As we all know, closing the sale is (hopefully!) just the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship.
‘Hopefully’ is the key word there. Whether or not a first-time buyer becomes a loyal customer that comes back, again and again, rests heavily on what you do after the sale.
For businesses of any size, a great after-sales service is a powerful marketing and loyalty strategy that can make all the difference to your longevity and annual revenue reports. Luckily, advances in email have created opportunities to personally engage customers at scale.
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Add a Personal Touch to Your After-Sales Workflow
Studies from IBM found that improving your customer relationships can benefit your business in a number of ways, from slashing customer service costs to boosting productivity and revenue.
Here are seven ways you can delight your customers after they make a purchase from you.
1 . Answer Their Questions Before They Even Ask
As soon as you’ve closed a sale, your customers are likely to have dozens of questions. What are the next steps? What team members do I need to involve? How exactly is this product or service going to help my business?
If you can answer these questions before the customer even asks, you’ll demonstrate your commitment to their success.
The safest and easiest way to do this is to set automatic email flows that set up the necessary on boarding calls, or walk the client through the on boarding process immediately after the sale. Creating a campaign that sends a welcome email, intro video, and the next steps will assist the customer to know what they’ve purchased and what they need to do next.
Mixmax can allow you to set up these different flows and personalize them as needed. Maybe the intro video is different from one service to another, simply create the flows and then the correct emails will automatically be sent giving them a personalized experience. Our integration with Vidyard adds a great personal touch with video in on boarding new customers.
2 . Make Each Task Simple
Nothing is worst than when a client feels like they are doing too much work. Delight your customers by making their tasks easy and simple.
One of the best ways to do this is to integrate your on boarding tasks into an email sequence. Mixmax allows you to integrate into several platforms to allow tasks to be done via email.
Use meeting templates to allow the customer to easily show available times for the kickoff meeting. Leverage the Dropbox integration to seamlessly share documents without tons of permissions requirements.
Keeping all these to-dos in email will speed up the on boarding process and make the process seem easy to the client.
3 . Personalize Communication
Tons of research goes into the sale, as you understand the customer’s pain points, objectives and goals. Use that information after the sale to provide personalized information that is specifically helpful.
For example, if your customer was specifically motivated to purchase your service because of a certain feature, you can personalize your first few emails to provide additional information about that feature.
Mixmax makes this simple through automatic emails and integrations. Leveraging both the Salesforce integration and Pipedrive integration, your team can record in the CRM that the client likes a specific feature. That record (or field) can start an automatic email flow that provides additional information on that feature, and how they can best leverage it.
These flows can be created for each benefit of your product so different customers will receive the info most helpful to them.
4 . Provide a Self-Help Guide
Imagine your business sells an accounting software program. Everyone in town wants it, and your promotions work wonders as the sales fly in.
However, before you can count your money, your days are constantly interrupted with a barrage of calls and emails from customers who are struggling to get the program up and running. Trying to answer everyone and provide training for all the new customers just isn’t feasible.
This could be a major problem, but instead, see it as a great opportunity for a sales follow up.
Create an automatic email that sends a self-help guide or tutorial videos that show the customer how to get the most out of your service. This won’t just free up your customer services team, but it will help build bonds with your customers after the sale.
5 . Get Feedback
Research from eConsultancy found that product reviews from other customers are trusted 12 times as much as the word from manufacturers and brands.
Furthermore, people also want brands to care about them. So, if your brand makes the effort to reach out to customers to see if they’re happy, then most people will be responsive.
Mixmax allow for survey and polling capabilities so you can automatically send an email to get quick feedback. Consider different polls for different customers- whether you ask different questions by industry, or by the amount of time they have worked with your company. In addition you can set reminders to make sure follow up happens in a timely manner. Samantha Kennedy, Customer Success Manager at Gong.io explains how Mixmax reminders help keep her on top of her job so she can provide premium service to her customers.
The more you learn about what customers like or don’t like, the more you can improve the customer experience.
Over time, this breeds loyalty, and you can then leverage great social proof on your website or social media channels to build brand awareness and win new customers.
6 . Profile Customer Success Stories
By building stronger relationships with your customers, you can elevate your business above your rivals. A great way to do that is by showcasing success stories on your platforms.
This is taking social proof to the next level, as User-generated content (UGC) can help you gain greater brand awareness. This is especially powerful for small businesses, as it is cost-effective, yet helps your brand earn acclaim in the right circles.
Wool and the Gang shares knitting projects from their customers on Instagram. Not only do customers love it, but it also helps build a community around the brand.
7 . Add Chatbots
Introducing chatbots that operate on a machine-learning system will help you serve your audiences in a more effective way.
Although swapping out people for chatbots may seem like it dehumanizes your brand, the reality is the faster, smarter service invariably leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction, as well as happier employees who are no longer swamped with problems. With ROI as high as 400%, it’s easy to see why 80% of businesses already use chatbots.
Automating Workflows Can Streamline Customer Satisfaction
Customer service is a vital cog in business, and much of it can now be automated.
Your customer service staff doesn't have to spend countless hours working on every little problem your customers might have.
By automating workflows in your customer support system through the use of chatbots and email sequences, it’s possible for many problems to be solved without the need for live communications. This frees personnel up to focus on making your customers happy in other ways.
People expect fast solutions to their problems, and the companies who adopt a customer-centric approach will benefit going forward.
Little things like follow-up thank you notes, free shipping, and a self-help guide can go a long way to building customer satisfaction and trust in your brand.
Give Mixmax a Try
If your sales, customer success or recruiting team needs a better approach to outbound communication perhaps it’s time to give Mixmax a try. You'll see improved productivity, more conversions and business growth. Affordable, user-based pricing makes Mixmax a low-risk, high-reward option for scaling your sales, success and recruiting teams and ensuring standardized customer processes.
Start your risk-free trial of Mixmax today.
