Are You Making These Customer Acquisition Mistakes?

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Common customer mistakes:

The journey to the land of top-notch customer acquisition processes is riddled with twists and turns. And while customer acquisition is challenging, converting new business is vital to keeping a company profitable. Without customers, a company will not survive.

The right customer acquisition strategy should set your customers up for long-term success with your product and or services. However, companies often make decisions against their better judgements and wind up on the wrong path. If executed correctly, customer acquisition will enable you to reach your revenue goals in the near- and long-term. Here are common mistakes that emerge at customer acquisition and tips to avoid them to get on the path to success.

Your Customers Needs Don’t Come First

Do your customers see success with your product or services? Are they happy with the level of service they receive? If you answered ‘no’ to one or both of these questions, now is the time to go back to the drawing board. The needs of your prospects and customers should be the number one priority in your customer acquisition playbooks.

You’ve likely heard the phrase, you only get one shot at a good first impression. We’ve all received bad service in a business setting at least once in our lifetime. How did that experience make you feel? Did you solicit that business again? Or worse, did you post a disparaging review on your page or share your experience with family, friends, and colleagues? An accumulation of bad customer experiences can ruin your company’s reputation.

Bad impressions range from not having inventory to keep up with demand or a negative customer service experience.

You can prioritize the needs of your customers by: Creating a buyer persona to understand prospects and customers needs Investing in strong customer service or customer success teams

Ensuring in-field sales reps have a grasp on customer needs

Implementing a strong customer on boarding or training program

Including a FAQ section on your website or social media handle

Collecting customer surveys and feedback

Not Creating Return Customers

We all know it’s more cost-effective to keep a current customer than it is to attain a new one. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention rates has the potential to increase profits by 25-95%. Many companies set a goal to gain repeat customers but fail to implement a proper strategy. Don’t fall into this trap.

To transform new customers into loyal brand advocates you need to think beyond the first sale or interaction. What are strategies to encourage a return visit or purchase? A personalised ‘thank you’ note or welcome email can work for some businesses. Offering discounts to entice a repeat purchase is another common tactic.

You’ll need to give customers a reason to come back or purchase again.

Here are a few tips to engage customers and to lower churn rates:
1. Focus on customer education by implementing customer training programs

2. Engage customers through email and direct mail nurture channels

3. Offer loyal customers incentives and rewards

Customer Service Skills That Really Matter

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When it comes to customer service, listening skills help to build better relationships with customers, avoid misunderstandings, resolve conflicts and solve customer problems faster and more efficiently.

Customer service skills can actually make a huge difference between the average customer service agent and the one who is able to provide that WOW service your customers will remember and certainly appreciate.

While there are plenty of critical skills all customer-facing employees need to master, we would like to highlight two most essential of them, that will truly make you stand out and help you succeed with every support interaction.

 1. Active Listening

Listening is a master skill for personal and professional greatness. The best way to improve your listening skills is to practice ‘active listening’. It means making a conscious effort to hear not only what is being said, but also, more importantly, pay attention to what is left unsaid in order to understand the complete message being communicated.

How to develop active listening:

  1. Show that you are listening (eye contact, posture, smile etc.)

2. Be attentive, focused and relaxed

3. Keep an open mind with no judgement or mental criticising

4. Don’t interrupt – let them speak out

5. Wait for the customer to pause to ask clarifying questions

6. Give the customer regular feedback

7. Summarise to ensure understanding8. Pay attention to nonverbal cues

2. Clear Communication

Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers. Needless to say, clear oral communication is a ‘must-have’ skill for everyone working in customer service. It implies using plain and proper language, no mumbling and grumbling, avoiding jargon and slang, maintaining proper tone of voice and being able to speak with confidence. But as digital technologies continue to take over customer service, written communication skills have become just as (or even more) important, especially for those service agents dealing with customers primarily over email, messengers, live chat or social media.

How to improve written communication:

  1. Write short sentences and short paragraphs that are easy to read

2. Make sure your message is clear, precise and relevant

3. Provide a complete response in one message

4. Look for potential misunderstandings and edit if necessary

5. Write in a friendly but professional tone

6. Use positive language and avoid negative phrases

7. Check your spelling and grammar using special tools8. Always proofread your message before sending it

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Is your social media customer service helping

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Or is it hurting your customer experience?

Consumers who receive prompt responses through social media channels are more likely to remain brand loyal and provide word-of-mouth referrals. When implemented correctly, social media customer service encourages consumer spending, improves operational efficiency and increases organizational performance.

Customer inquiries on social are increasing. Twitter found, in recent research, that customer service conversations had increased by 2.5x in the past two years. Since it is social media, customers expect a fast response. Fast responses are an essential part of meeting customer expectations for social care.

When customers receive favourable service, advocacy increases. When companies engage and respond to customers over social, those customers spend 20-40% more with them.

Make Social Customer Service a Valuable Piece, companies that gets this right achieve the ultimate balance. They improve the customer experience while driving operational excellence, which translates into reduced costs.

But, a common mistake that many brands make with a social customer service program is to manage it as a soloed initiative. As a result, customers get frustrated and post negative comments about their experiences.

This is not good when 75% of consumers expect a consistent experience wherever they engage be it web, social media web or in person.

