July, 2021 | Server And Hosting Blog

16 Jul

How To Anticipate Client Expectations and Gain Their Attention

Last Updated on July 22, 2021 by Joanna Isac

Building a relationship with your clients is key to long-term success. One of the best ways to build a strong relationship with your clients is by anticipating their expectations and then delivering on them.

Don’t be mistaken! There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to keeping clients happy – but there are some general guidelines to follow.

This blog post is for you if you want to provide your clients with a stellar experience that will keep them coming back for more.

Here are six tips on anticipating customer needs and creating a win-win situation for both you and your clients.

6 Clever Tips To Anticipate Customer Needs and Gain Their Loyalty

Pro Tip #1: Put Yourself in the Clients’ Shoes

The best way to anticipate customer needs is by understanding their business and what they are looking to achieve.

Anticipate client expectations by understanding their business and goals

Whenever possible, have a conversation with your new customers to learn more about their needs.

Pro Tip #2: Create a Customer Journey Map

Creating a customer journey map will give you a clear idea of the customer buying journey and help you predict potential client questions and issues before they arise.

A well-defined customer journey map will allow you to proactively address pain points before they arise or become significant roadblocks in the customer relationship.

Anticipating your customers’ needs and expectations when purchasing a product from your company could be the difference between gaining new customers or losing them.

What’s included in a customer journey map?

The buying journey.
Expectations and goals.
Pain points.
Proactive solutions.

Step-by-Step Process To Create a Customer Journey Map

Define your buyer personas. Create a customer journey map for each buyer persona.
Research how your clients find your company (organic search, paid ads, referrals, etc.)
What do they do once they get to your website? What pages do they visit, do they ask for support (via live chat, email, phone), what is the average purchase time? What steps do they need to follow to become a client?
Identify obstacles that may deter customers from purchasing and how those might be addressed (slow website, complex sign-up process, unclear website content, etc.).
Map out potential client pain points.
Brainstorm solutions to help clients reach their desired outcomes with ease.
Understand what your clients are looking to achieve with the use of your service and set expectations.

Pro Tip #3: Allow Customers to Influence Company Decisions

If you want to anticipate your clients’ needs, it only makes sense to ask for their input and let them have a say on how the business should evolve.

How to make customers part of the decision-making process:

Get their input on what new products or services you should offer next. What’s missing from the mix, what would make them achieve their goals easier, what could make the client experience better than before?
Be accountable! Share your company roadmap with your clients – let them know what’s coming next and how soon they can expect to see new features/services.
When launching a new product or service, make customers early beta testers – get their feedback before making your new service available to the general public. What could say “I value my customers’ input!” more than this?

Pro Tip #4: Make Customer Feedback More Accessible

There are many ways for clients to provide feedback through social media or email. However, a process is only effective if it’s efficient; therefore, you need an organized and timely approach when collecting customer feedback.

How To Collect Customer Feedback the Right Way

Create a dedicated customer feedback email address, for example, [email protected], where customers can submit feedback or feature requests.
Create a customer feedback form on your website, in-app notifications, and social media platforms. You can link this feedback form to the email address you have previously created to gather all feedback in a centralized place.
Let clients know when they should expect a change. Customers need to know how much time it will take for their feedback to be acted upon and which department will review their comments.
Don’t forget to thank your customers for taking the time to share their feedback and valuable insights.
Implementing these steps will encourage more people to provide their honest opinion and help you identify any service gaps that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

Pro Tip #5: Conduct Regular Customer Surveys

Use customer surveys to identify customer expectations

Customer surveys help companies identify customer expectations and learn how to serve their needs better. Businesses that measure customer satisfaction often find they have increased customer retention and loyalty.

There are a variety of ways to measure customer experience. Here are the most common types used by businesses.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a way of measuring customer loyalty by asking customers to rate on a scale of 0-10 how likely are they to recommend your company.

