A local barbershop is more than just a place to get a haircut. It’s a small business that serves as the heartbeat of a community. The barbershop is where people congregate to share news, catch up on local happenings, and laugh together. Your barber is someone you trust with your haircut, yes, but also with your wellbeing. A haircut is an intimate act.
So, if you’re the barber, you need to be aware of all this weight when you’re planning to expand your small business to include new locations. You mean a lot to your customers, but you can’t be at every barbershop in your chain of locations to provide on-site customer service or customer support. Part of this process of integration means hiring other barbers who you trust with your legacy, but part of it comes down to setting up an infrastructure that makes your clients feel (and actually be) heard. We’re talking about a call center, of course.
How, though, to go about finding a call center solution that works for your small business, and doesn’t make your customers feel that you’re out of touch? The good news is that there’s call center software designed to do that. Let’s talk about what it means to expand in a smart way, and to maintain an excellent customer experience as you do so.
Be smart about designing your call center.
Too many types of call center software cause frustration for callers. Customers try to reach live call center agents, only to bounce around confusing menus or spend an eternity on hold in a purgatory of muzak. That’s a great way to alienate folks who have been loyal customers so far. Instead, what you need is a call center that’s designed to suit a small business owner such as yourself.
Call center solutions for small business owners include the option to integrate features like live chat, social media messengers, and even video calls so that your customers know that they’re being cared for. Plus a truly advanced call center solution will have integrations with the best CRM platforms, like Zendesk and Salesforce, so that the caller always reaches the right agent and that agent knows all the customer information. No more repeating the same information a million times to each member of the support team.
Now call center agents can pick up exactly where they left off—all the customer information is right there, on the dashboard, literally at their fingertips. Read plenty of reviews of call center software options before deciding which vendor to go with, and know that these functions are totally possible—and you can demand them.
Make sure that each barbershop has all the same amenities.
Beyond making sure that you have a great call center for your customers, you need to make sure that all the customers get the same customer experience as anyone at any other location. If someone makes an appointment at one location, you don’t want them to have a better experience than they would have had somewhere else. Consistency will set you apart from your competitors and take you to the next level.
If you see the top electric barber chair for sale that you love—buy a few! After all, a great barber chair with a headrest, footrest, and a hydraulic chrome base for height range makes both your customers and your employees happier. The more functions a chair has, the better, too. Go for the most extreme comfort—maybe a leather seat or faux leather armrests—but whatever you do, make sure that all your barbershops have the same level of barber chairs so that that extreme comfort is experienced by one and all.
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