Get to Know Your Customers Every Day

Did you know that the third Thursday of every quarter is “Get to Know Your Customers Day”? It’s a day for companies of all sizes to show greater appreciation for their customers and find ways to serve them better. This quarterly holiday is a welcome reminder, especially to those caught up in the day-to-day nonstop nature of customer service, to take a step back and consider ways to improve.

Here at ModSquad, we think it’s important to be in the know about your customers every day and to constantly ask yourself whether you’re meeting, and even exceeding, the needs of your customers. Doing so doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, you can start today with these four activities:

1. Get Reports from the Front Line

Your customer service team is likely already delivering reports of call and ticket volume, handle time, first contact resolution percentages, and more. In order to get to know your customers, think beyond performance metrics. What are the top issues? What customer complaints are starting to trend, and which are their ongoing gripes?

Establish communication paths that allow your front-line agents to speak on behalf of customers and raise the questions and concerns they receive frequently. Not only will this ensure customer feedback makes its way to those who can do something about it, but it will also help your support agents feel empowered, leading to greater enthusiasm (which, in turn, leads to better service).

2. Leverage Social Media Analytics

You don’t need fancy social media tools to find out the who/what/where of your social media community (although robust analytics tools can definitely help, depending how deep you want to go). All the main social media platforms — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube — provide free analytics about your audience. Among the metrics you can analyze across these platforms are demographic data like age, gender, location, and language; platforms like Facebook and Instagram will also tell you when your followers are most active on each platform.

By understanding who your audience is on social media and when they’re active, you can make informed decisions about the type of content you post, how to schedule your social media support agents, and whether to offer multilingual support. You can also use these insights to hone your marketing strategies and the products or services you offer.

3. Create Content that Encourages Customers to Express Themselves

People love to share about themselves. Use your website and social media, as well as surveys and contests, to encourage customers to express themselves in ways that can inform your brand strategy. Deciding which colors to release your next product in? Ask your social media community to vote for their favorites. Not only will you gain insight into their preferences, but they will feel more connected to the product by having a voice in its development.

There are a lot of ways to incorporate customer feedback across your social media channels, from highlighting aspects of your followers, to creating engaging questions, polls and surveys, call-to-actions, contests, and providing incentives. The same goes for your website — there’s a lot you can learn about a current or potential customer by offering them a coupon in exchange for their opinion. We’re happy to help design a strategy that works for your brand.

4. Go Out of Your Way to Request Feedback

Don’t wait for the complaints to come in to realize it’s time to make changes. Instead, build feedback channels into your existing processes, so customers always feel like their opinions are welcome and heard. Use tools like email, follow-up satisfaction surveys, and social media to find out what your customers like and dislike about your brand and the support experience, and what they’d like to see from you in the future.

Consider using Facebook Live or hosting a Twitter Q&A as ways to connect with your customers on a personal level. Encourage supervisors and managers to follow up personally with customers who rate their experience as less than satisfactory, and empower them to make decisions around conciliatory gifts that can help retain customers.

Once per quarter is a great start to making sure you’re taking regular stock of who your customers are and what they want. From there, consider building in a process for monthly and weekly reports, and perhaps even daily or shift-based reports for very busy support teams. While it may seem difficult to make the time to create those reports, the insights you will gain as a result will be worth it in the long run.