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Customers often stick with a brand that cares for them. They even don’t mind turning into advocates for a business that takes effort to improve their experience.
Similarly, for most customers, getting help when needed matters more than anything else. And, maybe, that’s why the importance of follow-up in customer service is huge for any type of company.
Organizations that do regular follow-up create a personal connection with customers, deliver value at each stage of the journey, and come across as reliable.
When your business follows up, it shows customers how much it cares. Following up brings an opportunity to understand and serve customers better.
Needless to say, follow-ups are easily the most crucial part of your marketing strategies with the potential to convert leads and bring happy customers.
In this blog, we will discuss what is follow-up in customer service and its importance for your business.
Benefits of Follow-Up in Customer Service
Customer service should never stop at the transaction stage itself. Neither should its focus be restricted to converting leads only. After all, its real value lies in providing great experiences and ensuring value at each stage of the customer journey.
Follow-ups have benefits galore for any business and the stats below show its importance:
- On average, it takes 8 follow-up calls to reach a prospect.
- 42% of people are likely to purchase if the sales rep calls back at an agreed-upon, specified time.
- Sending more than one mail can help boost a 25% chance to hear back from customers.
- 4 out of ten salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt.
Importance of Follow-Up in Customer Service
Great customer service is not just limited to making a sale. It extends well beyond the transaction and encompasses everything that adds value to customers. And that’s why the importance of follow-up in customer service is matchless as it focuses on building a long-term relationship and converting prospects into loyal customers.
A follow-up encounter in customer service is truly invaluable and its importance goes far deeper than just achieving conversions.
- Improve Customer Experience
- Build Strong Customer Relationships
- Fulfill Customer Expectations
- Retain Customers
- Boost New Sales Opportunities
- Nurture Old Leads
- Enhance Communication
- Gain Competitive Advantage
Having the right strategy in place for a follow-up encounter in customer service is always key to delivering value. You also need to have customer service scripts to make those encounters meaningful.
1. Improve Customer Experience
For customers, a good experience matters more than anything else. And if their experience is good, they will stick with the business, spend more, and spread positive word of mouth.
So much so, 96% of customers say customer service is key in their choice of loyalty to a brand.
When it comes to improving customer experience, the key is always to ensure value with every interaction across the journey. The focus should also be on being available as and when customers expect as it helps remove their doubts.
That’s why follow-up can prove very helpful in improving customer experience with your brand. A follow-up call can achieve many goals together with overriding any negative experience customers may have with your brand.
Role of follow up in improving customer experience
- A pleasant follow-up call is a great way to understand what customers expect from your business and what you should deliver.
- You can send an email or call up the customer to seek feedback about your products, services, or overall experience with your brand and then take steps to improve the experience.
2. Build Strong Customer Relationships
Customers often trust a business that takes effort to know them. It’s therefore important to invest in long-term relationships to know your customers well.
And unless you know and understand customers well, you won’t be able to deliver a personalized experience through various customer touchpoints and across their journey.
Following up with customers is always a great strategy to foster relationships with customers. It makes them feel appreciated and special. When you do follow-ups, it’s also likely to win more loyalty from customers.
How can follow-ups help build customer relationships?
- Brands that follow up in customer service find it easy to know the pain points of the audience and therefore are more likely to deliver value.
- Reaching out to customers regularly can give them confidence in your brand which always leads to building a strong relationship.
3. Fulfill Customer Expectations
Meeting and exceeding customer expectations successfully is something that most businesses strive for but only a handful achieve that goal. Only those with a customer-centric mindset can fulfill customer expectations.
Follow-up is therefore the best available tool if you want to be one of those organizations that understand and fulfill customer expectations.
With follow-ups, you can know customer preferences and what they expect from you. And when you’re aware of what they want, it’s always easy to provide that and win their faith.
When customer expectations are fulfilled, there are more reasons for them to associate with your business or buy a product or avail a service.
Tips to use follow-ups to meet customer expectations
- Regular follow-up with customers regarding the service inquiry or assistance inquiry is a good way to fulfill their expectations.
- Seeking customers’ feedback after the purchase of a product or service can help give them the feeling of being cared for.
4. Retain Customers
Retention is always cheaper than acquisition. Acquiring a new customer is some five times costlier than retaining an existing customer.
It explains why the focus of your business should be more towards retention than winning new customers. After all, this is how you can boost profitability and revenue.
And when it comes to retention, follow-ups can prove very handy. Your service team can always approach a customer through mail or a phone call and understand their problems better.
With a periodic follow-up encounter in customer service, it is easy to know what customers expect and what they think of your business.
How to use follow-ups for retention?
- When you follow up, customers are more likely to share their grievances, complaints, or comments which you can identify as areas for improvement.
- By approaching customers, you assure them of any help they may need about your products or service, which is always the right strategy to retain them.
5. Boost New Sales Opportunities
If used appropriately, customer service could well create new opportunities for sales. If a service team is ready to reach out to customers, or if it does reach out regularly, it can always help contribute to more sales.
Follow-ups are a great way to upsell or make a new sale. When your service team follows up with customers, it can ask about the level of satisfaction with the product or service. And in the meantime, the team could also recommend an additional item.
