When you run a business that only really has a presence in the online world, it can sometimes be difficult to find ways to look after your customers and build those relationships with them. When there is no person to person contact involved, it is difficult but there are things your business can do. As we move deeper and deeper into the digital age, it is important for every business to think about this even if online is only a small part of your business right now. Here are some ideas that might help you out with your online customer relationship management.
Reward Loyalty
Loyalty rewards can work just as well online as in stores, so you should definitely put a loyalty scheme in place if you haven’t done so already. It is a very simple thing to implement. You can just make sure that each purchase has loyalty points attached to it which can then be tallied and used by customers to get discounts on products in the future.
It is something that everyone can benefit from. Even if you are not selling a physical product you can use loyalty points. Let’s say you have some kind of subscription element to your business, maybe staying with you for a year gives them a months free service? The ideas for rewarding loyalty are only as limited as your imagination and time tells us that rewarding loyalty is the best way to get people coming back to you and your brand.
Follow Up And Offer Support
When someone buys from you, you should always follow up a week later with an email that asks about their experience. This can then be collated and you can analyse the feedback monthly. You should obviously directly get back to people who have had problems and offer them support as soon as you possibly can. But on top of that you should learn from what the feedback trends are telling you and improve your business accordingly.
As you may have heard, the money is in the list, so you should be collecting the emails of both your actual and potential customers. Overkill on writing to your email list can lose you subscribers but you can inform them of new products or services or maybe even try to garner what interest there is in a certain product or service you are considering offering.
This links with loyalty and if you can offer an incentive for a reply to a simple questionnaire the more response you will get. It is obviously a great way to market your offerings before even committing to offering them!
Use The Right CRM Software
CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) software is ideal for companies wanting to manage customer relations and data more closely. There is free crm software available out there, so there is really no excuse for not using this kind of software anymore. When you have this software in place, you can learn more about how customers use and interact with your company, whether that is on your website or through your social media accounts. This offers important information for your business so you can adapt or enhance your business offerings going forward.
Offer Bonuses And Extras That Other Companies Don’t
There are so many ways for your business to give little extras to customers. You could offer flash sales or free products with each purchase for a limited time. It is the little fun things like this that customers really appreciate, and you should start making use of them. It is all about offering something to customers that your direct competitors are simply not offering. That is what gets people to become a customer and to keep coming back for more.
Being aware of what your direct competitors are offering should be huge part of your work in your business working life. The first part is actually determining who your best direct competitors are and then try to better your offerings.
Don’t Forget Your Customers Are People, Not Numbers On A Screen
Your customers are people too, and they should never be thought of as Just numbers on a screen. That would be entirely the wrong way to go about appreciating your customers. It is really easy to forget that there’s a real person behind every purchase when you are only selling online, but you should never lose sight of it. This mentality really does make a difference in the way that you handle your online customer relationship management. Think of a face for every name especially when dealing directly with them over an issue or request.
Final Thoughts
Just because your business is operating solely online, that doesn’t mean that you cannot do more for your customers in a whole variety of ways. The ideas above should prove that to you no matter what kind of online business you have. I personally make my living through affiliate marketing but I can still put these ideas into practice especially with people who join Wealthy Affiliate to learn about building websites and how to succeed at Affiliate Marketing.
So make the most of the tips and ideas you have learned about today. Each and every one of them will serve your business well and ensure your online customer relationship management is second to none.
I hope you have found this post useful and given you some inspiration for things you can implement in your online business. If you have please give it a share on your favourite social media platform.
As ever if you have any questions or just want to share your thoughts then please leave me a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen