Me, the customer, my requirements, my expectations, and 15 actions to satisfy me

Hello, I'm your customer: do you know how to satisfy me? I'm going to be nice to you: I'm handing you my 15 most pressing demands on a platter (shhh, it's a secret, don't tell your competitors). Take a close look at my expectations and needs : your customer relations, and therefore your sales, depend on it.

Does your company know how to make a customer happy? If you ask me, there's nothing like tried-and-tested, high-quality customer support: personally, I can't do without it.

Of course, appvizer recommends dedicated tools, but also 15 concrete actions to put in place to keep a customer happy. ✨

See all software Customer Support

My 15 customer requirements

What is a satisfied customer? I, the customer, am personally satisfied when I feel that my experience with your company is positive: your product or service corresponds to what I expect, and the relationship I have with the salesperson, the sales assistant, or an agent in your customer service department, or on an online sales site, leaves me with excellent memories. I radiate contentment, pleasure and fulfilled desire.

I would like to complete my definition of customer satisfaction with 15 requirements.

My No. 1 customer requirement: to be listened to attentively

My number 2 customer requirement: that my needs and expectations are identified

I don't like repeating myself. Sometimes I know exactly what I want. Sometimes I'm indecisive or hesitant. I can be contradictory and not consciously admit what I'm buying.

It's up to you to clarify my intentions, advise me and guide me: what are my needs, my budget? I like the design of a coupé, but is it really the right model of car for a desert rally?

My No. 3 customer requirement: a reliable service or product offer

I hate being promised the moon. I'd much rather know what I'm getting. I work a lot by word of mouth and I avoid companies that have a bad reputation on the internet, as well as in the mouths of my friends.

I keep an eye on a company's brand image and reputation before making a decision. When choosing a restaurant or buying an item from an e-commerce site, for example, I first look at the reviews and comments.

For 40% of Internet users, online reviews are the main factor influencing their purchasing decision.

Source: IT Social article summarising the survey conducted by Researchscape for Talend.

My number 4 customer requirement: transparency

My number 5 customer requirement: a close relationship

Technology saves us time, but it imposes a relationship devoid of human warmth and emotion: I'd rather talk to a woman or a man than a machine (we have more to talk about). Sometimes technology gets 'stuck' when faced with very simple questions, because they are purely human in nature.

Human beings are irreplaceable when it comes to establishing a certain closeness, trust or expressing emotions: human exchanges, a voice, a tone, a vocabulary, a laugh, a joke, exchanges on common points that bring people together (written, geographical, audio, visual, etc.).

Successful communication is an experience of human relations: most sales people have it in their blood, that's why they perform so well.

My No. 6 customer requirement: empathy

People who put themselves in my shoes understand me better. By understanding me, the sales assistant is already halfway to the sale.

And when the company knows my expectations well, it serves me better: it calls this knowing the customer.

My number 7 customer requirement: quality service

My number 8 customer requirement: responsive handling of my complaints

Who likes to wait a long time for customer service to get back to you? I don't. I believe that a reasonable waiting time should not exceed 2 minutes.

As I don't like repeating myself, I want to get in touch with the right person to satisfy my request, solve my problem, in short deal with my complaint as quickly as possible.

57% of Internet users stop their relationship with a brand when they do not see a response to a negative comment, even though they are still being approached commercially.

Source: IT Social article summarising the survey conducted by Researchscape for Talend

I want to understand where the problem is coming from. And if a technician has to come to me, I'll have to be accommodating, because I have a job too.

My number 9 customer requirement: tailored, personalised support

How do you satisfy a bank customer? When I go into a bank, the first thing that interests me is what's relevant to my financial situation, not mobile phone or health insurance offers. Additional selling can be attractive, but it has to remain in context, dear banker friend.

Real estate brokers are renowned for tailoring realistic offers to their customers: the personalised nature of their offers and the good advice they give their customers have earned them a very high level of trust, and deservedly so.