More so, your service team can always combine follow-ups and sales to add to the overall customer experience of the customers. This is how you benefit from the use of customer service etiquette and put your business on the path to success.
6. Nurture Old Leads
It takes more than one follow-up attempt to persuade customers and convert leads. Despite this, most customer service reps give up after one follow up which often causes a lot of lost opportunities for the business.
If your service team too follows this approach and knows how to talk to customers, it’s then surely underestimating the power of follow-ups. Because then it’s not using a tool that makes it extremely easy to nurture old leads.
Well, customers need some persuading to get converted and this is where follow-ups play their part. When you approach someone who earlier inquired, there is always a possibility of getting a lead.
Tips to use follow-up calls to nurture a lead
- A follow-up call after a marketing campaign can prove very handy in terms of converting a lead.
- Approaching the people who showed any type of interest in your product or service could be a great way to get the lead.
7. Enhance Communication
Customers always want to feel special. And as a business, communication is the best available tool to achieve customer delight and make them feel valued.
When you communicate with customers consistently, it serves two broad purposes – first, you are available for listening to their issues, and second, you can know their problems and deliver instant solutions.
Regularly following up with customers is one of the most effective ways to keep the line of communication open for both parties. This is how both the parties will be able to benefit mutually from the association.
Benefits of follow-ups in boosting communication
- Customers feel more open to discussing their problems when contacted to or communicated with and that’s why following up with them gives a good understanding of their problems.
- With regular follow-ups, your business will be aware of the areas of improvement that customers expect and then deliver solutions accordingly.
8. Gain Competitive Advantage
You’d be surprised to know how not many companies leverage the power of follow-ups. Yes, you heard it right, not many of them get in touch with customers regularly.
Where many businesses are making mistakes, you can simply seize the advantage and gain the trust of your customers. With regular follow-up calls and emails, you will find it easy to gain a competitive edge and win trust in the market.
Since customers love to feel valued, your attempt to reach out to them consistently can give them a reason to choose you the next time around.
Plus, your making extra effort to meet customer needs can also create better sales opportunities for the business over some time.
This clearly explains why brands that realize the importance of follow-up in customer service stay ahead of the curve and face the competition successfully.
How to Follow-Up in Customer Service?
There is a range of channels to establish connections with customers. Based on the industry, business type, and customer preferences, you can choose the right channel and reach out to the audience and fix their issues easily. And when you realize the importance of follow-up in customer service, you take the right step towards winning their trust.
When it comes to following up in customer services, the options are plenty, including –
- Business Messenger – Live chat could be your best bet to proactively send targeted messages and help customers at the exact moment they need it. By using business messenger, it’s easy to stay available, do a call and send relevant help materials to handle from simple to more complex conversations.
- Proactive Automation – AI-powered chatbots can help you deliver automated proactive messages to customers at key moments throughout their customer journey. The bot can prove very helpful in supporting customers through personalized offers and content at virtually every stage of the journey.
- Thank You Message – Thanking your customers either via email or over the phone is a great example of effective follow-up. By doing that, you show appreciation for the customer’s purchase and also assure them of any help with the item of purchase.
- Support via Updates – You can provide support to customers via regular updates of your products or service and ensure follow-up. Any new feature release or anything worth value can be shared to win the trust of customers.
- Knowledge Base – Customers often want to know about products and services in detail before purchasing them. You can include knowledge base articles in follow-up messages and bridge the gap between customers and your products.
- Upsell – Sometimes upselling can be a great follow-up tool as you can use this strategy to reach out to customers with a product, service, or feature they might be interested in.
Follow-Up Best Practices
Following up with customers is an art. If you do it right, there is a whole gamut of benefits to achieving. However, if you don’t get it right, it might end up harming your business in more ways than you could think.
There are certain follow up best practices you need to follow:
- Make follow-up a routine exercise on your customer service calendar and ensure you approach one customer or another daily.
- Follow up with customers as early as you can. The faster you reach out to them, the more likely you are to create a positive impact on them.
- If a customer contacts you, get back to them within 24 hours and show you’re available for them.
- When you follow up, the focus should always be on getting the most information from customers rather than using yes or no questions.
- Update your database after every follow-up to better understand customer requirements and provide tailored solutions for further calls.
- Always send a thank-you note to customers after the sale. Inquire whether they are satisfied with the product and look to resolve the issue on the spot.
How Can REVE Chat Help with Customer Follow-Up?
For a business, the importance of follow-up in customer service is always big as it helps build trust and lay the foundation of a rewarding relationship.
With REVE Chat, you can benefit from the power of AI-powered chatbots and automate your service. This will help you reach users as and when needed the most.
By using bots, it’s always easy to send welcome messages, personalize the offer and stay available round the clock for customized solutions.
Similarly, you can get the most out of live chat + chatbot together and deliver hybrid support which is key for effective follow-up.
Final Thoughts
Follow-up is always a crucial part of customer service endeavors. It allows you to win the confidence of your customers on the back of solving their issues.
With the right tools, follow-ups become easy and you find it easy to reach out to customers and give them the value they deserve.
With REVE Chat, start a free trial of some of the top tools for follow-up in customer service and change the way you solve customer issues.
So, you should never ignore the importance of follow-up in customer service and always make an effort to reach out to them and offer them timely solutions.
