Branding Through Customer Service: How Your Clients Connect With Your Business

“Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.”
–Kate Zabriskie

Ever wondered what your clients think about you and your business? Wonder where, when, or how they formed these opinions? I hope you’ve thought about these things, because if you haven’t you’re missing out on a big opportunity–the opportunity to truly connect with your clients.

Existing clients are your greatest resource for new business, and studies show that 89 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service.

But what does providing good customer service really mean? Ask that question to the next five people you encounter, and I guarantee their answers will not be identical. One thing many will agree on, however, is that clients will be more likely to be loyal to your hospital if they feel they know you and are emotionally connected.

How do your clients get to know you?

Through your brand.
From your logo to your website and all the way down to the way your team answers the phone, clients are soaking up your brand. It is important to make sure that these interactions are all in line with the same message, and that they are leading toward the same goal.

If you are unsure what your brand goal is, try thinking not only about what you have to offer, but how your offerings provide value to your customers. The average person tends to be driven first by their emotions; to achieve an emotional connection with your clients you must be able to convey the value your services bring them.

Through your team.
Whether you’re performing surgery on a pet or responding to a Facebook question about pet care, your team is making an impression on your clientele. How can you be certain that your animal hospital is being represented appropriately? It begins with having a clear mission statement for your team. Who are you? What do you provide? What is your focus? What will you promise to never do? If you can’t answer these questions, chances are your employees can’t either. This is a crucial issue that many companies fail to acknowledge. Despite superior products or services, a lack of team cohesion has been at the root of many company fails.

Through your existing clients.
It’s 2016, and the Internet has taken “word of mouth” to an entirely new level…just ask Yelp. But it’s not only the review sites. Facebook has approximately 1 billion daily active users, and they aren’t all talking about politics or posting photos of their dinners.

Social media has become a popular outlet for many consumers, and research shows that customers are twice as likely to share their bad customer service experiences as they are to talk about positive experiences.

By having a strong social media presence and interacting with your clients regularly when they are in their social mindset, you create an avenue in which you can connect with them on a personal level and ultimately gain insight into what they really want (and what they don’t want).

They’ll learn more about you. You’ll learn more about them. It’s a win-win.

Photo: iStock images © Yuri_Arcurs