With 145 million monthly users, Yelp is a force business owners can’t afford to ignore. Along with Google, user-generated Yelp reviews are often the first place people look for information about a small business. Yelp is also the first place people go to voice their opinion about the service they receive — good or bad.

Here are 3 things small business owners need to know now about Yelp reviews, plus a checklist to make sure you’re managing your business page correctly.

1. Every star matters.

How much does a Yelp review impact your bottom line? A Harvard Business School study showed a 1-star increase in Yelp rating increased revenue by 5-9% for independent restaurants alone. Today, most people use online consumer reviews as a substitute for other, more traditional forms of research (word of mouth, endorsement by the Better Business Bureau, etc.). If you’re not monitoring and responding to your Yelp reviews, you’re risking your reputation. 

2. Yelp users may be more likely to take action than Google users.

In the U.S.:

• Yelp users span all age brackets
• 64% have some college education, and 
• Most make at least $60,000. 

That means Yelp review writers are more likely to have disposable income and be ready to pull the trigger on lifestyle purchases such as entertainment, dining and vacations. Where Google is mainly used to search for a business at the top of the sales funnel, Yelp users typically have a specific intent to buy a product, sign up for a service or make a reservation.  

3. Yelp reviews can get stuck in purgatory.

Some Yelp reviews get stuck in the “not recommended” section because Yelp’s algorithm doesn’t think the reviewer is experienced enough. The less active users are, the more likely their reviews are to get caught there. What can you do? If you have positive reviews from new users that are stuck in that section, reach out. Thank them for their business and tack on the fact that if they review a couple more businesses, their reviews will show up.

Your Yelp Checklist

Want to make sure you’re on the right track? Here’s a checklist to get you started.

1. Claim your business.
   Upload photos, add links to your website and social media, and verify key information like phone number, hours, menus, etc. 
2. Fill in the About section.
   Be straightforward and use relevant keywords customers might search to find you.
3. Respond privately and publicly to Yelp reviews.
   For positive reviews, a simple “thank you” should suffice. For negative reviews, feel free to respond privately first. 
   • If a problem is valid, say so and let the person know how you plan to change things. 
   • If it’s not, explain why as succinctly as possible and remember that the goal is not to change someone’s mind; It’s to show you care about what they’re saying. If you reach a point where they feel satisfied and heard, consider asking them to revise their review. 
   • If someone is simply angry and not truly seeking a resolution, respond as calmly as possible, apologize if necessary and let it go. Engaging in a long online battle with one angry person isn’t a good look for any business owner.
4. Report errors.
   If someone posts something that’s incorrect about your business, ask them to change it. If they won’t, report it to Yelp.
5. Review and refresh your page every month or so.
   Set a reminder so you don’t forget, and be sure to consider timely updates. For example, in the current COVID-19 climate, people are searching for terms like “social distancing” and “no-contact delivery” for the first time. You’ll want to update your profile to include those search terms where they apply.
6. Get ahead of Yelp reviews with Mentor.
   Better Yelp reviews come from better customer experiences, and those start with interactions. Mentor was designed with that goal in mind. Our one-on-one customer feedback platform collects, tracks and analyzes customer feedback in real time so you can address customer concerns directly and immediately. 

Contact us to learn how Mentor can help you get in front of your Yelp reviews today.

What do you think of when you hear the words “artificial intelligence” or “machine learning”? To many people, those phrases come off as cold or impersonal, but when it comes to customer service, they’re actually anything but. 

Studies have shown machine learning can make customer service more effective and efficient, and can ultimately help customer service representatives connect with people more meaningfully. Here’s why it works. 

1. Machine learning guards against data overload

If your eyes have ever blurred from looking at a spreadsheet too long, you know that human brains aren’t built to process constant, monotonous streams of data. Algorithms are. When deployed properly, artificial intelligence (AI) can parse data seamlessly to make smart, efficient decisions. That takes the processing load off of customer service representatives, which leaves them with more time, brainpower and empathy to offer customers.

2. Customers like self service

As a customer, which do you prefer when you first encounter an issue: a self-service option or a live representative? Studies show that 81% say self service, which means most people prefer to first address matters on their own if given a choice. If a proper base of knowledge has been used to create the AI they’re accessing (chatbots, virtual assistants, etc.) customers get a response — and results — faster. That means customer service representatives can focus on solving more complex problems while standard issues are handled by machine learning applications. 

3. Machine learning cuts costs — for customers and companies

Harvard Business Review found that DIY transactions cost less than a dollar each. Interactions with live customer service representatives? At least 7 times as much. 

Agent interactions are estimated to cost: 

• $7 for a B2C company, and 
• $13 for a B2B company.

With the proper investment in machine learning, companies can remove simpler issues from live agents, which allows them to cut costs. Those savings can then be used to improve services or lower prices, both of which help create happy customers. 

