Every company needs raving fans to make them flourish, and builders are no exception. The question is how do you get a customer to become your raving fan or “true” fan? In this post, we’ll discuss three ways to provide excellent customer service and have your customers spreading the word about you.
What is a Raving Fan?
As defined by Zendesk, “Ken Blanchard coined the term “raving fan” to describe a customer who is so overwhelmed and floored by the customer service they’ve received that they can’t stop telling everyone about it.” Your raving fan will be so enthused about your product and or company that they will spread the word about you to their family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Now with social media, it’s easier for your “true” fans to rave about you by simply posting or messaging someone through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp. How do you get raving fans, you ask? Well, all you have to do is provide outstanding customer service.
Three Ways to Provide Excellent Customer Service
- Design an original Company Vision
The first way you can transition to providing exceptional customer service is making a plan for your company. To succeed you can’t act on another business’ plan, it has to be your own original vision. Everyone in your company has to be on board with the plan and follow through with the steps. You’ll have to work as a team. A superb example of this is Microsoft. They envisioned bringing a computer into every household. So what is your vision? And how is that driving every aspect of your company? Every employee at every level of your organization must have this vision as part of their daily mantra… working toward one common goal.
- Leverage Customer Reviews and Social Media
Communication is a two-way interaction, keep communications channels open for your customers to leave their thoughts. One way your customer can interact with you is through the company’s social media. Your customer can leave a comment or message you directly. Another way your customer can leave their opinions is by leaving a review. What will customers reviews do for you? Well, one review can create as much as 10 percent lift in sales volume. More people will trust you as a builder. In fact, 92 percent of consumers trust word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family. Manage your reviews by using BDX’s service, TrustBuilder. TrustBuilder delivers honest reviews from real homeowners about the home buying experience. Utilizing this service will also help you manage the unsolicited reviews and therefore, help deter the unhappy few customers. The best feature about TrustBuilder is it’s free for all BDX clients. Remember to respond to all social media and on your customers’ reviews promptly. Getting feedback from your customers will help shape your company to match the needs of your consumers.
- Go Above and Beyond
Empower your team to go above and beyond, beat your customer’s expectations. The authors of The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath, talk about “breaking the script” to provide an experience that will leave your customer astonished, in other words, they want you to defy the expectations. Orchestrate your customer’s experience. Go that extra mile to wow them! For example, hotels arrange wake-up calls, but one particular hotel goes above expectations and has an actual person wake you up instead of just a voice recording. Going that extra mile will help distinguish you as a company that cares about their customers. Your customer experience is your brand. When you distribute a product that is meeting the needs and wants of your consumers, and then you do something unexpected by contributing just a little more, your result will be raving fans!
Excellent customer service can be a huge competitive differentiator. Want to learn how BDX can help connect you with home shoppers and deliver on your promise? Contact one of our BDX marketing professionals.
