During a pandemic, you’ve likely faced challenges in connecting with your customers. Face-to-face interactions became more complicated with social distancing, and with the uncertainties that lie ahead, you may not know the future of your business.
However, you still need to make sure you’re engaging with your customers! If you’re looking to build your business, here are some smart ways to connect with your customers.
1. Survey Your Customers
A proven way to understand your customers is by surveying them. It allows you to know your users’ needs so you can optimize products and services. Whenever a customer purchases a product or service, ask them to fill out a survey about it or leave reviews. Surveys can also cover customer service.
Once you know your customers’ needs, you can begin brainstorming and implementing ways to fulfill them for even better service for your consumers. Additionally, surveys can be used as a platform to gain new customers who may be undecided about a product.
2. Send Eye-Catching Emails and Newsletters
Perhaps you have received emails or newsletters from other companies and don’t even bother opening them because the content doesn’t strike you as interesting. Use those as examples to improve upon your own emails and newsletters.
People today want scannable material. Your content that you send out should be short and include links to resources your customers can use. There are so many great examples of newsletters from various companies, so if you’re struggling to make your newsletter interactive, check out sample letters and emails.
3. Respond to Your Customers
People expect a timely response to an email, phone call, text or any other communication form. That means you need to be responding promptly to your customers. Don’t wait until the next week — if you wait too long, your customers may feel like they’re unimportant to you.
Usually, you shouldn’t take more than a day to reply to anything. Technology has sped up over the past decade, and instant messaging is expected from everyone. If there’s an email that will take time to respond to, send a quick email to your customer explaining you saw the email and will get back to them when you can provide a more thoughtful response.
4. Meet Customers in Person
Face-to-face interactions often work better than any other interaction, whether it’s through email, video calls or a phone call. In fact, face-to-face interactions are 34 times more effective and successful than emails. It’s easy to send out thousands of emails, but you may not get the response you were looking for.
When you are intentional with customers and make a point to meet with them, it shows you care and are willing to connect. You’ll be more successful at gaining new customers, and you’ll deepen your relationship with old ones.
5. Give Rewards to Customers
For customers who have been with you for a long time, you should reward them. Offer discounts, gifts and a free sample of a new product. When you reward people, you’re expecting them to repeat their behavior, so for customers, they continue supporting your business.
Additionally, you could add in a customer loyalty program to reward customers. You can get them to join a loyalty program by offering rewards with the first transaction. It’s often more expensive to gain new customers than to provide rewards to existing ones, anyways, so give those rewards to your current customers to keep them coming back!
6. Blog — And Make It Personal
If meeting in person with customers isn’t an option for you — especially amid a pandemic — then blogging is the next best thing, as long as you personalize it. To keep it successful, you must keep it active and updated. That way, your customers will want to read it and respond to it, and you’ll keep open communication.
Give your blog a name and a face to connect with so it’s not entirely lifeless. Highlight products and customer stories or reviews.
7. Be Active on Social Media
Everyone is using social media these days. If you want to connect with your customers, make sure you’re active on social media, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It’s a fast and effective way to engage with returning customers and possibly new customers. Many companies respond to customer comments faster than any other mode of communication.
Additionally, with social media, you can share content from your website with the click of a button. It’s an excellent segue to draw customers from social media to your company’s website.
8. Make Customer Service a Top Priority
All of these smart ways to connect with your customers make up customer service. Make customer service a top priority for your business to connect with your customers. Every interaction you have with a customer should be thoughtful and should leave your customer feeling satisfied.
Customer service represents you and your brand. At the end of the day, when you provide excellent customer service, those customers will recommend your business to others. Additionally, customers will remain loyal and pay more money.
Reach Out to Your Customers
Making connections with your customers increases your chances of them coming back to your company. Whether it’s through a blog, social media or face-to-face interaction, each time you make an effort to build a relationship with your customers, they’ll feel appreciated and will continue to support you