4. Efficiency improves customer satisfaction

This one’s simple: people are happier when they get what they want faster. Machine learning helps route customers to the type of agent they need quickly, and that leads to more efficient solutions. Machine learning can also help a customer service representative do their job more effectively once they’re connected with a customer by:

• Recommending resolutions
• Offering scripts to address certain problems, and
• Providing agents with relevant customer history.

When data is both collected and applied, neither person starts from scratch. That leads to faster, more satisfying interactions. 

5. Machine learning is always evolving

Business owners know that analytics are key in determining what customers want, but metrics only matter if you can learn from them. Today, machine learning applications help humans do that without thinking twice.

• Some ML apps are so advanced that they can use deep learning to continually improve their responses. That means AI-enabled services can improve on their own, while you and your team are interacting with customers in real time. 
• Predictive customer service analytics can even use data from past interactions to catch things agents might miss, or to suggest related products or services that similar customers have enjoyed. 

Whatever the situation, the important thing is that knowledge is being used — not just collected. 

How Mentor fits in

While machine learning often focuses on efficiency and cost-savings, at its core, it’s really about creating a better customer experience. Mentor was designed with that goal in mind. Our one-on-one customer feedback platform collects, tracks and analyzes customer feedback in real time so you can address customer concerns directly and immediately. Contact us to learn how we can help you put machine learning in action today. 

Right now, small businesses are temporarily closing their doors across the country for the greater good, but people are still craving connection. Now more than ever, community building is important, and developing a close online relationship with your customers is a great way to do it while still safely social distancing.

Here are 3 ways to foster community building with your brand.

1. Make social connections.

While many businesses have had to shutter in-person services temporarily, there is one positive: more of us are at home, online, looking for ways to connect than ever before. It’s no surprise that social media is where most of us start our search for community building.

If your brand doesn’t have a social media presence, setting that up is step one. Research which channel is best for your industry, and make sure you select one you feel comfortable using long-term. 

If you already have a social media presence, build upon it by getting more active.

• Seek out, follow and talk with customers, other businesses or influencers during this down time. 
• Support other businesses and post about your favorite quarantine activities using their products.
• Pitch collaborations with related businesses, like a puzzle and pizza promotion between a toy store and Italian restaurant.
• Ask your followers questions — both serious and fun — such as:
  • What’s your favorite food item to have delivered from our menu?
  • What fun way are you using a home good purchased from our store while quarantining? 
  • Who can snap the most creative socially-distant selfie while wearing our clothing? 

Whatever your brand is, a good community-building question is one that you’re genuinely interested in the answer to. It should say something about your business and your clients. Start there and see where it takes you.

2. Teach people something. 

People are looking for things to do, and you know stuff. Don’t forget that! 

Ask yourself:

• What does your brand do better than any other? 
• Which of those things can you teach people virtually? 

Nothing is too small to teach, and sharing knowledge is a great way to keep community building going while social distancing. Bonus: Most tutorials won’t cost you any money to make. All you need is a phone, or to leverage assets you already have. 

For example:

• Present a few slides of the Keynote you made for franchisees on how to organize storage spaces properly on LinkedIn. 
• If you run a brewery, teach people a sanitization technique you use that they can replicate at home on YouTube. 
• Own a store with a beauty counter? Give a tutorial on how to do the perfect smokey eye using products that can be bought online. 

3. Ask for feedback.

Businesses are working round the clock to find their way through these challenging times, but one thing it’s not hard to find right now is an audience. Take this opportunity to practice community building by asking your customers questions they wouldn’t always have the time, attention or capacity to answer. Social media is a good place to start, but quality feedback really needs to be gathered in more in-depth ways.

Consider customer surveys. Most people use net promoter score, customer satisfaction survey, post-purchase survey or some combination of the three. All are solid options for measuring your success as a company in the eyes of a customer, and we’ve broken down exactly why here. But they don’t tell the whole story — especially when it comes to gathering feedback in real-time, which is something that’s just as crucial online as in-store.. 

What you need for that is a customer feedback platform that creates an open communication channel between your customers and your brand. You need to have a way to find out when problems arise, and respond quickly when they do.

If feedback collection isn’t part of your current process, it’s crucial that you take this down time to learn why it should be. We created Mentor with the goal of open communication top of mind. We can do everything virtually, and in many cases, just the act of making feedback collection front-and-center sets you apart. 

Contact us to set up a quick demo today, and please stay safe and healthy. 

Customers expect more from businesses today than ever before. If you’re an owner, you’ve seen that in action: A customer whips out a phone to tweet or text about an experience, perhaps even as it’s happening. What you may not have seen, however, is just how much that one encounter can affect your ROI, or return on investment.

How Does Customer Experience Affect ROI?

Customer experience affects ROI because it affects profits. Happy customers spend more money, act as brand evangelists and return to your business more often. Unhappy customers obviously don’t do those things — but their impact doesn’t stop there. 

