How to Recreate Big Business Customer Service on a Small Budget?
Last year when I started my business, I was looking for online mentoring. While most of the advice that I received was about good products and good marketing, I was shocked at the amount of blogs and online research I read about customer service.
Customer service?
Cold calling?
I kept wondering how that is going to help my business. I mean, my business is fairly profitable and I am all about digital marketing, why should I invest in customer service when I am already doing alright?
Doing all right might seem a stretch, actually, I was getting good sales but customer retention was low. Right after running an online campaign, I would receive a high customer flux but they would never come back.
Was my product lacking or my service? It was completely lost on me.
If you are a business owner and you are also currently struggling with customer retention, you may be thinking the same.
Well, I have a news for you: creating good customer service with AI is easier than ever and even with a limited budget, you can still take leverage from AI. For instance, big companies like Comcast are famous for their inclusive customer service as they offer Comcast Xfinity en español for an inclusive customer service experience. However, even with small businesses, you can create the same with AI.
Tips To Recreate Big Business Customer Service in Small Budget
If you are curious about creating good customer service within your budget, then keep reading.
Make Things Transparent and Trackable
As a small business owner, you might be wearing a lot of hats, and amidst juggling multiple roles, you need to make sure that you maintain the data of your customers.
A good way to ensure that every conversation with the customer stays recorded and trackable is to use VOIP management software. From the date and time of the call to recording the call and maintaining the history of the call, you will be able to record everything in detail. This is especially important for small businesses because a wrong comment or a misuse of a statement can lead you to court.
Moreover, these trackable calls can offer you a much better insight into your product and overall customer experience that you can improve later.
Personalize Customer Service Experience
Customer service experience does not only revolve around buying a product and using it. it also includes the overall customer lifecycle which means rebuying and receiving feedback is also a very important part. Most companies focus on gaining more customers but forget about retargeting the customers and boosting their experience.
A good way to work on that is to make an inclusive customer service that ensures everyone gets to enjoy the product and services. A good way to start personalizing customer service is to offer the customer the channel and mode. They can pick the live call, live chat, text, or any other option based on preference.
End With a Feedback
Feedback is vital for a company. While big companies conduct surveys that can cost somewhere between thousands to a few millions, a good news campaign or seeking feedback right after each purchase or complaint can help you save this cost.
An easy trick is to work on pop-up notifications after the user adds something to a cart or makes a purchase. Moreover, add a feedback reminder after the customer has recovered the package and then actively seek feedback once they have used the product. Most companies also offer discounts on the next purchase if the user writes a review. This guarantees that the user will come back and will influence others to purchase.
Reach For Follow Up
Follow-up is generally considered part of the feedback. However, follow-up is part of after-services. In most cases when customers reach out for complaints, they are left with basic feedback and guides. However, most companies leave it at that and never ask them about the time it took to resolve the issue and customer satisfaction.
A good follow-up session will offer you insight about things that need improvement and eventually, it will help with the performance of the company as well. Most businesses when skip follow-ups also lose the trust of the customers and customer satisfaction levels also drop.
Reduce Response Time
Reducing response time is one of the most expensive moves in customer service. However, it has long-term gains as well. Most of the big businesses hire 24/7 customer service with a dedicated number for each type of complaint. For small businesses, this can be quite tricky, and in some cases, you might even have to spare some extra budget for this.
However, with AI, you can bring your response time to a minimum without spending too much money. Most of the AI chatbot and audio response services come with an automation option. From simple greetings to FAQs and even some complex technical issues, these chatbot can do everything for you. Moreover, these Chabot are inexpensive and come with third-party simple plugins that you can just connect to your site.
Bottom Line
To sum it all up, recreating customer service within budget can be quite difficult but it can be made easy if you use advanced AI tools to automate each task. To ensure that small businesses do not end up missing the opportunity, the above-mentioned tips can help create effective customer service within budget.