How to Increase the Quality of Positive Customer Interactions



Think about the last email you received from your cable service provider, your cell service provider, or your banking institution. This last email could also be a promotional message from an online retailer because of a past purchase. Did you open that email message? For that matter, do you typically open those messages? If you’ve ignored these messages, your provider, bank, or that retailer lost money they have invested to reach you.

So what?

It’s probably a loss of just a few cents or a few dollars anyway to interact with you. What’s the big deal?

For a large national company with millions of subscribers, the loss over a single unread message will not bankrupt the company. However, consider that roughly 17 – 28% of subscribers open emails (depending on the industry). You can see right away that a lot of money gets spent on emails to customers that don’t ever get opened. The cost of not reaching paying customers can grow to a considerable amount over time.

A smaller local or regional business with fewer than 1,000 customers in an email database certainly has a lot at stake. This smaller business may choose to be frugal with communications because resources are often limited. Smaller businesses are most likely to feel a financial hit when customers don’t interact with their brand.

Honestly, there will always be a portion of paying customers you may never reach. So, why even try?

The reason… there are many people you can still reach. Paying customers that do engage your business will expect value… and you owe it to them. But still, you’ll want every dollar spent to have a good return on investment (ROI).

If every customer opened every single message you sent, there is no guarantee they will continue buying your products or services. You can increase your chances of keeping your customers with valuable interactions.

To do this, focus only the quality of customer touchpoints. For example, when customers give positive feedback about your service, do you respond and thank them?

Steal these ideas to show your appreciation to customers and say thanks:

  • Send a handwritten thank you card
  • Offer a generous discount
  • Offer a free month of service
  • Mention them on social media and let them know that they are awesome
  • Send a small gift card

How can you tell if you are engaging customers when you communicate with them? If you send emails to customers, you can track and monitor who opens, clicks, and forwards messages. If you notice they are engaging with your website with visits to see your new products or services, this is a sign that your communications are resonating with this audience.

Encourage participation with your base. Have customers offer up ideas or suggestions to make your products and services better. Or, let customers create and submit user-generated content. Make things fun by running a contest.

Choose any one of these user-generated content ideas:

  • Funniest picture contest with a special social media hashtag
  • Instagram contest for the best outfit combo from your clothing store
  • Customer videos that show clever and cool uses of your product

The key is to focus on interacting with customers based on the quality of messaging (and not quantity). Include your customers and invite them to engage with you. When you make customers feel important and give them value, you’ll increase interactions that result in a win for your business.

Need more ideas on how to create positive interactions with your customers? Reach out and let’s create more wins for your business.