Winning Small Business Customer Service Starts with These Simple Shifts

Mastering the art of small business customer service isn’t easy. You might be considering new channels, such as SMS for customer service, and cutting-edge technology (like AI), and innovative strategies – but limited staff, resources, and budgets can create serious hurdles.

Even if you manage to find the ideal texting service for small business customer support, or a cost-effective AI tool to help you adapt to changing customer expectations, it can feel like you’re constantly struggling to keep up with the big dogs in your industry.

The good news? Small businesses can still pack a big punch when it comes to earning customer satisfaction. You might need to be a little more creative with your strategy, and distribute assets more cautiously – but you can achieve incredible results. In fact, the time and effort you invest into your business’s customer service approach could be the key to helping your organization grow.

Based on our own experience helping smaller companies compete with major-league organizations, here’s our guide to excelling at customer service for small businesses.

The Importance of Customer Service in Small Business Success

These days, no matter the size of your company or the industry you serve, there’s nothing more important to your chances of success than your approach to customer service. For any business, customer service makes or breaks your chances of converting customers, earning their loyalty, and staying one step ahead of the competition.

Countless studies speak to this fact. Around 97% of customers say customer service interactions influence their loyalty towards a brand, and 61% of consumers will pay more for better customer experiences. Plus, a positive experience prompts customers to make more repeat purchases, and boosts the chances of buyers recommending your company to their friends, colleagues, and relatives.

In other words, your strategy for small business customer service is what determines if your business has what it takes to grow. Without a strong strategy for customer service, you’ll struggle to convince customers to buy your products or services – and stick with your brand.

By delivering personalized, consistent customer service, you can earn the loyalty of your customers, increase your revenue, reduce your marketing and customer acquisition costs, and even unlock valuable insights. Loyal buyers can help you understand what people in your industry are really looking for, giving you the chance to develop stronger products and services.

Strategies for Incredible Small Business Customer Service

Mastering customer service for small business leaders can be a complex process, because you’ll typically have fewer resources to work with than your competitors. However, that doesn’t mean success is impossible – you just need to take a cautious approach to using the right strategies.

Here are some of the top strategies you should be focusing on right now.

1. Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

In a small business, customer service shouldn’t be delegated exclusively to a handful of agents responsible for handling calls and troubleshooting issues. With fewer employees in your team, everyone needs to be working together to drive the right results.

This means creating a customer-centric culture for your organization, that aligns everyone around the same goal: delighting and retaining customers. Everyone in your company should be constantly contributing ideas on how to improve response times to customers, minimize pain points, and keep customers happy – from your service team, to your sales, marketing, product, and finance teams.

The right leadership is important here, as the actions of your executives will set the tone for the entire organization. Leaders should be referencing customer experience metrics in all-hands meetings, discussing important ideas to boost customer satisfaction and retention scores.

They should be actively capturing insights from employees from all parts of the organization, encouraging them to share their ideas and recognizing them for the contributions they make.

2. Improve Responsivity on Multiple Channels

With limited resources in a small business, it can be difficult to deliver the fast-paced service and instant responses companies expect from big brands. However, the slower you are at responding to customer issues, the more likely you are to lose their trust.

Boosting responsiveness involves a few crucial steps. First, you’ll need to identify the channels you’re going to deliver support through. Customers still demand omnichannel customer support from small businesses – so make sure you’re reaching your audience where they are. However, don’t go over the top. Compare different options based on the impact they have on your customers.

For instance, in the debate of SMS vs RCS you might decide to use SMS because it allows you to reach a broader number of customers, without worrying about compatibility. Make sure you can align all of your communication channels in a single inbox for your customer support team.

For instance, employees should be able to send texts to multiple contacts, respond to messages over OTT apps, and more in the same interface. Next, find ways to help agents respond to questions and queries faster. You could use conversational artificial intelligence to instantly respond to common customer queries across some channels, or generative AI to help agents produce quick answers.

3. Invest in Intelligent Self-Service Tools

One of the reasons why excelling in small business customer service is so difficult is that many companies don’t have enough agents available to handle countless queries 24/7. The easiest way to address this problem is with intuitive self-service tools.

Beyond creating valuable content for your customers, like FAQs, guides, and set-up videos, explore the potential of AI tools to enhance customer interactions. AI chatbots, virtual assistants, and similar solutions can augment your customer support team, handling common queries and requests much faster than a human professional.

With conversational AI for customer service, you can provide your customers with 24/7 support across a range of different channels. This not only improves customer satisfaction rates, it also reduces the costs associated with paying for extra agents, and minimizes the strain on your customer service teams.

With AI-powered text messaging tools and chatbots handling repetitive tasks and queries, your human agents have more time to focus on the things that matter most – building relationships and earning customer trust.

4. Double-Down on Personalized Experiences

In today’s world, customers are demanding constant personalization. In fact, 71% of customers expect every interaction they have with a company to be personalized. As a small business, you have a unique opportunity to set yourself apart from bigger companies offering one-size-fits-all experiences, by taking a more personalized, human approach to every interaction.

