Don’t Hide Anything from your client
Not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing to do.
Client confidentiality is a fundamental rule among institutions and individuals stating that they must not share a client’s information with a third party without the consent of the client or a legal reason. Normally, access to a client’s data is only between the workplace and the customer or client.
However, it could also be limited to law enforcement agencies- requiring legal procedures to get a hold of the information. This applies to all kinds of businesses from creative agencies to bank accounts and even therapy sessions. In other words, confidential information gathered by professionals, psychiatrists, and even priests should never be revealed to third parties.
That is for client and business confidentiality but in reality, in the world of business, they are always trying to promote their deeds on social networks and keep in touch via email with your customer sometimes pestering them. Sometimes business is always on our nerves when treating this subject, so the question is “Why?”
The truth of it lies in realizing that any kind of business does not like the idea of doing things in moderation. They are all aware of the importance of keeping customers well informed and though they go over the top sometimes, the rewards they get from people who aren’t easily frustrated must outweigh the negative impact of their actions.
When done in moderation, keeping your customers well informed about what´s going on with the service you are providing, is healthy and key to having a good relationship with them actually can result in an increase in client retention and a rise in business turnover.
The key to good customer service is trying to understand the customer’s point of view. Customer service departments people are always working hard trying to solve their problems, but since the customers never see all the work their rep is putting in, the business doesn’t get goodwill for the service they’re trying to provide. On the contrary, if you keep your customer well informed of all the trouble you’re going through to try and fix the problem, then you build loyalty and create a customer relationship that sticks around.
There are many ways to improve your customer service, or more specifically to improve how your customers experience your service. some improvements will require a lot of effort from your side, while others are fairly cheap and easy to implement. For instance, if you want to reduce the amount of time it takes to respond to a customer inquiry, you probably have to invest in tools and people. Needless to say, this can be costly and something you can implement overnight. And it might even be an investment that doesn’t pay off. Studies show that as long as your response times are reasonable, customers don’t care too much about them.
With all things said up to date, we can say communicating with your customers is key to a healthy relationship in any kind of business. Sales promotion and feature announcements are good; whereas updating outages or security breaches isn’t. However, it is important for both types of communication.
Here are some reasons why it is a good thing to keep your customers informed.
1. Customers are like your social media friends, they always want to know what’s going on
Your customers are every bit as nosy about your businesses and every aspect of your life as any of your friends might be. People are curious by nature and they like to know what goes on within your business, especially if they expect to part with their money in exchange for your services. Keeping your customers informed about agency news, latest offers, and even problems around your business will show customers that your agency is active and it will make sure your customers don’t feel left out more importantly you show transparency to them and that leads them to them trusting you.
2. Informing a customer about a problem is better than them finding them on their own
Informing your customers that you are aware of a problem and are working hard to fix it can indeed upset some customers and put them off your agency. After all, no one wants to use a service that is just not working. But the other thing people don’t like to do is having to work hard to do something when they don‘t need to. By keeping your customers informed about a problem you are proactively showing them that you are aware, you’re showing that you aren’t afraid to hold your hand up to it and you are doing something about it. For most customers, this is enough to let them give you the benefit of the doubt and they will give you the time you need to fix the issue.
The alternative is to ignore your customer and hope they don’t notice something is wrong. But they will find out, trust me! If they find a problem and they think you have been hiding them from it, then you won’t get any grace period to fix that issue, they will simply start looking for someone else, that is how the world works.
3. Clients don’t want to spend their time and energy doing something they don’t have to and because of that, you can never rely on your customers going to search for the information that they need from you.
If you have something your customers need to know then you can’t hope that they will find that information on their own, you need to tell them about it. For example, if your business closes on a bank holiday then you need to let your customers know that you will be closed. The last thing you want is for them to be trying to contact you and not being able to get hold. As soon as your customers can’t get in touch and don’t know why there are going to start searching for someone else who they can get a hold of, they are going to take their business elsewhere.
4. Keeping people informed reminds customers that you are there
Not every business is one that customers will use on a daily or even weekly basis. For those businesses, customer retention can be a real problem as it is a case of out of sight, out of mind.
Setting up social media pages and updating them regularly, blogging, and sending out emails about your agency can keep reminding people that you are there and bring customers back to you looking for more. It doesn’t have to be much, just enough to keep customers informed and remind them that they want more.