The quality of the advice we give our customers reflects our level of expertise, whether by telephone, chat, email or in person.

My number 10 customer requirement: a credible message

I like to pretend to be stupid, just to see if I'm being taken for a patsy, and also to test the integrity of the person I'm talking to.

If their arguments seem credible to me and they give me step-by-step, factual and personalised advice, without trying to pull the wool over my eyes, then I know I can trust them and go further in the buying cycle.

My number 11 customer requirement: fair treatment

My customer requirement n°12: thanks

The words "thank you for your trust" are the right notes of a sweet melody that must ring in my head every time I make a purchase. Because that's what it's all about (again): the trust I place in the company every time I come into contact with it.

My trust must not be misled. Disappointment can quickly lead to a change of brand preference. When I renew my trust over time, I am a loyal customer.

My loyalty to your brand therefore depends on your ability to deserve the trust I place in you.

That's why you thank me every time I contact you.

My customer requirement no. 13: that my loyalty is rewarded

What is the value of a customer? Seven times more than a prospect!

It costs seven times more to convert a prospect than to retain an existing customer.

Sources: Reichheld F.F., The loyalty effect, the hidden force behind growth, profits and lasting value, Harvard Business School Press, and White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

As I have placed my trust in you and have remained loyal to your brand for some time now, I think I am entitled to receive some benefits from you:

• a gift
• an exclusive promotion
• an invitation, etc.

These new little touches reinforce the positive perception I have of your brand, and also increase my confidence.

My customer requirement n°14: that my level of satisfaction be assessed

A company needs to measure customer satisfaction in order to identify strengths and areas for improvement: are delivery times respected? Are new customers well received? Have they been properly oriented? Were they satisfied with the service?

I personally assessed the quality of service provided by some Club Med staff. I insisted on the special attention and quality of service of certain members of staff, because I think they go well beyond the "minimum" required to offer me exceptional services and a relationship.

Whether positive or negative, customer experiences must be taken into consideration.

Objectives :

• To improve the customer journey,
• their experience with your brand,
• maintain customer confidence,
• build loyalty,
• in short, to be the best company in your market at meeting your customers' expectations.

My customer requirement no. 15: respect for my personal data

The CNIL guarantees and protects my rights as a citizen in this area. You must therefore be clear about how you use my data.

In addition, it is useful to find out about your obligations to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD / GDPR) which comes into force on 25 May 2018, applicable throughout Europe.

The essential tools for offering quality customer service

Customer satisfaction has become the only differentiating factor (or almost the only differentiating factor) for generating preference ... and loyalty! Excellent customer service quality is the essential objective for meeting your customers' requirements. appvizer provides you with some revealing arguments, and recommends two solutions for achieving this objective.

10 reasons to choose a dedicated customer relations solution :

• Reason no. 1: 89% of French people demand quality customer service,
• Reason no. 2: they demand a response to their query in less than 24 hours,
• Reason no. 3: 61% will take the brand off their hands if the customer service does not meet their expectations,
• Reason no. 4: 70% disown the brand if it makes a mistake more than twice,
• Reason no. 5: 34% demand that the sales team master their history,
• Reason no. 6: Satisfying a customer helps to prevent customer volatility,
• Reason 7: A satisfied customer is a loyal customer,
• Reason no. 8: a happy customer buys more or more regularly,
• Reason no. 9: Satisfying customers and building loyalty helps a company to develop its reputation,
• Reason no. 10: happy customers generate a positive brand image and reputation.

iAdvize, enriching the customer experience with expert advice

Identify Internet users who need information and provide them with concrete answers from experts accompanied by sound advice.

iAdvize acts like a customer support software , relying on a community of hand-picked, passionate experts who are paid to answer users' questions.

The conversational commerce platform allows you to personalise your customer's experience and optimise the buying journey, whatever the channel of contact with the Internet user: social networks, messaging on your site, etc.

