Last week we shared the first of 4 instalments from our Yorkshire Ladies Links talk about my 4 key principles when dealing with customers and how technology can impact that journey. This is the 2nd week of 4 where I share with you those principles.
Our biggest principle is to Keep it Clear and Simple, or KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid!) make sure that you are clear in your communication.
Take a look at your customer journey will someone order from you if there are 5 touch points before placing an order, against a competitor who has 1, and also as important is that if you’re asking a customer to do lots of actions, fair chance you will too, so wasting your time.
Make your communication clear and appropriate, how many of you have rung a service and ended up either pressing 10 buttons only to be sat in a queue or being asked too many questions first, or have you received a text message which has led you to have to make a call to understand what is going on.
Don’t get me wrong texting has its place, and is great when you are reminding about an appointment or sending in some information, but when your relaying a larger amount of information it can get quite confusing, I had a client who insisted on texting a customer to tell them their claim was being paid, this was great if we could also say a letter will be in the post with the final detail, but this wasn’t allowed due to cost, so the customer would get a text saying ‘your claim will be paid into your account in the next 5 – 7 days’ from X claims so they knew who it was from, but what is it for and how much? So as you would expect we then received lots of phone calls asking why have I only got £50.
It does work though if you have something to do when receiving paperwork, so a text saying we’ve received your post and it will be looked at within the next 5 days stops the phonecalls chasing updates but please be careful how apply these systems in your business. Remember you are dealing with individuals.
As I have said texting, email facebook messages or twitter the can comfortably be used for confirming despatch to people, but make sure that the wording does not leave the customer with a What, Why or When question, or you will just get unnecessary contact. Remember on text and twitter, you only have a limited number of characters so need to make sure you can relay the appropriate message.
Now turning to an email program, make sure that the customer gets it, this is a big cause of concern as so many things go into spam, the customer needs to be really comfortable that the email is from you especially if it has click through, how many ‘EE’. Lloyds, HMRC scams do you get via email these days, customers are equally as concerned.
Whatever you do, make sure the next steps for the customers are simple with clear, clean signposting and if you are not sure this is the case, ask someone such as a family relative or secretary to look at the communications and ensure they make sense.
If you want support in exploring your customer journey, why not come along to our Customer Service pledge workshop on the 9th December http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/8580132423?s=47228173
