As businesses, one of the last things we want is for our customers to feel pained working with us. If they’re left feeling frustrated afterwards, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere in the future. Plus, you can forget about those great reviews and word-of-mouth advertising that can bring in more customers. In fact, if they’re really unhappy, it will probably result in negative reviews and them telling their friends and family about their bad experience, too.

We want to help you avoid this by addressing five common pain points that customers face.

We’ll break it down:

1. They don’t get immediate help and need to wait for a response.

Customers that can’t get answers quickly are likely to get frustrated. It needs to be easy for customers to reach out to someone and get a response. Businesses can offer this by ensuring they have enough people to handle the outreach, several channels for support and 24/7 availability.

2. The customer can’t reach out to a contact center through the avenue they prefer.

The younger generations have been trending away from using the phone to actually make phone calls. In most cases, they prefer to send a text or use a chat window to communicate. However, many of the older generations still prefer to make a phone call. Although you can’t just assume if someone is in a certain generation that they’ll prefer that method of contact. Even if you have a good idea of your target audience, it’s safest to just offer multiple options such as text, chat, email and phone.

3. Customer service agents don’t know much about the product the customer has questions about.

Any agent working directly with customers should be familiar with the business and products they’re representing. It’s important to make sure that anyone that is representing the brand is knowledgeable. If this isn’t done in-house, make sure that the outsourcing company does training and knowledge development (we make this a priority at XACT).

4. The shopping experience was more difficult that it needed to be.

It’s important that the buying experience be as smooth as possible. You can do this by ensuring that your website is modern, updated regularly and mobile-friendly. It should also be easy for the customer to find answers to any questions they have during the buying process (offering a FAQ page and a chat window on the site is helpful).

5. They can’t seem to get a hold of the right person.

The customer needs to be able to get a hold of the right person to handle their concerns. If they do need to be transferred to another person or department, then it’s essential the agent ensure they’re sending them to the right place so they don’t end up getting transferred more than once.

These are just a few pain points customers can come across before, during and after the buying experience. The easier and smoother you can make things for your customer, the greater satisfaction and loyalty they’ll have.

Two of the most important aspects of growing and maintaining your business are retaining customers and getting them to refer you to potential clients. Smart business owners and leaders make significant investments to foster customer loyalty and referral strategies. They understand that satisfied clients are easier to retain, and they spend more.

Loyal customers tend to spread the word to their family, friends, and social communities, which is tremendously influential, and word-of-mouth marketing is free. As important as gaining new customers is, strategies that retain old ones are far more crucial.

Why? The cost of acquiring a new customer can be five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Finding the right customer retention strategies, however, can be challenging. Here are five tips that can make all the difference.

Understand your customer relationship. Make sure to regularly review your client behaviors. Who are they? Where are they? What are the trends you are seeing? Don’t be afraid to reach out to existing customers through surveys to gather more information about what they want or need. Make sure you are measuring the quality of your customer service efforts and consider outsourcing if your internal team isn’t providing the level of customer service your customers demand. Use any information or data you collect to create targeted retention strategies that will keep your clients engaged.

Build your brand and evolve. The quality of your product or service influences brand loyalty. Keep things fresh by changing and updating what works and what doesn’t. Update your colors and messaging if necessary and don’t be afraid to be bold in your messaging.

Improve your service approach. When clients contact or visit your business, ensure they have a great experience. Any employee who is in contact with your customers must be experienced, knowledgeable and cheerful. All of your customers should feel both important and satisfied.

Personalize communication. Communication through all channels should be personalized. Use the customer’s name, recognize purchase histories, and study their interactions and involvement with your business. Customer communication should be conducted via an individual with a name.

Go social. Social media networks are a major part of customer engagement. 21st Century consumers expect businesses to be socially focused, not solely focused on their bottom line. Clients are more likely to remain loyal if there are shared social engagements. Use this to your advantage and integrate social media and customer loyalty strategies.

