Top 4 Small Business Tips for the Best Customer Service

By using technology smartly, you can improve your customers’ experience

Your customers are the reason your business exists, right? Of course, you already know this. And that’s why you spend your limited time trying to ensure that your customers always get what they want and need. But the thing is, it can be difficult to navigate how to handle customer service when you own a small business with a — let’s be honest here — small budget. This is why you’re reading up on small business tips for customer service.

When you don’t have much money in the bank to play with, finding the cash to spend on upgrading your methods of customer service can feel quite draining.

And the catch-22 of the situation is that, as a small business, customer service is your best marketing tool. It’s one of the most important small business tips you should take note of.

So, what do you do when you don’t have the budget to spend big on customer service, but you really care about your customers, want to help them, and need their feedback to better cater your offering to what they want? Well, you use technology and you use it wisely with an omnichannel approach in mind at all times.

Here are four top small business tips for those who want to better their customer service using technology.

Make your business accessible

This is a simple concept which should be applied to both your physical store and your digital presence.

Your physical business needs to be easy to find, whether you own a retail store, coffee shop or consulting company.

Basically, if you have customers and/or clients, you want them to be able to find your location — without searching endlessly. You can do this through signage on your premises, specific branding using both design and copy elements, as well as a personal presence where either you or your staff are available to welcome customers or clients to your business. Don’t forget though, that it’s important to keep an omnichannel approach in mind and make sure that your branding and presence are the same with every interaction your customer has with your business.

The same needs to be done for your online presence. Your customers need to be able to find your business and that means that you need to be searchable. Using Google My Business (GMB), for example, is incredibly important. It’s an excellent way for people to be able to locate your business, find out where exactly it is, and what services or goods it offers. GMB links through to Google Maps and Google Search, which will increase your business’ visibility online.

GMB is one of the best free online marketing and customer service tools to not only promote your business but also to provide quality customer service. But how is this customer service, you may be wondering? Well, at the end of the day, customer service is all about being accessible to your customers and GMB does this by allowing your customers to message your business, rate your business, and ask or answer questions about your business.

Make use of insights through data

You know you need to know your target market; that’s business 101. But how are you getting to know your customer-base? Through speaking to them one-on-one? Because that’s not enough anymore.

You need to use online tools to track your customers and their purchasing behavior.

You can do this by gathering data via tools like Google Analytics and the data provided by social media platforms like Facebook. You can track your users throughout their journey, from the moment they find your website to looking through your products or services and making a purchase (if your business operates online).

Use SMS marketing to keep your customers up to date

SMS marketing for business is incredibly important. It has stood the test of time for a reason.

What you are able to do with SMS since SMS marketing was first used by businesses has progressed quite significantly.

The character count may have stayed the same, but we now have so much more data available to add insights to our SMS marketing efforts.

Of course, personalization in SMS messages should never be too, well, personal. You don’t want to upset your target audience by knowing too much about their lives. But, on the other hand, you do want them to feel connected to your brand. This means that you could reference purchases they’ve made when sending them a discount code, but not necessarily just when you want to advertise a general sale. You also need to remember that customers need to opt in to receive these messages and if they choose to opt out, you have to end the communication via this medium.

SMS marketing is an opportunity for you to remain top-of-mind when it comes to your offerings. Reminding them of sales, how much money they have left to spend on their account or sending them a special offer “just for them” will remind them of your brand and why they’ve chosen to do business with you before.

Of course, SMS marketing isn’t always about making new sales, it’s about customer service. By reaching out to your consumers, you’re letting them know that you’re available for them, you value their loyalty, and are invested in keeping them up to date with your latest products and services.

Know which platforms your business is on and keep tabs

Yes, you do need to market via social media, and online marketing is also extremely important, especially when it comes to offering your customers a way to get hold of you when they need to. And it works. Most of the time. However, you have to respond when your customers reach out to you, as soon as possible. If not immediately. This means that you need to know exactly what platforms you’re using to market to your consumers and remember to check those accounts for any communication.

If you leave a customer waiting too long, they’re not going to be impressed… or possibly won’t be a customer of your business for much longer. It’s also important to have an omnichannel approach and keep your messaging in line with your brand throughout each platform.

If you’re interested in learning more about how SMS marketing can positively impact your small business, these small business tips will make all the difference when it comes to marketing your business on a tight budget.

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