Client Satisfaction Surveys

consist of questions about the quality of service received from the company. The company then uses this information to identify client expectations and learn how to better serve its clientele.

Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys

CES measures how much effort the client had to put in for any given interaction. The CES rating ranges from 0-100, where 100 means extremely easy, and 0 means very difficult.

Examples of CES Questions Are:

Rate the ease of use of feature X.
Rate how easy it was to find information about service Y on our website.

How To Create Customer Surveys That Will Get Results

Conduct client satisfaction surveys regularly.
Keep surveys sweet and short. No one likes 30-minute surveys.
Include a mix of open-ended questions and “yes or no” questions.
Share the survey results with everyone on the team.
Keep track of feedback so that you can identify repeated issues.
This one is golden! Always and I always follow up with customers that provided feedback.

Pro Tip #6: Offer 24/7 Stellar Technical Support

Providing 24/7 customer support shows that your customers are your top priority.

Offering 24/7 customer support will help your business improve customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty. You will also have the opportunity to identify customer expectations better and learn how to serve your customers better.

To provide 24/7 excellent Technical Support, try these best practices.

Technical Support Best Practices

Offer a dedicated support email address ([email protected]) and/or phone number where your clients can always reach the technical team.
Use customer support software that enables your team to prioritize support tickets, collaborate easily, and keep track of customer interactions.
Implement an SLA (Service Level Agreement) – an SLA sets client expectations for an agreed-upon level of service.
Answer client questions promptly.
Know what you don’t know! – “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer as long as it’s followed by “but I will find out.”
Always follow up with customers if you are unable to answer their questions right away.
Learn how your clients use your services so that you can proactively offer support.
Offer an FAQ page or Knowledgebase where they can find answers themselves on-demand.

Conclusion

Customers are an essential part of every business, but ensuring high-quality customer service can be challenging.

In this blog post, we’ve listed six pro tips on how to anticipate client needs. These six tips will help you deliver an exceptional customer experience and gain your customer’s loyalty.

About SoftSys Hosting

At SoftSys Hosting, we take pride in providing stellar customer support 24/7. Our team is here to help you with every part of your online business journey: from getting your project or website successfully launched to scaling large traffic mission-critical websites.

With a team of in-house experienced sysadmins, we’ll do all the heavy lifting so you can focus on what’s important – growing your business.

Let us know how we can help you with your VPS hosting, dedicated server, or cloud hosting needs! Contact us at [email protected] or +1-862-214-2255 (Ext 203).

01 Jul

Why Social Media Is Essential For Business Marketing

Last Updated on July 1, 2021 by Joanna Isac

Social media marketing is a great way to promote your business and grow your customer base. Through social media, you can engage your existing customers while also bringing your brand in front of new users. According to a report from April 2021 by DataReportal, an estimated 4.33 billion people are on social networks. That’s over 55% of the entire population. 🤯

It’s no surprise that marketers are noticing the benefits of social media marketing and allocating more resources to it.

In this article, our team at SoftSys Hosting will share some of the benefits we’ve seen from social media marketing. Additionally, we’ll also share a few examples to help you get inspired and achieve success with your strategy!

What Is Social Media Marketing and Why Is It Important For Business?

Social media marketing (SMM) is a marketing strategy that uses social networks to promote a brand, product, or service – all while building relationships that will turn your followers into loyal customers.

We get inundated with emails, texts, and spam phone calls every day.

Quick! How many unwanted emails have you deleted today?

Unlike other marketing strategies that clutter your inbox, social media gives a chance to be seen by potential customers who are interested in what we’re offering at our business.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can use social media to grow your customer base.

How To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business

Nurture Leads

Your leads might not be ready to sign-up for your service yet, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a future opportunity. It’s been proven that people are more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media channels.

Use social media to keep in touch with new leads and old ones alike by staying top of mind through targeted posts. This makes it easier for your leads to recognize your company as a trusted source of information and reach out to you when there’s a need for what you offer.

