Cheap, Easy and Effective Ways to Ensure Customers Come Back
By: Tyler Sharp
Tags: Small Business, Entrepreneurship, Customer Service, Customer Experience, Marketing

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

This article originally appeared on Forbes.

Does the term “customer service department” leave a bad taste in your mouth?

We all have horror stories of dealing with brands that did less-than-stellar jobs of righting their wrongs — like the time you sat on hold for 45 minutes only to be disconnected, or when you couldn’t come to an agreement due to company policy.

These infuriating encounters can do real damage to a company’s reputation, causing customers not to work with them again — and to warn their friends not to either.

So much of avoiding those cringeworthy moments comes down to the basics: strong communication and follow-through, a desire to do what’s right and making sure people feel heard.

Here are some of the most effective practices we’ve adopted at Lendio.

Make their story yours.

There are many ways to ensure satisfaction and improve customer relationships, and marketing can help with a lot of them.

Recently, we hired two talented photographers (a married couple) to travel across the country documenting what we’ve described as uncommon beauty in common things: small business owners in their natural elements. From a farm in Burkeville, Virginia, to a barbershop in Miami’s Little Haiti, every business has a story, and photographs have a way of bringing those stories to life.

The content has nothing to do with our company, but also everything to do with it. We are telling small business stories in a wholesome and authentic manner, but it’s understood that proper funding and resources are how small businesses thrive.

Consider how you might tell your customers’ stories in a way that celebrates them while keeping your brand message secondary.

Rebuke traditional customer service programs.

Just over a year ago, Lendio reengineered its customer service department with the small business customer in mind: staffing up so customer service reps are available at night and during weekends, and ensuring that they are capable of properly de-escalating situations with unhappy customers in a prompt and professional manner. We handpicked people who are responsive and responsible. We no longer refer to this group as a customer service department, but instead as a customer experience team. That’s what we’re trying to improve upon: the experience.

At the end of each call, a customer is asked the following question: Is there anything else I can do to enhance your experience with Lendio? They are then thanked for being part of the Lendio family, or if we haven’t helped them find funding yet, we let them know we look forward to them joining the Lendio family. By doing so, we give customers the last word, multiple opportunities to express themselves and our gratitude for their business.

Ensuring that customers feel heard and understood is a practice that many businesses can easily adopt. For small businesses with few employees, the idea of having a separate department to address complaints may seem impossible, but you can implement some of these practices on a smaller scale with every customer interaction. Allocate even a small portion of a staff member’s time to focus on this new function. A little effort here goes a long way.

Refuse the ‘one and done’ mentality.

Delivering good customer service doesn’t stop when the problem is solved, or at least it shouldn’t. After all, establishing repeat customers is a large part of building brand loyalty.

On average, Lendio facilitates multiple loans per customer over the course of a few years. Since we don’t directly provide the funding, we take great care to stay connected in meaningful ways during the downtime. Our success team members touch base after the first round of funding to see how they can help our clients — providing educational materials and brainstorming about growth potential are common practices.

At the end of each successful transaction, we also ask them if they’d be willing to provide feedback in the form of an online review. Many are happy to do so, and we make it easy with instructions on how to leave their comments on a platform of choice (usually Trustpilot, Google, Facebook or Best Company).

Besides personal contact, we also utilize direct mail and send some pretty great swag (think branded tumblers, bottle openers and tabletop games). We create a drip effect by staggering the correspondence.

Even if you don’t have the budget for this kind of personalization, it’s still important to reach out and provide value after the sale. Remember, great customer service is never one and done.

What does great customer service mean to you?

Great customer service may mean something different for you: a loyalty program, a specific call line or a customer appreciation day.

We place importance on being the customers’ best advocates, whether that be through free sources of inspiration like our Instagram campaign, sincere interactions over the phone, or providing continuous education or counsel. Philosophically, as a company, we decided early on to do what’s right by the customer. It’s ingrained in our company culture. As such, the customer experience has become an integral part of our value proposition.

What are some unique ways you have improved your organization’s relationship with its customers?