Providing "Real-Time" Customer Care

Maintaining access to timely information can help you stop customer problems before they start

A recent study from the Society for New Communications Research, a global nonprofit research and education foundation, found a majority of consumers regularly research companies' customer care online prior to purchasing products. So how you handle complaints may not only keep you customers—it can gain you customers.

Better customer care starts with having deeper and timelier information. Experts reveal four ways that small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) can leverage real-time information to improve their relationships with customers and increase those customers' long-term value.

• Track inquiries closely. Every time a customer contacts you, you have an opportunity to increase their satisfaction—or disappoint and potentially lose them. The key to making customers happy is making sure problems don't fall between the cracks. Track the progress of customer inquiries, from creation to resolution, and attach electronic documents to a customer's service record or account. "One of the primary reasons customers leave is lack of attention to customer inquiries and complaints," says consultant Bill Bleuel. "Customer satisfaction is a passive state; the majority of customers who defect are not satisfied."
• Know common problems/solutions. Create and maintain a repository of common customer problems and potential resolutions, which your employees can access online while providing customer service. Employees should be able to immediately find procedures, frequently asked questions, repair tips, and articles about previous solutions. Experts say to develop and nurture a strong—and real—service culture. Empower your staff to provide a quick response to and ownership of service errors with an emphasis on making the client whole.
• Search out customer comments. Customer care used to be about listening to what customers told you. In an age of social media, customer care now means finding out what customers are saying about you. "When small companies start with Facebook and other social media, they often want to market to customers," says Laurie McCabe, partner at the SMB Group, a consulting firm in Northborough, MA. "They quickly learn it's a two-way street, and they also look at social media as a way to raise customer satisfaction as opposed to just market to more people." New tools allow you to aggregate web comments about your business or products and services so you can respond immediately. "Word of mouth is crucial to the success of a small business," she says. "The web is word-of-mouth on steroids. You need to understand what's happening and get in the conversation."
• Continually elevate your standards. According to Bleuel, less than 5% of respondents in customer satisfaction surveys talk about the service or product they purchased—they focus on "memorable events and services which range from performance of delivery people and the receptionist to warm cookies offered while at the plant." Satisfying those customers requires a continual improvement in the experience of doing business with you.

"Too often companies assume that an acceptable level of customer satisfaction is a static concept," he says. "Companies forget that the competition is getting better every year and when that happens, customer expectations are elevated." And meeting those raised expectations requires an ever-quicker response, based on better information.