbers as well as instant messagingportals.
Not Listening
Another good way to cause some friction between you and your customers is asking them to repeat themselves.
Automation can come to the rescue here. There’s a variety of different ways to collect their information like quick online forms. That way when you call them you’ll have the high points in front of you and they won’t need to explain them.
Being Impolite
There’s nothing worse for your small business bottom line than being rude to customers.
Small businesses should designate at least one employee to handle these calls. That person or team needs to be trained in best practices and how to defuse irate customer situations.
Having High Delivery Charges
Customers might want to buy goods or services from your small business until a delivery charge becomes a pain point.
Outsourcing this service can bring the prices down. For example, UPS has automated the process for small businesses so they can compete with the bigger players.
Having Complicated Fees
By and large, customers react adversely to extra charges and especially those that aren’t explained properly. Of course, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t add to your base price but being transparent helps.
A good rule of thumb here is to describe any additional fees on your bill clearly and concisely. Remember never to complicate an invoice by just adding a fee without an explanation.
Putting Customers on Hold
One sure fire way to lose a sale is to put a customer on hold and make them wait for an answer. Today’s customers expect immediate satisfaction and research says you have less than a minute to resolve their issues before they move on.
Making sure that they don’t feel like you’re wasting their time is essential. That’s why small business should always have a callback feature added to their customer service toolkit. Although most customers prefer to speak to a live agent, this kind of callback option is in second place when it comes to customer preferences.
[“Source-smallbiztrends”]
