Positive online customer interactions improve your dealership’s public image and ensure greater satisfaction with your services or products. Conversely, negative online customer interactions damage your company’s reputation and leave your customers feeling insignificant and dissatisfied.
Think about the online exchanges you’ve had as a customer and remember the companies who excelled at handling your concerns. Our guess is that companies who delivered a positive experience had several things in common.
If you want your company to provide customers with a positive online experience, it’s important to make sure your employees follow those same characteristics with every interaction.
Empathy and Genuine Concern
Empathy allows you to understand your customer’s apprehensions and work through them with genuine concern. To add empathy to your customer conversations, remind yourself that there is a real person on the other side of the screen. Thank them for their patience and don’t be afraid to apologize on behalf of their inconveniences. You always want your customers to feel valued during every online interaction. By creating a positive experience with empathy and genuine concern, you’re more likely to retain loyal customers who trust in your brand.
Transparency and Strong Communication
Transparency provides customers with insight into the situation and how your company is handling the issue. Strongly communicating what has happened, how it happened, and how you’re going to fix it is key for a positive customer interaction. Your customers want solid information to lean on, and they won’t be satisfied if they don’t know exactly what’s going on. Make sure your customers fully understand what the next steps are and how you’re going to handle their concerns. Don’t leave them in the dark or try to make excuses for what happened with your product or services. Take responsibility for the issue, despite whose fault it is, and fix it the best you can.
Simplicity and Ease of Contact
A positive customer interaction requires a quick and easy form of contact. Getting in touch with your dealership should be simple and straightforward. Display where customers can contact you online in plain sight. Go where your customers are and don’t expect them to come to you. When customers reach out through Facebook, they should get a genuine response on Facebook and not just a message with another department to contact.
Timely Follow-Ups and Added Value
To create a positive online exchange with a customer, your auto dealership must proactively reach out with timely follow-ups and added value. Being the first to reach out is especially important for online interactions that require additional attention to solve the issue. Another way to enhance a customer’s experience is by providing extra value to the conversation. This can be as simple as emailing them a step-by-step guide for fixing future problems or a discount on another service.
At Chumney & Associates, we offer services to help you manage your dealership’s online reputation. Our team creates solid responses and delivers them in a timely manner to keep your customers satisfied. You can find out more about our Reputation Management services on our website or by calling us today.