Running a wholesale business means that your customer service has to be top notch, or you will definitely lose out to the stiff competition out there. Selling goods in bulk to customers at discount rates alone isn’t enough to create a great customer experience for your customers: you, as a wholesaler, need to be doing a whole lot more than that. By giving your customers the best customer experience they have ever had, you stand to gain steady customer loyalty, and even get more customers for your business through word of mouth.
Creating a Great Customer Experience: Improve Customer Loyalty
Everyone knows that getting new customers is much harder than maintaining a business’ existing customer base. If this is the case, then you as a wholesaler need to step up your customer relations game to keep your existing customers happy and satisfied so that they keep coming back to you.
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Make ordering, billing, and delivery hassle-free
Your company’s website should be designed with the customers (here, the retailers) in mind. The website should be responsive, fully functional and very easy to use. Placing orders, making payments, and getting what they have ordered delivered right where they want it, should be quick, efficient, and clean. Incorporate a delivery tracking component into your software, which allows customers to track their delivery and know where their goods are at what point in time. The process for canceling should also be efficient and time-saving. Make sure that you consistently update your website tools to ensure hiccup-free operations.
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Have several delivery and payment options
With many delivery options to choose from, customers will have an easier time of picking a delivery method most suitable for them and their schedules (remember: retailers are also business people). Different delivery methods with different times of delivery, as well as different payment options, allow customers to feel like you care about them and their businesses, and would increase their loyalty to you.
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Have round-the-clock customer service
That is professional and helpful for your customers. They should be able to have their questions answered or some issues cleared up any time of the day or week. Don’t make them wait at the hotline forever, so you need to ensure you have adequate customer service reps for a quicker turnover.
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Adequately meet their needs
You can answer needs they don’t even know they have yet. Customers almost always have other things they need apart from what they have already purchased from you. By anticipating those needs, you can increase customer satisfaction and make extra profit. As a wholesale business, you can provide information on how to use the products you have sold to the customers; or provide products to use with the products they have bought; or partner with another business that has complementary goods and services for what you have sold. By doing this you have foreseen what your customers might need, thus eliminating their search for it and increasing their loyalty to you.
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Create a personal relationship with your customers
Let them know that you care about them, and not just on a business level. Don’t just send promotional emails or ‘thank you for your order’ messages. Send them emails on their birthdays, ask about their families, commemorate anniversaries, et cetera. Make them feel treasured.
Creating a Great Customer Experience: Attract New Customers
New customers may be harder to get than keeping existing customers happy, but it is not impossible. When you have attracted those new customers, you have to lay the foundation that will keep them coming back, thus increasing your customer loyalty.
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Attractive advertisements and promotions
Use professional designers and content creators to create eye-catching ads that will snare those customers and bring them to your store. These ads should also contain information about deals and customer service contacts that will help the potential customers in case they have any questions.
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Discounts for new customers
Now that you have caught them, start making them happy, satisfied customers. Give them discounts just for being first-timers. Special deals on products, free delivery, free items for buying certain products…all of is the first step in establishing strong relations with your new customers.
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Limited-time offers
Give the customers special offers with deadlines that they simply can’t resist. The deadlines help them make up their minds faster. The fact that they are irresistible means they are more likely to take up those offers than letting them go.
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Encourage referrals
Apart from campaigns and ads, customers can refer potential customers to your business, thus growing your customer base. Don’t wait for your customers to get you new customers: make them get you, new customers. How? Incentivize them. Partner up with another company that offers some service that you don’t have. Give this service to your customers for free or at a discount if they refer new customers to you. Create a referral program where you give out gifts and freebies to customers who bring in more business for you.
Create a Great Customer Experience: Stellar Customer Service
Your customer always comes first. There is a saying that ‘the customer is always right’. Without the customers, you wouldn’t have a business. As such, your wholesale business’ customer service department should be courteous and professional all the time, no matter what the situation is. Provide a platform for customers to leave reviews and comments about your wholesale products and services. Be nice even when you are telling your customers ‘no’. Deals and freebies aren’t the only things that get you customers: your customer relations matters. Make sure your customer service is at the top of its game so that customers stay happy. Happy customers are loyal customers.
Creating the best customer service experience for wholesale customers has never been easier with these tips and suggestions. From getting new customers to maintain an existing customer base, these tips are sure to help you give your customers the awesome customer experience they deserve.
