4 Effective Ways to Improve Customer Flow Management

 

Long and disorganized lines lead to unhappy customers. Streamline the process with these 4 effective ways to improve customer flow management.

Every year in the United States, more than 627,000 new businesses open. However, the majority of these won't last more than five years. If you are going to run a successful business that lasts you need a clear business management strategy.

When it comes to your business' success, keeping your customers happy is essential. Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend your services to others, therefore growing your client base. They are also much more likely to remain loyal to your company. 

Because of this, investing in your customer flow management is an absolute must. This will have a big impact on your business' efficiency and your customers' experience. So how should you go about this? 

If you're looking for tips on how to manage customer flow, you're in the right place! Read on to find out our four top tips on improving customer flow management.

1. Refine Your Queuing System 

Whatever your trade, if you are running a successful business, you will often have to deal with multiple customers at a time. Because of this, you need to take some time to figure out your queuing management strategy.

This helps you reduce wait times for customers and ensures that they get help from the appropriate person in your team. A good queuing system should:

• Create virtual lines that allocate customers with a queue position
• Provide information about a customer's position in the queue
• Refer customers to the relevant departments to reduce waiting times
• Offer some distraction or entertainment (such as news or music) while customers wait
• Offer position holding and a call-back option for long queues

Virtual queuing systems can really help to save you and your customers time. They provide customers with a position in the queue and estimated queue waiting time. That way they don't have to waste time waiting on the phone.

2. Focus on Communication

Communication is key if you are going to keep your customers happy. This allows them to organize their time and leaves them feeling empowered in each interaction with you. It also helps you manage each customer's needs. 

For example, a customer needs to know: 

• Who they are talking to
• How that person can help them resolve an issue or book a service
• When to call
• Where to find other services and support

This helps your customers speak to the appropriate people in your business for their needs. In turn, this saves your staff a lot of time as they won't have to refer customers between departments. 

It is also a good idea to keep a record of dealings with your customers and to share these with them. This will speed things up if they want to discuss an issue further down the line.

If an issue does arise with an order, for example, communicating about this quickly also means your customers are in the loop. It is much better (and quicker) to provide the information before a customer has to ask for it.

3. Create an Activity Dashboard

A lot of businesses offering customers various ways of getting in touch. For example, you might have a phone number, email, or online chatbot for answering questions.

Whatever you use, it's a good idea to monitor activity across the different lines of communication. This can help you plan where to allocate staff or resources in order to alleviate the workload. For example, if the majority of your customer prefer to phone into your business, you will need more people manning the phones. 

You can also use a dashboard to keep an eye on employee workloads throughout the company. That way you can offer support where it is needed so that everything runs smoothly across all of your departments.

4. Ask for Feedback

You may already feel like you are managing your customer flow very efficiently. However, you are only seeing one side of their customer experience. Facts and figures won't tell you everything you need to know about a customer's experience. 

This is why it's a good idea to ask for feedback from customers and to review this feedback regularly. You could ask for feedback in a follow-up email or text message. This lets people get back to you in their own time.

When asking for feedback you should look for details about: 

• Their overall satisfaction
• Their opinion on wait times or the queuing system
• Whether or not they feel that they were able to resolve their issue
• The quality of the customer service

You might want to ask for this as a score out of 10 to speed things up. However, it is also a good idea to give them the opportunity to provide feedback in their own words. This helps you learn about what exactly is working or needs to be improved.

Providing customer satisfaction isn't just about dealing with customers quickly, for example. You might think that your customer flow is running smoothly because you have reduced wait times. However, if your customers don't feel like they're getting the face time they need with your staff they may walk away feeling dissatisfied.

You need to strike the balance between dealing with customers quickly and delivering quality. The best way to find out how well you are managing this is to ask the customers themselves.

Start Planning How to Manage Your Custom Flow Today

When it comes to keeping your customers happy, you need a plan for your customer flow management. As you can see, there are plenty of great things you can do to easily stay on top of this.

But you don't just have to take our word for it! Register for a free trial of brilliant customer flow management services today to see how much of a difference it could make to your business. We're here to help!