Within a single interface, your customer support team responds to all requests via a single messaging tool:

• video
• chat
• voice
• VoIP phone calls,
• TEXT MESSAGES
• and notifications.

Using the experts means :

• 91% satisfaction,
• 20% higher conversion rate,
• +36% average shopping basket.

Source: figures observed by iAdvize with its client ManoMano

Discover iAdvize in video:

Key features:

• Real-time analysis and targeting capabilities: define your own rules based on the target audience and your selection criteria (amount of shopping basket, type of answers required, etc.), and the expected assistance is launched by messaging;
• Putting customers in touch with the best advisor: this is clearly the trump card in terms of service quality. Customers are guided through their purchase by an expert in the field - they couldn't dream of anything better. Some companies using iAdvize have reported a 20% increase in the conversion rate and a 36% increase in the average shopping basket;
• Integration with Salesforce: yet another time-saver in information processing for your advisors. There's no need to leave iAdvize to enter a customer's details: they are automatically synchronised with your CRM.

Q°emotion, to determine what your customers love or hate

How do your customers feel about the quality of your in-store service? Are they satisfied with their purchase? What do they like best, what do they dislike and what do they need to improve?

The Q°emotion SaaS platform and APIs enable major groups to pinpoint positive trends and areas for improvement in each of their sales channels, whether virtual or real. The semantic and emotional analysis engine built into the solution scrutinises opinions, comments, conversations via chabots, complaints received via online forms and emails received by your customer support.

Q°emotion digests the Big Data to provide you with key indicators and areas for improvement. In short, you can identify and distinguish the strong points of your customer journey and anticipate the points that may ultimately drive them away.

👉 A concrete example: a marketing manager may find that the reputation of the company's products is excellent, but that the reception at the point of sale is mixed. He can then implement an effective improvement plan.

Our priority at Corsair is to satisfy our customers. The Q ° emotion solution quickly and accurately tracks the sources of dissatisfaction in the minds of our passengers. This enables us to propose concrete solutions and significantly improve our services.

Download a free example of a satisfaction questionnaire for collecting opinions:

Stéphanie de la Roncière, Head of Marketing and Customer Experience, Corsair.

Discover Q°emotion on video:

Key features:

• Automated analysis of millions of verbatims with a classification that qualifies feelings,
• Each element of the customer journey (online or offline) is analysed to identify emotional triggers,
• You can detect and anticipate potential bad buzz, sensitive or delicate situations thanks to alerts configured according to your own degrees of urgency, your emotional scoring system, etc.
• You can detect opportunities to develop or improve products by identifying new customer expectations or needs.

👉 And don't forget: the platform is also a powerful tool for HR managers, enabling them to analyse the company's social climate by identifying the positive factors that motivate employees.

Salesforce Service Cloud, for excellent customer service

The giant Salesforce's ability to adapt to any size of business means you can customise the modules that make this customer service software so powerful, and its scope is increased tenfold when coupled with CRM.

Start with the customer's question and convert that contact into a sales opportunity. The solution offers all the tools you need to be responsive and intelligent.

Communication tools and channels are brought together and centralised:

• telephone
• email
• social networks
• video chat.

Tickets are automatically created as soon as a customer makes a request and allocated to the agents concerned.

Advisers have instant access to the contact's file and have a detailed view of the customer and his or her history. They can also use predefined answers to provide the best response as quickly as possible.

Salesforce Service Cloud offers the opportunity to align customer satisfaction and sales: the functionalities:

• up-selling
• activity reporting
• success indicators
• and peak activity prediction, (...) are grouped together on a dashboard for better management of customer support.

Companies using Salesforce Service Cloud see a 35% increase in customer satisfaction and a 26% increase in customer loyalty

Source: Salesforce figures

Discover Salesforce Service Cloud in video :

Highlights:

• Artificial intelligence sees the wave coming before you and warns you: the Einstein module observes and exploits your data to warn you of upcoming peaks and fluctuations. You anticipate;
• Accessibility of the solution: the software's user-friendliness and customisation enable international or multi-site companies, as well as start-ups, to perfect their customer service activities;
• Concrete answers to empower customers: knowledge base, forums, self-help communities and educational or value-for-money articles all provide high-quality answers to the questions your customers ask you, and ultimately, reactive help in the form of ready answers for your advisers.

