It is important for customers to have the ability to voice their opinions via all available channels. As a result, businesses are keeping an ear to the ground when it comes to customer feedback.
What methods do you use to listen to your customers? Do you find it sufficient to read testimonials and reviews, or do you need to do more? Does listening to customers matter to you?
In our primer on customer listening, you can find answers to these questions.
In what ways do you listen to your customers?
In pre-modern times, customers were often listened to. People cared about them. Today, customers can provide feedback in many ways. For example:
- Messages on social media
- Sending surveys by email
- An analysis of your website’s interactions with customers
- Keeping track of keyword searches related to your brand
- Direct communication with customers through live chat
Whenever a client shares information about your company, pay attention.
Listening is beneficial to businesses in many ways
Our focus has been on listening to customers, yet we haven’t explained what businesses can gain from it. Check out these five reasons why listening to customers makes sense for businesses.
- Customer data is provided. To sell effectively, it is important to know your customers. Listening to your customers will help you obtain the best customer data.
- This results in longer customer retention. Communication is essential for successful customer engagement. It’s more likely for customers to stay with a company if they’re heard.
- Customer lifetime value is increased through upselling and cross-selling. Listening to your customers will teach you about upselling and cross-selling possibilities.
- Your reputation can be improved by using testimonials. When you publish customer feedback on your website, you will gain credibility with customers.
- It allows you to identify your brand ambassadors. Engaging in active listening will enable you to discover where positive word-of-mouth is coming from. This will give you the opportunity to develop a partnership strategy.
5 tips for listening more effectively
We know the importance of listening to our customers. So how does that work? Here are five ways to do it.
1. Monitoring social media
Currently, social media is primarily used to collect customer feedback. Comments, reviews, and likes are among the available listening options on social media platforms. Live chat popups and phone calls are two of the features offered by some of them.
Social media monitoring includes interacting with followers and monitoring social media channels. Direct questions are best.
2. Listening through web forms
You can view your website as a listening platform. Using the web form option, all forms of listening above can be handled using the application. Users can also provide feedback using web forms.
Your static website can display an online form on the navigation bar and the “Contact Us” page. Subscribers can use it to send in information.
3. Pay attention at the point of sale
It is easy to overlook the importance of timing when listening. It is not the same way to mention your brand offhand as it is to speak to your customer before, during, and after the sale. Sales data can be collected at a point of sale.
4. Taking the time to listen to clients
To provide good customer service, one must listen to the customer. No matter how you listen to customers, whether it’s via email, live chat, or phone calls, the information you collect is valuable for customer service. Positive feedback is less common in customer service, but negative feedback is often more valuable.
5. Group meetings with focus groups
Your budget may allow you to use focus groups. It is the first step to present and discuss your products and services with a group of consumers.
Due to their in-person nature, focus groups enable people to be more honest and open about your brand than surveys.
This tool lets you listen to your customers
In the world of business-to-consumer, listening is asymmetrical. Your resources will always be strained by the number of customers exceeding the number of listeners. In order to circumvent this problem, companies have developed tools to automate the listening process.
Help desk for LiveAgent
Having too few resources or staff may make customer service difficult for you. The LiveAgent Help Desk enables you to scale your customer service operations and provide excellent customer service.
In addition to a ticketing system, contact forms, live chat, knowledge base, and forum, you can create a ticketing system. There is a free subscription, and you can upgrade at any time.
Listening is the key to success
Because of business orthodoxy, clients were regarded as passive consumers, which affected the conception of B2C communication. Digital outlets such as social media gave customers a voice.
Business success is almost impossible if you aren’t listening to your customers. You can learn a lot about what you need to do on a strategic level by listening to what your customers have to say.
