Following up with the customer after their visit

After you wrap up the customer service experience, what do you do to follow up?

To be blunt, a lot of businesses suck at following up. In our mind, we have received payment and the service is done. We are at the climax of our service experience. We’re thinking “woohoo! we’ve accomplished the goal! The sale was made and the service is done”

The customer is at the opposite end of your excitement.

They’ve just dished out a lot of money and don’t quite understand the investment they’ve made. So we want to reassure them that they’ve picked the right shop to spend that money with.

A lot of shops leave it up to automation. They leave it up to automated contact to leave a text message or email and solicit a review. This is the biggest mistake you can make!

The # 1 rule to processes and automation is to improve the customer service experience.

If the process or automation doesn’t do this, it’s a failure. This includes your follow up thank yous. The automated thank you’s are not personal and come off as insincere and self-serving.

With an automated thank you, you’re doing nothing to stand out from the crowd. I have businesses that I’ve bought from that follow up with a phone call. Even if they leave a voice mail, I’m blown away by that. They want to make sure I’m happy with the service experience and whether something has come up. I am blown away and ecstatic to leave a review.

So once you make your call, set up your automated text message or email to send a day or two after that. If you forget to make the phone call they still get the thank you email, but that extra step will blow them away. That extra service step is something they don’t get from anywhere else. What do you think the likelihood you’ll get a great review will be?

Customers that are happy don’t give you great reviews and tell other people about you. It’s customers that are ecstatic that do.