When social media is integrated with other channels, so data and insights are shared across the organization, brands can use these insights to tailor each interaction to improve the customer’s overall experience. Adding social media data into the mix only makes customer journeys richer. Building a comprehensive view into journeys helps brands understand, predict and address customer expectations.

Therefore, to have a truly omnichannel customer experience, it is vital that social customer service be a valuable component.

Meanwhile, omni-channel is defined as a multi-channel sales approach that provides the customer with an integrated customer experience. The customer can be shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, or by telephone, or in a bricks and mortar store and the experience would be seamless.

Implement Best Practices To Make Social Customer Service Stick.

Social Customer Service is a big deal. In fact, social customer service serves as an inflection point – it can determine whether a customer continues to do business or stops doing business with you!

The Quickest Magic in Service Recovery

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Acting quickly, taking responsibility, making an empowered decision, and compensating the customer will result in customer loyalty that will increase your sales and profits and help to ensure your success in an increasingly competitive world.
In today’s fast-paced world we are needing service recovery in almost everywhere we go from the grocery store, to our banks (everyone has had a problem here), to our cable (very frustrating), to service providers at home and so on and so on. It’s frustrating and customers can vent their problems and dissatisfaction in person, on the phone, on the internet, and to their friends and family.
But, the exact opposite is true also if the magic of Service Recovery is used. Service recovery can have a major impact on an organization’s bottom line with word-of-mouth advertising as customers tell their family, friends, and coworkers about the exceptional service they received from your company. Including compliments and “Atta-boys” up on the internet, they recognize you and call you by name.
Service recovery is putting a smile on a customer’s face after you’ve screwed up. Now it may not be your fault, but it is your problem. How you handle those mistakes is what separates you from the rest of the pack and…keeps customers for life.
We have developed the following techniques for providing quality service recovery:
Act quickly.You must acknowledge the mistake within 60 seconds. That’s when the magic happens. The employee at the point of contact is the person in the best position to successfully implement service recovery.
Front-line employees should have the power to resolve more than 95 per cent of customer issues without having to pass the customer on to another person
Take responsibility.No matter who is at fault, you must own the mistake and sincerely apologize. Don’t place the blame on someone else; the customer doesn’t care whose fault it was, he merely wants it rectified.
It’s also important to thank the customer for pointing out the problem and for giving you the opportunity to correct it. It works like magic.
Be empowered.Employees aren’t making empowered decisions mainly because they’re afraid they’re going to be reprimanded, fired, or have to pay for whatever they give the customer.

Empowerment is the backbone of service recovery, and organizations that truly want to serve the customers and retain their business must not only allow, but insist, that employees bend and break the rules in order to keep those customers coming back. They are your magicians.
Compensate.Give away something that has high value and low cost. You must give the customer something of value, something that will impress the customer and give them the feeling that you really do value their business. Every company has something that doesn’t cost a lot but has value in the eyes of the customer.

Practice the magic every day when customers confront you with a situation or problem. No business can afford to lose customers, if only because it costs much more to replace a customer than it does to retain one – five times more.
Those that go out of their way to please customers and correct problems or screw-ups will soon have more customers than their competition. 
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Customer Mission Statement: Put The Customer At The Center Of What You Do

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The customer should never be an afterthought. Your customer’s requirements and needs should be at the core of everything that your business does, so always work in this way, thinking first and foremost of your customers rather than what you perceive the business needs. That is the same with your marketing approach: it should be about how to engage with your target audience.
Putting customer firstThe fact is, users, understand when they have been put first, and understand very well when they have not. If you value what your customers think and say about you, and want to build repeat business, it is essential that you are recognized as a business that has a customer focus, which means everything from great customer service, to doing everything possible to fix things if and when they don’t work out (which happens).
Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep
It is imperative that you deliver on your promises, every single time. A broken promise cannot be recovered from, so just don’t do it. What kind of promises can you make?
Well, you can promise to always put the customer first, and work to this end, but you may not be able to promise that you always deliver the best price, because there is always someone somewhere who may undercut you.
Be realistic in what you promise: customers are experts at spotting an empty promise from a mile away,” says Russell Gomes, a marketing analyst at Write My X and Brit Student.
Deliver With ConsistencyOne central aspect of good customer experience is being consistent in how you deliver. What customers want to see is an approach that they can become familiar with and rely upon.
No one likes surprises when it comes to business, and so prevent these from occurring by having a well-defined and trained approach to delivering on customer experience. That means defining roles and responsibilities from the very beginning, and training staff to work to that end, with a series of checks in place which prevents anything falling between the cracks.
Regularly Audit Your Customer Service Experience
The secret shopper approach is a popular means of gathering valuable feedback on customer experience, and is employed by hotels and restaurants around the world. It’s a tried-and-tested approach, but is by no means the only one when it comes to auditing your customer experience.
Regularly auditing and testing ensures that the systems you have put in place are working as seamlessly as possible, and tweaks can be made where necessary. Once again, this is all about having the commitment to deliver fantastic customer service.
Invest In Your StaffThis point has already been touched upon in the form of training, which is certainly an essential ingredient for delivering great customer experience. However, it is certainly not the only element.

 A staff member who feels valued, rewarded and motivated is much more likely to deliver the levels of customer service that you desire.
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