15 things you can do to satisfy a customer

How do you satisfy a customer in a call centre, by chat or by other means? appvizer shows you in concrete terms how to satisfy a customer's requirements by carrying out 15 actions. In view of his requirements and the figures, the customer doesn't mince his words. But that's all to the good: the more you know, the better prepared you are, provided you have the right tools, of course.

Action No. 1: Know your customer

If you know your customer well, you can adapt your approach, your arguments and your sales offer. Who are they? What are their needs, expectations and budget? What is their problem? What can you do to solve their problem?

It all starts with listening. Customer data is invaluable to your customer service department, as it provides information to support agents, enabling them to prepare for contact and even anticipate requests.

Your sales staff can intervene at the right time and focus on hot prospects. Your marketing department sends the right message to the right person at the right time.

Action No. 2: Centralise information and communication channels

Customer support and service software enables you to centralise information, tools and communication channels.

The benefits :

• your teams record, update and centralise all the information about your customers, the contact channels through which they arrive, and the history of requests and purchases,
• the data is cross-referenced to offer the best service and seize sales opportunities,
• You won't make any mistakes and you'll be more responsive.

Action No. 3: Make a commitment and defend laudable values

Action No. 4: train your staff

This may seem obvious to the most astute of managers, but it is much less so to those who lack perspective. Salespeople, sales reps, customer support staff - in short, anyone who comes into contact with customers needs to speak "with one voice" and know how they should behave when faced with a request.

To do this, there's nothing better than defining :

• objectives in terms of satisfaction
• an internal quality charter
• a level of service commitment.

Secondly, common sense dictates that you train your employees so that they are in a position to satisfy your customers by delivering the quality you want to achieve.

As we have already described on numerous occasions, software enables collaborative working, working on the same data, resulting in productivity gains and soaring customer satisfaction.

Action No. 5: Demonstrate your commitment

Saying something is easy, it's called advertising, but demonstrating it on a daily basis makes all the difference: it's all about proving your commitment. It's the start of customer satisfaction.

The essential proof is to offer all the information and expertise needed to help customers make the right choices.

Customer service software enables you to help, inform and guide customers through :

• a knowledge base
• a forum with topics organised by theme,
• communities (depending on usage, for example).

👉 And don't forget to create your own online content, with its practical and educational value: we invite you to (re)read our blog articles on inbound marketing and content marketing!

Action No. 6: Coordinate physical sales outlets and remote customer support

Customers should hear the same arguments and experience the same quality of service on your e-commerce site, at your physical point of sale, and by telephone or written message with your customer support team.

Don't hesitate to "sow" interactions between real and virtual life... the aim is to ensure that customers always have the information they need to make the right purchasing decision.

In this way, the "field" and "virtual" teams need to have the same level of information, so that they can inform prospects and customers themselves, depending on the context and the contact established.

Action 7: Segment your customer base

Action No. 8: look after the customer experience

A customer with a problem is in a negative, even stressful, state: they have a worry to manage, a problem to solve. They deserve your full attention: give them the time they need to resolve the problem. Your customer should leave with the solution in hand, happy and stress-free.

Smile on the phone or in a video conversation: you can hear it, you can see it. Put yourself in a positive frame of mind before calling or answering.

Don't do two things at once: you need to be totally attentive to your customer. Avoid surfing on Facebook while talking to a customer.

If the situation is delicate, call your customer directly by telephone: human contact can unblock situations.

Email is too cold and distant. If you phone your customer, you are reaching out to them and showing consideration.

Share successful experiences between employees: develop a customer culture!

