One of the most critical aspects of a growing & profitable affiliate marketing business is customer service. We often do not realize how powerful a “happy customer” could be and, on the other side, how detrimental “unhappy customers” could be to your business. The index many corporates follow to understand the quality of their customer service is “Customer Happiness Index” rather than the usual “Customer Satisfaction Index”.

These are Affiliate Marketing Tips that would help new affiliate marketers to make the most of great customer service, increase return visits to websites & grow business through customer retention.

Reading on Customer Satisfaction & Customer Happiness:

• Beating the Market with Customer Satisfaction – Harvard Business
• Letting Happy Customers Build Your Business – Forbes Report

Understanding Customer Happiness Index

• Customer Happiness Evolves
• Customer Happiness is Intentional
• Improving Customer Happiness is Your Responsibility
• Customer Happiness is a Continuous Process
• Customers Want you to Do Better

5 Affiliate Marketing Tips to Improve Customer Service

Our approach to achieving better Customer Happiness Index in this article is through inexpensive customer services. These are very simple tips that you could implement right away as baby steps to achieving a superior brand reputation & growth in your business.

1. Make it a personal responsibility to keep your customers happy – this is one place you should not automate. Send a personal email or make a phone call to every customer within a week of their purchase. The first connection is the most important step towards a long term great customer relationship
2. Don’t sell, serve – selling is the easy part when your customers know that they will get your personal attention when it comes to helping them use your products. Once a purchase is made stop selling & start serving (read Sell More with Great Service)
3. Build a Relation with a relational marketing program – you could use your autoresponders to build a relation. The key is to not sell at every opportunity but now to educate your customer on how to best use your products or services. Customer Loyalty Programs are also a great way to build a long lasting relation with your customers. Social Media is another opportunity to strengthen your brand & your business by prompting your customers to speak about your product in a controlled-public-environment
4. Use the telephone – most marketers are either too busy selling or find it intimidating to call their customers fearing that they might land with a load of product related issues if they call. Whether your product has issues or not, a personal one-one phone call could be the best thing that could happen to you business. If you have nothing to say, a simple Thank You for Being a Customer is good enough
5. Let your customers know you care – customers assume that once you have sold a product, you are not interested in the customer any more. This feeling blocks all future possibilities of engaging your customer or even reach out to them for help. Let your customers know that you care for your business & them. Use phone calls, emails, direct mails or your website to make your message clear & equivocal

Your business grows because your customers want you to grow. They are the most solid pillars of your business. Are you doing enough to nurture your customers & building a fruitful symbiotic relation?