It’s much easier to deliver bespoke experiences to customers when you’re not keeping track of millions of different buyers. All you need is the right software to help your teams monitor, and leverage the right details. For instance, companies that integrate SMS with their CRM solution can pull valuable details from customer profiles every time they’re writing a text.

Whether they’re responding to a customer query via SMS, or investing in personalized text messaging for business marketing campaigns, they can ensure every conversation with a customer feels unique, specific, and relevant. It’s that kind of service that drives long-term loyalty and higher retention rates.

Plus, personalization can boost your chances of earning higher conversions too. Recommending specific products and services to customers based on their prior interactions with your company will give you a higher chance of generating sales.

5. Nurture and Support Customers Beyond the Sale

For any business, customer support is crucial – and it needs to be delivered consistently throughout your company’s entire relationship with a customer. When you have limited resources as a small business, it’s easy to focus all of your attention on conversions – then forget about buyers when you actually close a deal. However, it’s your existing customers that generate the most opportunities.

Don’t just sell something to a customer then give them a support number they can reach out to if they have any issues. Keep nurturing that relationship. Use bulk SMS messaging services to keep customers updated about new products and services they might be interested in.

Share valuable content with customers, such as videos, guides, and articles showing them how to make the most of the products they buy. Take a proactive approach to support by scheduling text messages to reach customers in advance if they might encounter any problems with your products, or delays in delivery times. Keep your existing customers informed and engaged.

6. Train and Empower Your Employees

We’ve already mentioned some of the ways you can empower your small business customer support team with AI and cutting-edge technology. But it’s also worth thinking about the training you offer these team members. Customer service training shouldn’t just focus on teaching staff members technical skills, like how to use SMS appointment reminders or CRM platforms.

You need to focus on enhancing the human and soft skills of your team members too. Teach them how to enhance business texting strategies by using straightforward and engaging language to simplify communications. Show them how to demonstrate emotional intelligence when communicating with customers, by actively listening to and empathizing with their issues.

Help them develop their interpersonal skills, so they can use them to improve the conversations they have with customers across every channel. It’s also worth investing a little time into compliance training too. For instance, if you’re using SMS for marketing and customer service, helping employees learn about SMS opt-in and opt-out rules as well as other compliance guidelines.

This should help to ensure that your employees preserve your company’s reputation, and avoid exposing you to any regulatory fines.

7. Leverage Feedback on Business Customer Support

One thing you’ll quickly learn when you’re investing in small business customer service, is that different customer groups have different priorities and expectations. The only way to find out what your customers really want from you is to ask for their input.

Gathering feedback about your products, services, and approach to customer support will ensure you can make strategic decisions about how you can improve and grow. There are plenty of ways to gather feedback from customers. For instance, you can collect Google reviews from your customers using social media, text, and email campaigns.

Another option is to use a text blasting service to send surveys to your customers at specific times, asking them for their insights in exchange for benefits like a discount on their next purchase. You can also build on the feedback you request directly with social listening tools.

These tools make it easy to monitor online directories, review websites, and social media channels for instances of customers mentioning your brand. The more information you collect, the more you can take a proactive approach to aligning your small business customer support strategy with the needs of your target audience.

Overcoming Small Business Customer Service Challenges

The small business customer service strategies mentioned above should give you all the direction you need to start improving your relationships with customers. But you might still be wondering what the best options are for tackling some of the most common SMB service challenges.

Here are some quick tips and solutions for addressing the four biggest customer service challenges most small businesses face.

Challenge 1: Limited Staff and Resources

As mentioned above, one of the biggest challenges of delivering great customer service in small business environments is that smaller companies have fewer resources to work with. You probably don’t have hundreds of employees dedicated to handling customer requests – so you need to find the best way of doing more with less. Technology is the best answer to this.

AI and automation doesn’t necessarily eliminate the need for customer service teams, but it can reduce the number of employees you need to hire. AI-powered small business customer service solutions like chatbots can handle common requests for your agents, so they can focus on more complicated tasks.

AI and automation tools can also streamline a lot of the day-to-day tasks employees need to handle, like crafting messages for business marketing campaigns, analyzing customer data, updating databases, summarizing conversations and more.

Challenge 2: Scaling Customer Service for Small Businesses

Scaling customer service is another major issue for small businesses. Again, AI and automation can help you scale faster, with intelligent tools that make it easy to create personalized text messages at speed, or respond to customer queries 24/7.

However, while technology can definitely help you scale, there’s likely to be a point in your company’s growth where you need to consider investing in additional human professionals. At this point, you have a few options to consider. An in-house customer service team is the best way to make sure you have a group of experts in your business that fully understand your approach to small business customer service, and your target audience.

However, permanent staff can be more expensive to implement – particularly when you need to invest in regular training. If you’re low on budget, a good option could be to consider outsourced customer service staff. Outsourced teams are already trained and generally less expensive than in-house team members. However they don’t always deliver consistent results.

