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Are You Truly Easing (And Solving) Your Customers’ Pain?

You work hard to acquire customers, so of course you want to build lasting relationships and keep them coming back.

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Every single business that has customers will eventually need to address unhappy or dissatisfied customers. If you want to make it easy for customers to work with you to relieve their pain follow these five steps:

 

  1. Be accessible.

    Provide multiple communication channels through which your customer can easily contact you. You may prefer to get an email, but your customer might want to call you. Make sure customers have several options for getting in touch with you.

  2. Be proactive.

    Design an infrastructure that catches the customer’s communication to you. If you have created multiple channels through which a customer can reach you, be sure that the right person is getting that communication, and responding to it, in a timely manner.

  3. Urgently respond.

    The last thing a customer in pain wants to do is wait for you. They want their pain relieved immediately, and the faster you respond to them, the better your chances are of saving that customer relationship. Also, give customers a chance to tell you when a good time to reach them is. Just because you are ready to talk to them at 8:00 a.m doesn’t mean they are available. Contact them when they say it is convenient for them.

  4. Be honest and accept responsibility.

    Company representatives that try to pass the buck will receive no mercy from agitated customers. However, being honest with customers and accepting responsibility for mistakes will often result in the company receiving a second chance to regain a customer’s business.

  5. Be grateful.

    Reinforce with the customer that you appreciate the opportunity to get things right for them. Don’t begrudgingly say “Thanks for letting me know…..” when someone complains. Be truly appreciative that someone took the time to point out an opportunity for you to make your business better and eliminate future problems.

This article has been edited and condensed.

Mike Bowman is the publisher of TheQuarterRoll.com, which gives visitors information and tips on small business ownership, personal finance, and job search strategies. Mike also wrote How To Scare The Hell Out Of Unemployment (sold on Amazon). Connect with @TheQuarterRoll on Twitter.

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