Increase Website Traffic

Social media is a quick and effective way to drive site traffic without spending money on ads, as you’re able to share content with your followers. A common form of driving traffic to your website is by linking to your blog posts, support articles, and product pages.

Create Hype and Encourage Conversations

The quickest way to generate hype and encourage conversations on social media is through contests, promotions, and exclusive announcements that will get people talking.

Another excellent way for you to interact with your fans would be by commenting on their posts, asking questions, and making sure you respond when they comment back.

Build Brand Awareness

Get your followers to know you by sharing your company’s story, events, milestones, mission, and values.

When you share stories about the people behind a business or the values behind a brand, you create an emotional connection between your followers and your company. And guess what? People are more likely to buy from companies that they identify with on an emotional level.

Reach Your Target Audience

Before social media and the internet, people used to advertise in newspapers. But the ad reach was limited by how many readers were getting a copy of that newspaper.

Fast forward to today, you can reach targeted audiences outside your geographical location easily through social media paid ads.

You can target audiences based on location, demographics, interests, behavior, keywords, and more. Then place an ad tailored for your audience so that you can get your message in front of the right people.

Access Real-Time Data Through Social Listening

Social media platforms provide a great way to stay on top of current trends, but it can be challenging sifting through all the noise. That’s where “social listening” comes in!

Social listening is the process of monitoring and analyzing what’s being said about your website or brand online.

It can help a business identify customer needs and keep track of new trends.

Social listening has become an essential tool for understanding what people are talking about online and how their opinions may impact your business or marketing strategy.

Popular social listening tools include Hootsuite, Brandwatch, and Mention.

Create Loyal Customers

Social Media Marketing is a great way to make your customers feel like they are part of the conversation. They’re more likely to be invested and engaged if you let them know that their input matters!

Here are some ways to build trust and increase loyalty within your existing customer base on social media:

Create content relevant to their interests or industry.
Share product announcements.
Highlight customer successes.
Address community questions.
Share customer testimonials.
Learn more about your customers through polls and surveys.
Create conversation-starter posts.
Get them involved in launching new products by asking for feedback.

Want even more tips for creating loyal customers? Check out our “7 Ways To Improve Customer Loyalty and Retention” guide to learn how you can make your customer base a more profitable one.

7 Ways To Improve Customer Loyalty and Retention

Examples of Businesses Who Use Social Media Successfully

First off, it’s essential to acknowledge that the social media landscape is constantly changing, so best practices are always evolving.

There are so many different ways to achieve success. You have to find what’s right for your business and enjoy the process!

Let’s explore the companies that know how to have fun with their social media marketing while also engaging users and increasing brand awareness.

FAST.CO

Fast is bringing much creativity to their hassle-free checkout process. Here’s a post from Fast’s Twitter account before a product launch.

They encouraged Twitter followers to retweet the picture in exchange for having their own profile picture edited with a “Fastronaut” helmet.

Social Media Marketing Examples — ***Image*** **Source:** Fast.co via Twitter

This creative and fun tweet got them hundreds of retweets and a lot of exposure.

Twitter user @guptast1c and her puppy are making a fashionable statement in their Fastronaut helmet.

Social media marketing strategy — ***Image*** **Source:** Fast.co via Twitter

GYMSHARK

The popular fitness clothing company Gymshark creates not only functional products but also creative, fun games for its Facebook community.

One question they posed to their followers was, “Would you rather have an endless supply of the best coffee in the world or best snacks in the world, at your office?”

The post got over 18K likes and nearly 500 comments from the fans on social media.

Social media for business — ***Image*** **Source:** Gymshark via LinkedIn

MICROSOFT

Microsoft took us on a trip down memory lane with this image about Clippie. So many Microsoft users loved the now-discontinued office assistant. No wonder their post got 6K likes!

Nicely done, Microsoft!

There are many other examples of successful social media campaigns that you can get inspired by. But the bottom line is, don’t do what everyone else does – find what works for you and your followers!