#Good customer service is managed by the numbers
The co-founders of Chura and Teddy Ruge all learned that great customer service is much more than a buzzword. It comes down to very specific techniques. Getting these techniques right was critical for each of them to build a loyal customer base and grow their businesses. Here’s what they did to accomplish that.
##Customer response time
The first thing they focused on was response time. This refers to the time it takes to respond to customer inquiries or comments. Response rate determines whether your customers will use your services or may quickly lose confidence in you and use other services where they are being responded according to the questions they ask in the shortest time possible. For this reason, Ruge and the Chura team both focused on making sure all customer communications were responded to very quickly, especially if a customer had a bad experience. This often helped transform skeptical or upset customers into powerful brand ambassadors.
##Service quality
But those responses can’t just be quick, they also have to be quality responses. For instance, in Chura, the focus is on making sure every customer is ultimately satisfied.
“I would say the surest way to retain a customer is offering satisfactory services, that means offering a very efficient service, being there when the customer wants to reach out to you.”
-Samuel Njuguna, Founder Chura
With these practices, customer satisfaction and confidence increases because through their transactions, they witness efficiency without any delays. The customer is made to feel that the Chura is made of human being who care about their experience. This has helped them build customer loyalty.
##Customer representation ratio
Another issue that is very important when handling customers is the customer representation ratio. Not having enough employees to handle your customers makes maintaining quality and response time impossible. So Chura ensures that it always has enough customer representatives to handle the workload and maintain good response times and quality.
“Another key indicator for trust are social media targets, if people aren’t sure if you’re trustworthy they check you out on Twitter to see if you’re trustworthy, also on Facebook, so we update our social media channels often.”
-Samuel Njuguna, Founder Chura
##Conclusion
“The first instance is to think of you as a crook, you have to deliver the product non-stop. You have 0 room for failure. The first few years it’s all about delivery delivery delivery. If you fail in customer service, overcompensate to make sure you sell that customer. You have to sell that customer on your service. Nothing will sell your customer better than that customer selling your product for you.”
Teddy - Teddy Ruge, Founder of Raintree Farms, Co-founder of Remit.ug and Hive Colab
Teddy always found that potential customers were very skeptical of him, a problem we hear about a lot from African entrepreneurs. The only way he found to combat that is to relentlessly deliver on quality and customer care. It’s a similar story with Chura. By making sure their customers are treated well and satisfied, all of these entrepreneurs have grown loyal customer bases and successful businesses.