CLV, or the lifetime value of your customers, is a great benchmark for measuring the long-term success of your business, giving you an average of how much a particular customer is anticipated to spend with you.

Digging into CLV a bit further, a study in 2017 found that, on average, 80% of a company’s future profits will come from 20% of their existing customer base and a satisfied customer will contribute 2.6x more revenue than one that is simply “somewhat” satisfied.

Those two factors, retention and satisfaction, and their respective effectiveness, have a direct correlation to the efficacy of your customer service and how you approach it. In other words, if you keep your customers happy, your bottom line will be happy too.

As a small- to mid-sized business, ensuring a consistently strong and effective approach to customer service doesn’t have to be difficult, and is more about ensuring you have the right foundation in place and are open to integrating new tools into your repertoire.

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC COMMUNICATIONS

From acquisition to checkout to after sales, your communications shape the impression your customers have of your business. It isn’t just about being friendly and accommodating, albeit that’s still very important, but goes further than that and is about making your customers journeys a smooth and transparent process, including:

• Ensuring your return policy is readily available, easy to understand, and doesn’t make a customer jump through hoops to actually return an item
• Utilizing personalized emails and newsletters that provide value, inform, and resonate with the reader, based on where they are in their customer journey
• Implementing a simple knowledge center, if your business warrants it, or FAQ section to give your customers a means of getting help on their own
• Optimizing the shopping and checkout process, especially for mobile users, utilizing best practices
  

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

Want to know a great win-win scenario? Surveying your customers. Not only do you get valuable feedback, but you make your customers feel appreciated and can even incentivize the survey to get them shopping again.

That fact is, we all have opinions and most people want to share their thoughts with you, both positive and negative, but just don’t have an accessible means of doing so. The key is simply giving them something to act on, making sure the timing and content of the communication makes sense when you consider where they are in their customer journey.

Consider some of the following:

• Pop-up notifications on your website, which ask them to complete a questionnaire about their shopping experience
• Encourage them to complete a customer survey immediately after checkout
• Email them an incentivized customer satisfaction survey after their order has shipped or a few days after
• Get social, making sure you’re correctly listed on Google and social networks and encourage customers to share their opinions and reviews
  

Don’t forget, it’s just as important to respond to reviews, especially negative ones, as it is to ask for them!

PROVIDE A PERSONALIZED APPROACH

Customers want to feel like they’re getting an experience that caters to their wants and needs. Researchscape International published a report that highlighted just how important personalization truly is these days, with an overwhelming 98% of marketers surveyed saying it has an impact on customers and that conversion rates, CTR’s, and revenue were the biggest benefactors.

• Get to know your customers better through the creation of buyer personas and customer journey maps, using the results to foster more relevant, targeted touch points
• Consider a loyalty program, which will deliver you higher retention rates, an optimal communication channel, and lots of valuable customer and market data
• Look into AI-powered tools, like Samba, which autonomously optimize and execute personalized communications at all touch points including email, e-shop, push notifications, ads, and more
• Consider live chat or chat bots, which run autonomously, giving your customers a direct line to contacting you and you a direct line to connecting with your visitors