5. Your priority is customer service and you should put customers first
If you run an offer that you don’t actively tell your existing customers about, then you run the risk of letting them find out on their own and thinking that you were trying to hide things from them. The same is true for many aspects of your business and this leads to the key reason to keep your customers informed; you need to remind them that they come first.
Customers are needy creatures, they want to be coddled and made to feel special. By keeping them informed you are keeping the focus on them, showing them that you value them as a customer and you will do what it takes to keep them with your business. If done right, keeping your customers informed can make them feel special and they will reward your business for it.
Customers love promotions and offers. They may feel left out when they are updated only on websites and social media as not everyone has the time to visit those pages daily. Instead, share it directly with customers via email or text message. This reminds them that they come first and customer service is your priority number one.
A well-informed customer is a happy one
Providing a complete 360 experience for customers requires a lot of planning, incident managing, and follow-through for each customer to come away with a positive view of your agency. You will have multichannel customer support, easy access to purchases and inquiries, and a thorough model of standard business to which all interactions can be held to create a more streamlined experience. The creation and maintenance of these items ( and more) will help you give your company a steady ground level on which to rely, but the key to truly providing impressive service is in the details.
Fine-tuning your customer support model is a multi-step process. One of the most overlooked qualities of good customer service is the necessity of keeping your customer informed on every step of the process. For some, it can be an instinct to tell the customer only as much as is necessary, so that the agent can maintain control of the interaction, but a customer who feels completely out of control is an unhappy customer. Information is key to easing a customer’s mind, even if the information may not exactly be what he or she wanted to hear. Here are some benefits and strategies on why it’s a good decision to make sure your customer is staying in the know.
Give your customer a “plan of attack“
This doesn´t mean a ballpark idea of what may happen behind the scenes of your customer service operation, but an excellent concrete answer that customers can understand and latch onto. Even if this answer is something that might have to change as the incident is diagnosed, it’s better to keep your customer in the know of things to abate what rising frustration may come about with long waiting periods.
Give regular updates and timeframes
If speaking to a customer whose issue may take longer than a couple of minutes to resolve, it’s important to keep him or her informed of how the process is coming along and what they can expect to see happen in real-time. Without any timeframes guideline, customers will have far less patience with your service representatives.
Stay in touch after the issue is resolved
When your customer is looking to have an issue resolved, it can often flood over into a question of trust. Why should this customer still believe in your agency and return as a repeat buyer? Why should this customer suggest your company to their friends? A good answer to those questions is to provide follow-up after a customer inquiry has reached its conclusion. This way your buyers will know you are not just getting through the day, but looking forward to and continually improving the experience for anyone who may encounter a similar issue.
Keeping your customers in the know is giving them the power of knowledge, which will create a more comfortable atmosphere all around for your agents and your clients. In the age of information, the more you can rely on your customers the better.
5 ways of letting your customers know what is going on
Leverage email marketing
Emails are still one of the best ways to reach your customers. Email is considerably better than social media when it comes to sweeping communication because it allows you to contact all your customers at once – instead of just the ones the algorithm selects.
Sending emails regularly to your customers about how your business is going. Updating them will later avoid any unnecessary interactions.
Use Social Media
While email is considered the top communication tool, social media is still an important channel for reaching and informing customers. Content on social has the benefit of reaching beyond just your current customer base as many platforms enable sharing.
The sharing functionality makes social media a good platform for communicating important information such as your modified operating hours.
Social media posts are a great way to quickly address questions or address any concerns by customers who comment on your updates.
Make sure you don’t push updates on your social media channels, but that you dedicate time to respond to any comments, questions, or direct messages.
Post updates on your websites
Your website is likely the first place people will look for information.
Place a banner at the top of your website or link to learn more about your changes large enough for customers to notice.
Make sure you update it regularly and add the date you last updated the page to provide context to your customers. You will also want to remove the page once your business gets back to normal.
Use Messaging Apps
Depending on your business, you may want to use messaging apps to communicate updates and also provide customer service. You can answer questions and address changes on an individual basis.
Create Blog Content
You can use your blog to post content explaining how your agency works and different topics that are areas of interest within your workspace. Then share these blog posts across social media and with your email list.
If you post regularly about different topics in your blog, you keep your clients notes of what’s going on in the world of your agency, and can even bring you new business opportunities.
Conclusion
Going back to the main title, it’s always smart and the best choice to keep your clients updated. Despite everything mentioned, what shines on is the fact that transparency only leads to successful customer relationships, and at the end of the day that is what will bring new opportunities to your business table.
