Establishing strong connections with clients is critical for any organization, especially in the real estate market. It can not only help you retain existing clients, but also win new ones.
Providing a better client experience is impossible without employing a uniform customer communication strategy that is used throughout the organization. In the article, we’ll review what steps exactly such an upgrade of customer communication may consist of and what benefits it can bring.
Why customer communication matters
What is customer communication? In short, it involves managing customer interactions across multiple channels, analyzing customer feedback to improve customer satisfaction, and understanding customer needs and preferences in order to provide the best possible customer experience.
The introduction of digital touchpoints with customers and new patterns of behavior have altered customer demands and expectations, with such things as consistent communication experience across several channels and 24-hour assistance becoming the norm.
Studies show that more than 90% of consumers become loyal to a brand based on their experiences of communicating with it. Proper customer communication increases your customers’ LTV (lifetime value), which is one of the key metrics for business success. It also increases the company’s revenue, as clients satisfied with how a brand handles their inquiries are more likely to make new purchases. Finally, better customer communication helps to differentiate a brand from competitors, establishing it as a prime choice in a particular niche or industry.
Better customer communication in 6 steps
Let’s take a look at some of the essential steps a brand should put efforts in to achieve a better quality of communication with its audience.
Be proactive
When it comes to customer communication in 2023, being proactive is essential. It’s critical to show your clients that you care and are willing to assist them. Reaching out with personalized offers, automatic callbacks, and engaging clients post-purchase are just a few of the ways that may help you be ahead of inquiries and create a more personalized experience.
Go omnichannel
With an increasing number of consumers preferring to make purchases and contact brands via social media and instant messengers, companies should communicate with their audiences through these channels as well. Although most brands utilize these channels to provide advertising material, firms should strive for a greater two-way conversation on these platforms as well. An all-in-one messenger platform, such as Umnico Inbox, which consolidates chats from different platforms into a single user-friendly interface may be the best tool for streamlining interactions across multiple channels.
Supply tutorials
Customer communication is not only about having conversations with clients. Some prefer to do everything on their own and it is also important to supply this category with the necessary tools. Provide infographics, and tutorial videos, or set up a full-scale knowledge base on your website. Customers will not have to contact you every time they have a simple question, which also helps your support agents to focus more on complex problems.
Find balanced tone
While some clients prefer to be more formal in communication with a brand, others enjoy having a joke or using emojis. Whether interacting with a customer in a free live chat or email, try to mirror their behavior to some extent, while remaining within the company’s communication guidelines. When responding to consumer complaints or disagreements, it is critical to maintain a professional demeanor. Don’t be overly defensive or confrontational, but attempt to understand and empathize with the consumer. It’s a good idea to apologize for any annoyance caused by the consumer. If the buyer is still unhappy, you might give them a discount or a refund.
Work with negative feedback
Ignoring rude and negative comments or reviews on social media is not the best part of customer communication, but it is a must-do. Ignoring them can have a major impact on your brand’s reputation, as customers may think that you are deliberately avoiding their feedback. Remember that clients want to be treated with respect, and no one enjoys waiting for a response for a month. By that time, customers may have already cooled down, but they may not even care anymore and are likely already enjoying the services of a competing brand that responds faster and more effectively.
Maintain a short response time
Ideally, a brand representative should respond to a client email within 24 hours, while it’s recommended to answer live chat inquiries in under 2 minutes. Even if you need to search for the information, keep the customer updated. When it comes to phone calls, it helps to use features like skill-based routing, which connects customers to an agent that is most skilled in a given topic. For social media and messengers, it pays off to employ an all-in-one messenger that combines all conversations in a single app and has customizable notifications. This way, not a single incoming inquiry will be missed, while, in the case of Umnico all-in-one messenger, for example, mobile apps for iOS and Android allow salespersons and support agents to stay in touch with clients even on the go.
While not rocket science, customer communication is still not the easiest thing to master, considering the high competition, the abundance of various communication channels, and the increasing clients’ expectations. Still, a holistic and consistent approach that employs the steps described above is bound to deliver results and improve your company’s public perception and key performance indicators.
