With technology invading every aspect of our lives, there has been a marked change in our preferences and behavior. We are now looking for ways to get to know each other better. This new approach is relevant to businesses as well. They no longer follow their gut or intuition: companies base their decisions, even product designs, on their users.
With this trend of taking a more personal approach and getting to know each other better, businesses are doing more to understand their customers. However, courtesy of modern technology, there’s a sea of information available, and it becomes hard to decide the ways to adopt that’ll help know clients better.
We list what we feel are the best and most effective techniques to learn all you want to about your clients to offer them superior service.
Talk More Often and Get Friendly
The best way to know someone is to talk to him. Technological advancements have made it easy, and you can connect with anyone miles away with just a few taps of your finger.
Remember, your job isn’t done by just sending an email. You’ll have to follow that up by talking to your client more often. Show them your face, crack a few jokes, show them the lovely flower arrangement you made and be a friend your customer loves talking to. Build rapport. Remember, personal bonds are cherished by all, and they are the ones that last.
Build Connections via Social Media
Social media plays an essential role in your relationship with your customers. In many cases, clients might not bother checking your official page. Instead, they will look for your handles on the most popular social media platforms. If you do not offer regular posts and updates, clients might not be very eager to choose your services or products.
Once you have a solid following, do not be shy to communicate with your clients. Post quick surveys, ask for feedback, and answer the questions users make. Then, clients will feel more comfortable expressing themselves. As a bonus, you will build trust, especially if you always remain calm and composed (even with negative opinions or comments).
Understand their Vision
Understanding your client becomes that much easier when you know what their vision is. Take the time to understand what they have set out to accomplish and where they want to be. If it’s a B2B customer, try to know where your customer wants to take his business and what goals he has set for it. In case it’s a B2C customer, try and know what the customer seeks to achieve from your product or service, or in other words, what their goals are. Don’t just focus on the customer’s present needs. Try and know where they want to be and what’s holding them back. Once you know that, you’ll be able to offer better advice and support.
Get Feedback and Study it Carefully
Asking for feedback from customers is a usual practice. However, what you do with the feedback makes all the difference. Some make an effort to study the feedback and make necessary improvements.
Analyzing customer feedback helps you know what’s important to your customers. There may be things you might consider trivial but are important to your customer. After you realize the importance of the customer attaches to a particular issue you might have overlooked earlier, you give it the attention it needs, making your customer feel valued and wanted.
Can Customers Trust You?
To understand your customer better, you should know the purpose why your customer wants your product or service. Using your service or consuming your product certainly fulfills some purpose of your customer.
However, online businesses must understand how customers expect their data to be handled. For instance, to order from you, they might need to create a profile and provide certain personal details. In your privacy policy, you must set boundaries on how you use that data. No one wants their email address sold to thousands of companies. Thus, to keep your clients happy, be as straightforward as possible. They will value honesty more than anything.
Now put yourself in the customer’s shoes. There are so many companies asking for certain information like email addresses or locations. You might be wary about sharing them, and with so many data misuse cases, you have good reasons to be wary. You should take steps to protect yourself. Thus, many concerned users turn to a VPN for safety and privacy. Since a browsing VPN encrypts your entire internet traffic, advertisers or other snoopers won’t be able to gather as much information about you.
Conclusion
In an era of increased competition, loyal customers are invaluable. Building a personal bond with your customers helps you understand them better and gives you an edge over the competition.
