Being transparent with your customers simply means being open and honest with them and not hiding any important facts or details. In business, this simple act can boost your online reputation and garner more customers than ever. A recent study found that over 90% of customers say they are more likely to be loyal to a brand that demonstrates transparency. Additionally, more than 70% of consumers say they would spend more money on a product of equal value based solely on a company’s willingness to be transparent. There are a few critical practices that I am going to share with you so that you can be as open as possible with your clientele.
Define and Communicate Brand Values
There is no way for you to be transparent about your values if you have not defined what your values are. So, to start, you need to articulate your fundamental brand values. The second thing is, you need to ensure these values are clearly communicated to and understood by your employees.
Employees that understand and support the core business values are better equipped to help with brand-building efforts. These values need to be followed by employees that are dealing directly with customers as well as employees that never see a customer’s face. They should understand that being completely transparent with customers is the best way to ensure they will have a job in the future. Lack of transparency will drive your customers to your competitors. Before long, you might not have a place for your employees to work. So, try to make them understand what values you have as a company and make sure they are conveying these values to the consumers.
Engage Your Customers
Engaging your customers is not something that you only need to do when you are face to face with them in the store. You need to seek them out and find them where they are on the internet. Most likely, this will be on some form of social media. Make sure that all of your social media profiles are up to date with the most relevant information possible. After that, you need to start making posts to draw more customers in. According to Facebook, more than just the customers that like your page will see what you have to say. I was reported that you have 30% more viewership than you even know. When a customer likes what you have to say, they will like, comment, or share your post. That means that their friends will see what you have to say as well. This exposure means you will have even more people coming in contact with your brand. Make sure you make posts that draw those people in as well. It would be best if you always were trying to acquire new customers. When they come to your page, they should see the kind of company you are.
Embrace Reviews
There really is no such thing as a bad review. While, technically, there is, I don’t like to look at it that way. When and if you ever get a review that does not show you in a good light, you need to think of this as a learning opportunity. If there is anything I have learned in my years of business, it is that once customer complaint means that more customers are thinking the same thing. The person that wrote the review was just one of many people that need to be addressed.
So, when you get that negative review, take the time to really read what they had to say. If the review upsets you in any way, make sure you take a few minutes to collect your thoughts. Then respond to your customer in a way that you would like to be responded to if you were in their shoes. Never, and I do mean never, give them a cookie-cutter response. Nothing turns a customer away faster than a canned response. They can see right through what you are trying to do.
Additionally, unless you have to, never take the conversation to a private chat. You want to make sure that you are transparent in the way you are dealing with the problem. When you take it away from the public eye, others cannot see that you are trying to fix the error you made. Most customers are willing to forgive a company for a misstep, but only if they see they are trying to make amends.
Share Surveys
Every so often, a company will conduct a survey. Most times, we never hear the results of the survey. Sure, we will hear from a company that a certain percentage of their customers wan this, that, or the other. However, the results are kept private. There are many ways that you can provide the details of the survey to your customers. All you need to do is use any number of online surveys. You will be able to get the information you want, and after it is all over, you will be able to publish the results to your clients.
When doing a survey, make sure that you only allow the answers you want to get from customers. Allowing them to type in answers, while seemingly better, will garner a bunch of answers you don’t want. Sometimes people will even fill in the survey with vulgar responses. When they do this, you will be unable to publish the results after the survey has finished.
Conclusion
If there were one thing that I had to say about a company’s online reputation, it would be that if they are transparent with their customers, they will succeed. If you simply follow the advice I have provided you above, you will be more than open with your customers. I am willing to go as far as to say that you will be more open than 50% of the businesses out there. This, alone, will get you a lot of attention from consumers that just want a company that does not hide anything from them. Never underestimate what being transparent will do for your business.