When a customer communicates with you, either via email, social media, blog comments, fan mail, or something else, that’s a win. Woohoo! It’s always great when your customers engage with you. When they do communicate, don’t let them hear only crickets due to a non-response. Take the time to respond to acknowledge you heard them. Move the conversation forward. Show them you appreciate that they took the time to connect with you. It’ll make their day.
Examples
- Every time I comment on a blog I enjoy, I’m always a little giddy when the author of the post takes the time to respond back to what I said. It makes me feel like they see me and they care.
- Sometimes auto-generated responses from companies can work to set a customer’s mind at ease. If a customer submits something online, sometimes it is helpful to send her something to let her know her communication to you has been received. An auto response doesn’t take the place of an actual human reply to the customer. But in certain instances (like help desk support), it is reasurring for the customer to know that her request is in queue, rather than floating aimlessly in cyberspace.
Suggestions
- Block some time out of your day each work day to respond back to customers who have communicated with you. When you batch the task of returning emails, and other follow-ups, you’ll become much more efficient than if you were doing all the responses as a one-off.
- If you start getting a lot of people communicating with you (again, that’s a great thing), consider hiring some staff to help manage the process for you. Virtual assistants can help triage by answering questions, managing your social media accounts, or making sure you don’t miss a communication. The key is that your customer hears back from someone on behalf of your business. That someone doesn’t always have to be you.
Application for your business
- Dedicate a certain time of day, or certain times of the day to follow-up with customers. Maybe it’s from 9-10, or 11:30-12:00. It doesn’t really matter when. It just becomes easier when you’ve got set times in place to get these all important communications out.
- Set up some guidelines for yourself to help you manage your time for responding. Will you set a goal to get back to every customer within 24 or 48 hours?
