How do you follow up with customers after resolving their issues?

1 Why follow up?

Following up with customers after resolving their issues is a way of showing that you care about their experience and value their feedback. It also gives you an opportunity to confirm that the solution worked, address any remaining questions or concerns, and thank them for their patience and cooperation. By following up, you can improve customer satisfaction, retention, and advocacy, as well as learn from your mistakes and successes.

2 How to follow up?

After resolving customer issues, there are various ways to follow up, depending on the channel, complexity, and urgency of the problem. For instance, you can send an email or message with a summary of the issue, the solution, and a request for feedback or rating. You can also call the customer or schedule a call to check in, thank them, and ask for their opinion or suggestions. Additionally, you can send a survey or questionnaire to collect more detailed and quantitative data on their satisfaction and expectations. As a reward for their loyalty, you can offer a discount, a coupon, or a free trial to encourage them to use your product or service again.

3 When to follow up?

The timing of your follow up is also important, as you don't want to be too intrusive or too late. Ideally, you should follow up with customers within 24 hours of resolving their issues, or sooner if the problem was urgent or critical. However, you should also consider the customer's preferences and availability, and avoid contacting them at inconvenient times or too frequently. You can also use automation tools or CRM systems to schedule and send follow-up messages or calls based on predefined criteria.

4 What to say?

The content of your follow up should be clear, concise, and courteous. You should remind the customer of the issue and the solution, and thank them for their patience, cooperation, and feedback. Additionally, it is important to apologize for any inconvenience or frustration caused by the problem. You should also ask the customer if they have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, and address them promptly and professionally. Furthermore, invite the customer to share their experience or testimonial with others, or to refer your product or service to their friends or colleagues. Lastly, provide the customer with relevant information or resources, such as FAQs, guides, tutorials, or blogs, that can help them use your product or service better or learn more about its features or benefits.

5 How to measure?

The last step of following up with customers is to measure the impact and effectiveness of your actions. You should track and analyze metrics such as customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, net promoter score (NPS), customer effort score (CES), customer retention rate (CRR), and customer lifetime value (CLV). This will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your troubleshooting and follow-up processes, so that you can make improvements accordingly.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?