There is one quality that all modern customers have in common, regardless of spending power, geographical location, age, gender or market. Impatience is the defining feature of the modern-day consumer and companies who want to keep them happy need to figure out how to speed things up without losing sight of quality and attention to detail. Here’s how you can ensure your leads to business stream remains constant by offering a timely service.

HOW SOON DO YOU FOLLOW UP?

It’s amazing how many businesses invest thousands of Rands into marketing campaigns, social media pages and websites but fail to take the next step in time. Even the most beautifully designed site and irresistible sales offer will be ignored if communications slow down or a customer doesn’t get a response as soon as expected. So how can you improve the speed at which you respond to potential customers?

• MANAGE EXPECTATIONS – if there is any time you cannot meet a customer’s need or attend to their query, make sure this is explicitly mentioned. This way, a customer won’t leave a query on Friday evening without knowing that it will only get a response on Monday morning. If you’re getting a significant amount of ‘out of office’ queries, you might need to rethink your operating hours.
• TRACK QUERIES – You spend hours talking to someone on the phone about a product you need, only to be transferred to someone who expects you to repeat the whole thing from scratch. Sound familiar? This can easily be prevented by centrally tracking incoming queries and creating notes where possible to guide future interactions.
• UNDERPROMISE, OVERDELIVER – A pleasantly surprised customer is better than a disappointed one. You can ensure this reaction is commonplace by never promising something that you cannot deliver in time. Once trust has been broken with a customer, it’s difficult to restore.
• COMMUNICATE – communicate with a customer about what they think should happen next in terms of timing of responses and other important expectations. Never assume that they know how things are done or what’s going on, as this could lead to an infuriating case of broken telephone.

The above tactics aren’t expensive or complex, but can dramatically improve the speed and turnaround time of your business and its ability to generate sales.