Offer rewards. Ever thought about offering a customer rewards program? Not only do customers like the idea of special treatment, or rewards for being loyal, reward programs encourage direct communication and constant engagement. Try to establish a rewards program that is unique and relevant to your client base. Make redeeming the rewards worthwhile and easy.

Include your staff. A vital piece of customer retention that’s often overlooked is staff loyalty. Keeping employees satisfied and engaged is great for business and creates a sense of stability with your customers. Happy employees are more committed to their employers and are easiest to retain. Their positive energy will be conveyed to your clients by delivering exceptional customer service.

A company can do so many key things to help them grow and expand. They can network, be active on social media and market in various ways to help build their brand. They can form strategic partnerships with other businesses and influencers. They can franchise their company to help it expand to more locations. Businesses can also offer more products and services. In addition, they can focus on building stronger customer retention. And these are just a few things companies can do to help them continue to move up the ladder and see greater success.

But that’s not exactly what we came to tell you. The secret that we want to share is how outsourcing can help support your business’s growth.

Not only can outsourcing your customer service department increase customer retention (more on that later) but they can also help free up time for your employees to focus on creative thinking/innovation and fulfilling their day-to-day responsibilities. This allows employees to put more time into the business where it’s needed most, while still providing the support customers desire and need! This can both increase employee and customer retention while supporting growth.

Why can outsourcing increase customer retention? The right outsourcing partner will offer your customers great service. They’ll be available to them 24/7 and offer various avenues for which they can reach out. They’ll provide trained, friendly and knowledgeable agents ready to come to the aid of customers. Some of these companies also offer help with customer loyalty programs and can even manage surveys. Customer loyalty programs are great for building retention, and surveys can provide essential information for assessing how you’re doing as a company and how happy your customers are.

Outsourcing also supports growth by providing the workforce your business needs. It allows smaller businesses to compete with larger ones because they have access to more trained people to handle the tasks needed to continue to expand.

One more thing we’d like to mention, outsourcing can also help reduce internal costs. Partnering with an outsourcing company is typically more affordable than hiring full-time staff or paying lots of hours of overtime to handle all of the responsibilities. Think about the health insurance, utilities, supplies, wages, etc. that you won’t have to pay!

Overall, outsourcing really is a great way to support your company’s growth! There are so many ways it allows businesses to continue to move toward greater success.

If you’d like to learn more about outsourcing and are looking for a trusted partner, reach out to us at XACT. We’re here for you.

Customer service is all about keeping people satisfied and having them come back. You want to help answer their questions so they purchase a product or handle any concerns they may have about a purchase they already made. It’s important this is all done with proficiency.

One of the ways to help customers feel satisfied is to make sure they know they’re being heard. Any agent who works with customers needs to display the ability to actively listen.

But, how do you do that if the interaction doesn’t take place in person? When you speak with someone face to face, you can easily nod your head and give good eye contact to show you’re listening. But, these are things you can’t do over the phone or email. You need to rely on other methods to show you’re focused and engaged.

Start off on a good foot by using the person’s name. By saying something like hello “insert customer’s name,” you show them that you’re invested in the call. Then, ask them how you can help. Let your customer explain the issue and don’t rush them or cut them off. Listen intently and take notes. You can say things like “mm-hmm,” “tell me more,” or “could you clarify that last point?” to show you’re paying attention.

When your customer finishes saying their piece, take time to reiterate what you heard. You can say something like “I’m sorry about ‘insert issue,’ here’s what we can do to help,” for example. You may also say something like “To make sure I’m understanding your needs, the issue is ‘insert problem,’ is that correct?” Then you can follow up with how you can help them.

As mentioned above, it’s important to take notes during your conversations. This ensures you remember everything the customer says. A customer will quickly feel unheard or frustrated if they have to repeat themselves. It shows the service agent wasn’t listening in the first place. If you have further questions about the issue at hand and they weren’t already addressed, take time to clarify them. Doing so can help you find the best solution to take care of the issue. It also shows you have a vested interest in solving the dilemma.

Customers reach out to service agents because they want their questions answered or their problems solved. They reach out because they want someone to listen to them. Make sure every customer you speak with feels heard.