Action No. 9: Pamper your in-house teams

Internal well-being is reflected externally! If your staff feel good and fulfilled at work, they will naturally pass this on to your customers!

It's very simple: treat and treat your staff like your customers.

Action No. 10: Personalise and humanise the relationship

For management reasons, many services, such as mutual insurance companies, associate a member or subscriber number with a person.

While it is essential to identify the right person who corresponds to this number in order to deal with a request, it is also a good idea to refer to them by their first and last names: "Hello Mrs Juliette FLEX, how can I help you? ".

In the same way, an emailing should always begin in this way, so that the recipient clearly identifies that the message is addressed to him, and to no-one else...

A " thank you ", "have an excellent day", or "at your service" are all little words that don't cost much and send out a positive vibe.

Action No. 11: Be responsive

Action No. 12: Efficient customer follow-up

Integrating your customer support solution with a CRM is essential if you are to control all the data in real time and monitor your customers more effectively.

This encourages collaborative working and prevents data from being scattered: your staff all have access to the same information about your customers and are aware of all the actions taken with them.

80% of your sales are generated by 20% of your customers.

Pareto's law

Pareto's law encourages you to pamper your customers. For example, ask them if they have received their order, if the service works well, if they are satisfied with their purchases, if you can help them, if they need information or additional products...

Action no. 13: Automate tasks that can be automated

As human contact is always preferable, this action should be taken with a grain of salt and is only applicable in certain cases.

Software allows you to create response scenarios based on requests: ready-to-use messages and responses, links to a complete online resource, simple responses, etc. The aim of these tricks is to simplify the work of your agents. They simply press a button to provide the best response, as quickly as possible.

Action no. 14: Ask your customers questions

Observe what customers are saying about you on the internet: Google, social networks, opinions, ratings and comments on third-party sites. Take note of your e-reputation.

Assess customer satisfaction by launching a satisfaction survey : ask them to rate the product, the price, their experience and the perceived quality of service, for example.

A simple online satisfaction questionnaire allows you to collect responses and measure the results. Feedback from customer service and your sales force is also a valuable barometer.

You can evaluate a large number of indicators, such as buying behaviour, and compare the quality provided with the perceived quality.

You also need to be able to collect feelings of dissatisfaction so that you can correct them later...

Offer a suggestion box to ask your customers for their opinions. You can easily take advantage of this: the idea of the century may be hiding in the head of one of your customers!

71% of French people are willing to divulge their personal information in exchange for an improved customer experience

Source: "Are French consumers the most demanding in the world? "based on the results of the AP Hybris Consumer Insights 2017 study.

Action No. 15: Reward loyal customers

A customer's commitment, their loyalty to a brand and their ongoing trust can never be taken for granted: it is essential to sustain the relationship, maintain the links and show constant interest.

Small gifts maintain friendship.
Big ones keep the love alive.

Decoly, French writer.

If you want a customer to "marry you" and not have "extramarital" affairs with a competitor, think about his birthday, wish him well!

Think of all the little touches that will make them happy - you too have commitments to keep when it comes to loyalty.

Here are a few ideas for rewarding your customers and building their loyalty:

• something free and generous, like a small welcome gift,
• a little personalised attention, a birthday present,
• a loyalty programme offering percentage discounts,
• gifts, small bonuses offered with a purchase,
• a sponsorship offer with advantages for both the sponsor and the sponsored child,
• an exclusive promotion with a privilege code,
• 2 months free when you renew your subscription, etc.

See all software Customer Support

How to satisfy in a nutshell

As a customer, my expectations are clear: a quality relationship, attentive listening and reliable services. By complying with my 15 requirements and applying the 15 suggested actions, you will ensure my satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer satisfaction is essential. Use quality tools to enrich and optimise this relationship. Every interaction counts, and loyalty is earned day after day. Invest in:

• listening carefully,
• a reliable service offering
• and extensive personalisation to build a relationship of lasting trust.

A satisfied customer is your best ambassador. Keep this in mind, and your business will thrive 😉