How to keep your customers happy about your product

1. Keep your customers on-side.

Here are eleven essential tips for great customer service, provided by Moran Consulting of Chicago

• Speak well of your organization

• Respond quickly and cheerfully to all customers

• Reprioritize work when customer needs arise

• Ask customers probing questions

• Recognize all customer needs and respond with respect

• Identify customer needs expressed verbally and non-verbally

• Greet all customers with a smile

• Use a cheerful and enthusiastic tone of voice

• Practice open and friendly body language and eye contact

• Be cheerful at every customer contact point

• Keep all customer areas clean and neat

• Address problems on the spot before customer become dissatisfied

• Allow angry customers to vent by listening carefully

• Use problem-solving skills to resolve issues before they escalate

• Don’t take a customer’s anger personally

• Anticipate needs and special requests

• Act quickly to delight customers

• Shock your customers with great service they do not expect

• Encourage laughter, humor, warm greetings, smiles, and compliments

• Demonstrate belief in people through positive words of encouragement

• Casually visit with staff seeking their input

• Demonstrate flexibility and interest in the personal situations of employees

• Share information about the organization that makes people feel a part of things

• Work with the people on the front line to better understand what they do

• Provide timely feedback through effective coaching

• Adapt communication based on the needs of the employee

• Take a special interest in the individual growth of yourself and your people

10. Lead by example.

• Practice the behaviors expected of the front line

• Give direction in a respectful manner

• Listen and respond to feedback from staff with respect

11. Stay focused on customer needs.

• Recognize individuals for giving great customer service

• Implement employee suggestions that will improve service

• Challenge everyone’s actions to assure that they bring value to your customers

2. Use the technology.

Got a good product? According to e-commerce

provider Avangate, you should offer customer support by using current technology, including:

Include a Help if your product incorporates software.

A Help facility is the most frequent and convenient way of solving customers’ problems. The help program should cover every aspect of the product you’re selling. Include a search box which returns relevant results, for keywords customers usually use when they need support. It is the most inexpensive and rapid way of dealing with your clients.

Make it easy for clients to contact you, by phone or email.

Telephone assistance is particularly useful for users who have no real knowledge of computing, and need to speak to someone who can explain to them step by step what is to be done. Have a set timetable for the help line and publicize it in your software product documentation, website, etc. Always treat your clients with respect, be polite and offer easy to follow solutions in a plain language.

Pay attention to details on the phone.

Focus on the quality of the music the client listens to while holding the line; if you use an IVR system (like “Press 1 for technical support” etc.), make sure the menu of your multi-option system is easy to follow; don’t allow waiting queues longer than 3 minutes; have patient and trained specialists respond to the problems clients might encounter.

Use your website to offer support and update it frequently

Many customers buy software directly from your website, so this is the best means of providing technical support. Place a visible icon right on the home page and give details about other avenues of customer support you can provide. Install FAQs – frequently asked questions, and provide appropriate answers. Remember, it takes

less time, both for you and your clients, if the answers they are looking for are visible and handy. Create an online forum. When subscribers post messages on a forum, every other subscriber can see and respond to them. Still you should have a support team to read and reply to the more complicated and complex subjects on your software, when required.

3. Honesty will pay off.

These days, customers have little tolerance if you promise on something and fail to deliver. Keep your customers on side. When promoting your product, remember the following:

• Communicate to your customers how they will benefit if they buy your particular product or service. …