You could also consider a hybrid approach. For instance, increase the number of employees in your in-house team gradually, then hire outsourced team members for periods when you experience sudden increases in customer service requests and support needs.

Challenge 3: Staying Ahead of the Competition

Since the majority of companies now compete based on “customer experience”, rather than pricing or product features, you can rest assured you won’t be the only business customer service is a priority for. So, how do you make sure you stay ahead of the competition, with limited resources?

• Take advantage of your data: Leverage the data you can gather from CRM systems, support ticketing platforms, and direct feedback from customers. Use what you learn about your customers to find genuine ways of improving their experiences.
• Do what other companies won’t: Find out what the companies in your industry refuse to do for your customers. For instance, are they reluctant to invest in 2-way SMS software for customer service because they’re worried about the cost? If so, you can give your business an edge by offering buyers a different service channel.
• Listen to your support team: Actively ask your support team for tips and guidance on how to improve the experience for customers. Give them a direct line to your leadership team, and use their insights to drive your decision-making strategies.

Other strategies, like investing in ongoing employee training (to enhance your staff’s skills), and finding new ways to personalize the experience for your customers can also help to give you an edge as your business continues to grow.

Quick Tips for Better Small Business Customer Service

At this point, you should almost be ready to go out and rock the world of small business customer service. But we do have three final tips to share – based on our experience supporting countless small businesses with their customer service strategies.

Pro Tip 1: Get the Whole Company Involved

We mentioned the importance of developing a customer-centric culture above. But this goes beyond simply making sure that your employees are all aware of the importance of great customer service for small businesses. Everyone in your team needs to be involved in your customer service strategy.

This means regularly connecting with all of your team members in all-hands meetings that allow you to discuss and explore new opportunities. Get together as a group, and regularly share customer service metrics, goals, and ideas for improvement. Take everyone’s opinions into account - whether they’re a sales rep, or a product manager.

Additionally, make sure all of your employees have the training and tools they need to contribute to customer service. For instance, every customer-facing employee should know how to use SMS for lead generation, gather insights from a database, and update a CRM.

Pro Tip 2: Constantly Review and Update your Efforts

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. The only way to ensure that you’re delivering the experience that your customers want is to invest in reporting and analytics. Figure out the metrics that matter most to your customer service strategy. For instance, if you want to enhance business texting processes, you might need to monitor things like delivery rates and response rates.

If you’re prioritizing speedy responses to queries, you might track time to resolution and first response times. Comprehensive insights into things like customer satisfaction score, customer effort scores, and net promoter scores will also give you an overview of how different small business customer service strategies are influencing your outcomes.

As you monitor these metrics, alongside genuine customer feedback, be honest about what’s working and what isn’t. Double-down on the strategies that work. For instance, if you notice that customers love getting support from your team via text, you might decide to explore SMS marketing opportunities too. Consistently use your discoveries to make data-driven decisions for growth.

Pro Tip 3: Make Technology Your Secret Weapon

Finally, one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve customer service in small business environments, is with the right technology. Although investing in technology can seem expensive – and does require you to invest in training for your teams, the results are incredible.

Prioritize technology that helps you:

• Reach customers on the right channels: Explore software that makes it easy to reach customers on different channels, such as a group SMS service that gives you a unified inbox and integrates with your existing customer service channels.
• Improves compliance and security: Investing in SMS archiving software and security tools will help you to adhere to regulations like TCPA compliance guidelines, and maintain the trust of your target audience.
• Enables 24/7 Service: Explore AI-powered solutions and self-service resources that help you to support and guide your customers whenever they need extra help. This will minimize your risk of losing customers over time.
• Supports your team members: Give your employees access to CRM platforms so they can easily personalize customer interactions. Allow them to access generative AI tools for help creating unique messages, and make it easy for them to automate various workflows.
• Improves customer loyalty: Consider experimenting with tools that can enhance customer loyalty, such as onboarding videos and resources, or even loyalty programs.

Master the Art of Small Business Customer Service

Excelling in the arena of small business customer service can seem challenging, particularly when you have limited resources to work with. However, you don’t necessarily need a huge team or a massive budget to deliver the kind of experiences your customers want.

Investing in the right technology and innovative strategies to personalize, streamline, and improve customer service at scale will give your company a crucial competitive edge in today’s world.

Want a quick and easy way to enhance customer service for small businesses? Clerk Chat could be the platform you’ve been searching for. With a suite of innovative tools to help you communicate with, engage, convert, and support customers on multiple channels, from SMS to WhatsApp, Clerk Chat makes it simple to build relationships with your audience.

Our intuitive conversational AI technology, incredible reporting and analytics tools, and integrations with a wide range of business apps make us the perfect choice for smaller companies looking to excel in customer service. Contact Clerk Chat today, and find out how we can help your small business grow to new heights, by revolutionizing your approach to customer service.