4 Simple Ways Smart Companies Track and Nurture Crazy-Happy Customers

Customer service is a lot more than waiting for customers to complain and then responding to their needs. Great customer service is about being proactive – not only solving problems, but also about capturing and creating awesome experiences.

Here are four things awesome companies do to build a healthy base of insanely happy customers.

Don’t Sell the Customer – Provide a Solution to Their Needs

Before you make the sale, make sure you’re treating customers right and ensuring that your product or service meets their needs. You’ll save yourself a lot of headache and stress if during the sales process you are educating the customer and LISTENING to their needs. Ensure that you’re not SELLING THEM, but actually providing a solution to their needs.

After the Sale, Follow Up

After the sale, make sure you follow up with the customer and ask them if your product/service is indeed solving their needs. Ask them if they’re happy with it and using it effectively. This is NOT a survey, but ideally a phone call and/or an open-ended communication of exploration and discussion with them. Here is your first opportunity to correct any problems. This is also an opportunity to find out if your new customer is a raving fan – or not.

Survey the Customer

Each and every customer should receive a survey asking them to rate key performance indicators. Overall, you want to know if they are happy with your product/service and if they would recommend you to a friend. Dive deep into “net promoter score” (NPS) type surveys. Here you have a second chance to correct any problems and find raving fans.

Tribe of Raving Fans

For customers who are in LOVE with your service (or product) and who are very happy with you, it’s important to keep properly tag them in your database. You want to be able to go back to these customers for future testimonials (beyond the first one they’ll have given you) and use them for speaking to the media, at events, and other opportunities. Periodically, touch base with these customers, provide perks to them, and overall make sure to keep them engaged as customers. Not only will they come back to you and buy, again and again, but happily engaged customers keep spreading the word about your product/service as well. Raving fans become awesome ambassadors for your company.

In Summary

Leverage the power of marketing automation to systematically delight customers, find small problems before they turn into big problems, and identify customers who could be awesome ambassadors.

We spend so much time attracting customers to our companies and selling products (or services), but we need to spend a lot more time delighting customers after the sale. Part of this delight is also tracking individual customers so we KNOW who our customer ambassadors are and can encourage them to tell others.