How SMEs Can Compete With Bigger Firms To Gain Happy Customers
Making customers happy isn’t the only key feature in the blueprint for business success. However, there is no doubt that customer satisfaction is one of the most important metrics for your SME to focus on. After all, it will influence everything from sales volumes to transaction sizes and brand loyalty.
Better still, several steps can be taken to ensure that your business competes with far bigger brands on this front. Here’s how you can create a winning impression time and time again. While it won’t guarantee success alone, it should make the road to success far smoother.
Go Green
The growth of conscious consumerism over the past few years has been nothing short of mind-blowing. In today’s world, consumers are as invested in the company’s ethos as they are in the products. In other words, if your company fails to operate responsibly, it will miss out on a lot of sales even when the product quality is strong. It is an easy update to make.
However, it’s not enough to simply adopt a responsible approach to business. You also need to make consumers aware of the positive steps that you’ve made. Using your eco-friendly status to stand out from the crowd will see the brand resonate with audiences. You should find that it creates a more trustworthy aura too, which can only aid sales.
Using eco-friendly brands will give consumers an added sense of satisfaction. Each purchase they make will feel like they are making a difference in the world. Naturally, it should improve their feelings towards the brand and products. On a side note, it will force other companies to improve their ways, which will help build a better planet.
Speak directly to them
Every business will have its niche and target audience. However, simply appealing to your ideal consumer profile is no longer enough. Modern consumers demand a more personal user experience. To provide this, you must focus on finding ways to create one-on-one brand interactions that resonate with the user. It also delivers a greater sense of value.
The most effective way to do this is through dynamic content marketing. This is when email content, ads, and blog content changes depending on the user. This could mean making a product recommendation based on the web pages they’ve already visited. Or promoting links to specific content based on their location. It takes brand relevance to a whole new level.
When every piece of content actively delivers value due to this dynamic approach, the connection will feel stronger. Moreover, presenting them with the right info can move them down the sales funnel far quicker without any threat of causing confusion. They’ll be happier due to a lack of frustration, and you’ll be happier due to the maximised hopes of sales.
Create seamless shopping experiences for all users
As already touched upon, frustration can kill a consumer’s positivity towards the brand. Therefore, it’s vital that you focus on the consumer experience as well as the product. Not least because most people are happy to pay a little extra for a positive experience while most won’t return to a brand following a bad one. As such, you cannot afford to get this wrong.
When thinking about the shopping experience from the consumer’s perspective, speed stands out as a key factor. Any opportunity to streamline the process should be grabbed with both hands. This could include using one-click payments, location-based dynamic pricing, and automated delivery messages. The chance to shop across multiple channels also helps.
For many customers, access to live chat agents or a chatbot is equally vital. This offers the chance to secure quick answers to any queries that they may have. It allows them to complete a purchase without waiting hours for responses. From the company’s viewpoint, removing delays also removes the threat of them abandoning the purchase.
Invest in your team
Investing in your team is vital for many reasons and boosts daily productivity. From the perspective of keeping customers happy, it serves two main roles. Firstly, treating employees fairly is one of the key ingredients in the recipe for running a responsible business. And consumers will care about it. Secondly, happy employees provide better client interactions.
A strong recruitment drive in which you find candidates with the personalities as well as the skills is vital. Following this, though, you should invest in onboarding and staff training. The goal is to empower employees so that they can treat clients well. This goes beyond salespeople and should extend to any employee who may interact with new or existing customers.
Crucially, you must address employee wellness too. If they’re not supported by a positive working environment, it will be evident in future interactions. Providing the right break room facilities as well as coffee machines and climate control will help. Meanwhile, any signs of animosity or workplace bullying must be stamped out immediately.
Use data analytics
It wasn’t that long ago that the effective use of data analytics was limited to global organisations and major tech companies. However, the technologies have become far more accessible in recent times. This has enabled startups and SMEs to leverage success from them. Monitoring customer interactions to spot group trends and individual behaviours is vital.
Data analytics integrated through your CRM can monitor a consumer’s interactions across all devices. When combined with analysis of which landing pages convert or which content makes leads quit, you can improve the experience. Moreover, you can make further recommendations based on the insights gained.
It is a step that all big companies do, and you should try to emulate it. Data can be presented in an easily digestible way while AI can be used to make changes when triggers are hit. As such. Even when looking at in-store interactions this move makes a huge difference. It’ll impress customers and empower employees to deliver better user experiences.
Build social proof
Human psychology is a strange thing, and a person’s perception of your brand will be influenced by the views of others. Therefore, a clear strategy to use social proof to your advantage can be a game-changer. For starters, it will make new leads more likely to turn interest into a purchase. Moreover, it puts a lot of your marketing efforts on autopilot.
The growth of influencer marketing in the past few years has been incredible. Better still, micro-influencers can have the same level of power for your brand as bigger influencers do for global brands. The key is to find a creator that resonates with an audience similar to yours while also spotting your USPs. They see things from a consumer’s view, which helps.
Social proof can also be built through affiliate marketing and testimonials. So, encouraging happy customers to leave reviews is ideal. Not least because you can reward them with a discount on their next purchase to gain a new sale. Once a sense of FOMO has been created, people will buy. Moreover, they’ll be excited about joining the party.
Show that customers are valued
The modern consumer has more choices than ever before. After all, they can connect with thousands of brands through their smartphone devices. As such, you have to show your appreciation for their custom and continued support. Feeling valued gives consumers a sense of added pride and confidence, which will see them associate your brand with good thoughts.
Most brands already operate special offers for new customers, such as 10% discounts on their first purchases. In truth, creating a loyalty programme or membership scheme is even more significant. It gives loyal customers an incentive to return more frequently while calling them a VIP customer, for example, can boost that sense of value.
The Pareto Principle states that 80% of sales come from the top 20% of clients. So, this move is huge. For the best results, you should consider introducing money-can’t-buy rewards. Examples include exclusive insights behind the scenes or special edition products. When combined with feedback loops that let them have their say, you won’t go wrong.
Produce great products
Finally, all of the above points will be redundant if the products fail to deliver the desired quality. So, one of the best ways to keep customers happy is to deliver consistently high standards. Whether it’s products that you’ve manufactured in-house or procured from others doesn’t matter. Your customers deserve quality and value for money.
Producing quality goods isn’t just about the item itself, though. The consumer’s experience begins as soon as they receive their package, which is why the packaging can play a key role. The moment of unboxing the item becomes far more exciting. And they may also share this online, which boosts their enjoyment and may bring new people to the brand.
Ultimately, you need to deliver products that look and function as expected and advertised. Still, most consumers will actively forgive faulty items as long as you show a commitment to rectifying the mistake. Create a fair returns policy and be proactive in supporting customers through any issues. A lot of big companies don’t care. Make it an area where you stand out.
Top photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash
