How to Develop a Customer Care Strategy

The cost of acquiring new customers greatly exceeds that of retaining current ones, according to Forrester Research and Informatica, two prominent data research companies. This fact highlights the need for companies to focus on satisfying customers' needs and resolving service issues, two goals that can be accomplished through development of customer care strategies. Good customer care strategies consist of plans that utilize the entire company and get everyone involved, from company management down to lower-level employees. Benefits of these plans include brand and company loyalty, as well as a solid company reputation.

Instructions

1. Record the customer care issues that currently need to be addressed. Ask yourself whether customers are being taken care of from the beginning of a sales transaction to the end, and whether the business is seeing repeat customers.

2. Define the goals and outcomes that you want your customer care strategy to achieve. Possible goals of customer care strategies include reducing advertising costs, increasing customer retainment and decreasing customer complaints. Write the goals of your customer care strategy into your company mission or business plan so that the customer care strategy will be an executive goal that gets constant attention.

3. Review your product and service offerings to determine if unclear communications or mixed signals are being sent to customers. Revise your advertising methods and strategies based on your review of your product offerings; revise wordings and develop concise advertisements that get to the root of the message you're sending to customers.

4. Purchase and integrate customer relationship management (CRM) software into your business model and everyday tasks. CRM software automates many functions to get the most information, such as tracking specific customers' sales and item purchases and recording general information about each customer. Customer relationship management can also help automate billing issues and customer complaint issues by including ticket queues and customer service functions.

5. Assign a specific person or team to customer follow-up. Duties of a customer care follow-up service professional include telephoning customers to make sure they were satisfied at your store and recording complaints and service issues. Equip the assigned people with the power to refund money, make product or service exchanges, and offer customer retainment deals like free products or discounts.

6. Hold weekly and/or regular customer care and service meetings at the workplace. Train employees on specific topics like greeting customers, dealing with angry ones, and resolving everyday problems and issues that can be handled without upper-level management involvement.

7. Develop a unique selling proposition (USP). A unique selling proposition is a brief one-liner or phrase that acts as a mini mission statement. Developing a USP not only lets customers know how and why your business stands apart from your competitors, but a USP centered around a service theme promotes customer care in all aspects of your business.

8. Monitor your customer care efforts weekly and monthly. Record how many customer complaints you resolve, sales increases or decreases, and any other customer issues. Use this information to refine and rewrite your customer care strategies.

References

• Informatica Perspectives: Attracting and Retaining Customers Requires Being Data Driven
• Accenture: Customer Care Solutions: Customer Care Strategies from Accenture

Resources

• Smallbusinesstown.com: The Entrepreneur's Guidebook Series