In recent years, businesses have spent huge sums of money to explore
ways to retain customers. The success and strategy ultimately depends
on expanding the breadth and depth of customer relationships and into
translating this loyalty into higher sales of goods and services.
A lot of companies invest so much in developing customer loyalty or
rewards programs but in the end, these strategies fail. Because looking
deeper into these programs, what is missing is in fact the most
essential ingredient in any customer-client relationship: the spark
between the customer and your frontline staff members. From the moment
your frontline staff member hands the customer his or her business card printing
until your customer drives away from your company's parking area,
everything is being assessed and evaluated in terms of how they, as
customers, were treated by your company. The way your frontline staff
members handled these wary and dubious customers can transform them
into strong and committed brand followers.
A delayed flight; a customer returning a damaged merchandise; long
queues at a service counter; badly printed business cards – these are
“moments of truth”. These are situations that can make or break your
business. This is when the exceptional handling skills of your
frontline staff members become crucial. Superb handling of these
moments requires an instinctive frontline response that puts the
customer's emotional needs ahead of the company's and the employee's
agenda.
There are practical ways to handle these “moments of truth”. In any
industry that provides services or sells a product with an embedded
service element, there are moments when the long term relationship
between a business and its customers can change significantly – for
better or for worse. Here are some steps to ensure that your frontline
staff members can deliver in these “moments of truth”:
Empower your Staff
A strong sense of commitment emanates from an empowered workforce.
Empowered employees can make decisions on the spot when necessary.
Create a positive atmosphere
A positive outlook and promoting constructive feedback mechanisms will
ensure that staff members are not risk averse. Traditional companies
however, would dwell on the negative and are just on the lookout for
mistakes, often exacting sanctions for those who do not toe the line.
Emphatic Relationship
Your frontline staff members must deal with every client or customer on
an individual level. They must have the skill to identify other
people’s feelings, creating empathy and facilitating better
conversations with customers.
When you can improve on the quality of frontline employees you have,
you will see more prospects turning into loyal customers which can then
help you stay in business for a very long time.
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