It is no secret that customer acquisition is the blood of any business. Without customers, the repair stores would run dry and die off before their time. All mega repair shops owe their success entirely to their clientele. For all your skills and monetary investments, your store could not rise from the ground at all if your customers weren’t satisfied. Even the greatest asset to your business’s marketing is the word-of-mouth from your happy clients. But it can nosedive into the opposite deep end if they aren’t happy either. But before we get into how you can improve the customer experience at your repair shop, we must understand what makes it worse. Dissatisfactory customer experience is usually caused by the following:
- Long waiting time
- Employees not understanding customer needs
- Issues remaining unresolved
- Overload of automation
- Rude employees
An excellent way to think about it is to put yourself in the client’s shoes. What was the reason you got frustrated as a customer? Chances it was one or more of the reasons listed above. But in the end, the real customer experience depends on if your business is willing to take feedback. And more so, implement it. It is vital that your clients feel heard. And actions speak louder than words. So, ensure that you listen when customers come to you with complaints. And work to minimize the factors that have caused them discomfort. So, it is no exaggeration that your repair shop’s customer experience can make and break your business.
How to Improve the Customer Experience at Your Repair Store
You can significantly impact your bottom line by improving your customer experience. Not only that, but it can also decrease operational costs and drive up the profit margin. Because anyone of us who has been on-ground dealing with an unhappy customer knows how expensive just one unhappy customer can be. How can you enhance your customers’ quality of experience at your store? Well, that’s simple. Here are a few easy ways to do just that:
Don’t Over-Automate
Everything in life needs balance. Haven’t you heard? Too much of anything is bad. So as detrimental as excessive automation can be, it is still a vital part of a repair business. Just make sure you have it in the right amount. Because having a good POS system for your repair store can make your entire business operation smoother. With an automated ticketing system for your repair shop, you can significantly decrease the time it takes to register your client’s devices and print out invoices.
This minimizes the time your customers spend waiting to get your services. It also reduces the period before you can get paid for them. This can substantially improve the customer experience at your repair shop.
The value of a good POS software can be seen by the growing number of large repair store franchises subscribing to them. And the best part is it doesn’t take over your shop’s workings entirely. Your employees will be manning the POS and interacting with the clients. So, the customers can feel the personalized touch of your service with the added swiftness of automation.
Train & Empower Your Repair Store Employees
One of the most prevalent reasons for client dissatisfaction is employee behavior. We understand that sometimes there are customers you just can’t make happy, which is just an occupational hazard. But why not have the courage to change the things we can? Disgruntled clients may feel your employees are rude or do not understand the concern for the device.
There are two courses of action that can impact this significantly. Train your employees for customer service and empower them to make on-the-spot decisions. Your technicians and front desk employees may be great at their designated tasks, but that is not all it takes to be part of a business. Businesses are run on the loyalty and goodwill of their customers. So, teaching your employees even the basics of good customer service can take you a long way. The clients would feel understood, and their concerns acknowledged, all through a bit of pleasant disposition on your employee’s part. What’s more, empowering your employees can be like killing two birds with one stone. Not only will it make your customers happy by decreasing their waiting time between decisions where the employee has to consult the manager, but it will also boost your employee satisfaction.
Keeping them in the loop about the store helps your employee serve the customer better, in turn letting you run the repair store with greater efficiency. This can be achieved by training the employees to use the management POS system to its full capacity so that they have all the answers at their fingertips.
Map Your Customers’ Journey
Customer journey mapping can help you keep track of not only the client’s needs but also the store’s customer retention. You would be able to have a deeper understanding of the customer perception of your store. This will aid you in identifying the issues with your customer experience. And if you pay enough attention, it may even guide you toward opportunities to improve your clients’ overall repair store experience. It will let you know whether you need organizational change or minor alterations to envision a smoother customer experience for your repair shop’s future. This would lead to progress in your store’s functionalities and drive-up customer retention by providing improvements wherever your shop needs them.
A great ally in this can be a good POS system that helps you keep track of your client’s orders and visits. With intelligent enough POS software, you may even be able to give customers the option to leave feedback on their repair jobs. They are called review campaigns for repair stores. Some examples of campaigning tools can be found here: RepairDesk Campaigner Module, MailChimp email campaigns, and Clickatell SMS campaign.
This is the fastest way to learn how you can advance the customer experience. Client feedback can easily let you know what needs improvement, whether it is the repair job itself, the service, the store’s atmosphere, or the employee attitude. Hopefully, no issues will remain unresolved with your new and improved client vigilance.
Make Your Customer Experience the Standard
The truth is that people appreciate being treated attentively. They like to know that they matter to you and your repair business. A good customer experience at the repair store can give you loyal clients even if your skilled labor is average. And watching you make attempts to improve it can also make customers more likely to favor your repair shop over the others.
So little changes like employee training and investing in intelligent POS software for your repair store can make more of a difference than you would imagine. Streamlining your process and making your clients feel appreciated with just one investment is undoubtedly too good a bargain to pass up.