Let’s start with the good news:

Satisfied Customers

Good customer service is the single most important factor for consumers in developing a relationship of trust with a business. In fact, 42-62% of consumers return for a second purchase after having a good customer experience.

Dissatisfied Customers

When customers are dissatisfied, however, they tend to be more vocal. A customer who has a negative experience:

• Is highly likely to share that experience by leaving a bad review,
• Will typically tell 9-15 other people about that experience, and 
• Won’t do business with the company again 91% of the time.

That’s bad for your brand, your bottom line, your ROI and your company morale. 

How Far Can One Bad Review Really Go?

Farther than you think. Inc. found that it takes roughly 40 positive customer experiences to undo the damage of one negative review. 

You can read how they came to that conclusion here, but the gist is that: 

• Unhappy customers leave reviews far more often than happy ones, and
• Ratings are calculated as averages, so 
• One bad review can easily tank your rating.

How Does A Bad Review Affect Profit?

ROI is hard to measure, so we’ve developed a calculator to show you how much one dissatisfied customer can cost.

Say your business has 15 locations and your average annual revenue per customer is $125. If you have one dissatisfied customer who walks out of your business each month, that can create an annual loss of $22,500. That means one unhappy person equals weeks or months of advertising down the drain.

How Do You Fix It?

The execution isn’t simple, but the solution is: Create better customer experiences. Make sure you have a way to find out when problems arise, and respond quickly when they do.

With Mentor, all of that is built in. When a customer has a problem, they scan a QR code displayed in-store to leave their feedback. The Mentor platform prioritizes that feedback (positive, negative, or neutral) and alerts your team so they can address it ASAP — sometimes right on the spot. If you need to, you can also follow up via text, email or call.

Why Does It Work?

Because your team not only gets the opportunity to fix a customer’s bad experience on the spot — they get the opportunity to turn that experience into something positive. Loyal customers are made one personal, positive interaction at a time. It’s up to you to make those interactions happen. 

Contact us to learn how we can help you start doing that today. 

It’s vital to listen to what your customers are saying. In 2015, US companies lost $62 billion a year because of poor customer service. That’s a ton of money left on the table because businesses didn’t make an effort to give customers what they want. Don’t let yourself fall into this hole. Here’s how you can use customer feedback to tailor your customer service strategy.

How to Organize Your Data

Your primary goal in obtaining customer feedback is to garner an understanding of the customer experience. Once you’ve collected enough customer feedback, you’ll need to find a way to parse through it. Start by separating it into feedback based on your products, your customer service, and your marketing techniques.

• Product feedback might include things like problems with a new release or requests for a new feature.
• Customer service feedback lets you piece together commonly asked questions so you can see widespread issues and address them head-on.
• Marketing feedback lets you see where your advertising campaigns might be misleading, which you can use in the iterative process.

Once you’ve organized everything into three simple categories, go a step further by giving each item a code. For example, you might want a tag for email issues, incorrect product data, or compatibility problems. This helps you quickly see what your customers’ most common issues are so you can start addressing them.

Focusing on the most common issues allows you to make as many people happy as possible, but don’t completely neglect smaller items. Even the smallest group of customers have a voice, which can damage your reputation if you don’t listen.

Putting Feedback Into Action

The most crucial step of customer feedback is actually putting it into action. This can be a little tricky, but consider taking the following steps to keep the customer happy.

• Train your employees on how to respond. If you discover an issue with your software, make sure all your employees are aware of it. Nothing is more frustrating than a customer chatting with a knowledgeable rep and then following up later with a rep who has no idea what is going on.
• Identify which channels are the most popular. Chances are, after organizing your data, you’ll quickly begin to see which of your customer service channels are most popular. While chats and emails are becoming more common, research shows that 70% of customers still appreciate being able to call for a quick response. If you’re throwing more and more of your budget into developing the perfect chat response bot but a majority of your customers are still calling in, think about reallocating funds.
• Test new follow-up strategies. Perhaps your customers have indicated unhappiness with your service. Rather than taking that at its word, try following up with customers after a few weeks after their purchase to see how things are going. Consider email surveys or even a personalized phone call to ask if their level of satisfaction has gone up or down.
• Revise FAQs and other informational content. If your customers are asking a lot of basic questions about your service, perhaps your FAQs are lacking. Beef up this content so customers can find their answers on their own. This gives them more autonomy and also frees up your customer service team to handle more pressing issues.

Always Review and Revise

As with any new changes you implement, it’s crucial to follow up and see if they’re making a positive difference. See if you can ask the same customers who provided your original data to rate the improvements you’ve made. If they still aren’t happy, keep at it. Customer service is an iterative process that constantly requires your attention.Need more help taking your customer service to the next level? Consider Mentor, a fully-fledged service that can help transform your business.

Whether it’s an online store, brick and mortar retailer, or the hole-in-the-wall place you get your favorite burger with chipotle avocado magic on it, we’ve been on the customer experience side of a brand.

Have you ever sat down and really thought about why you choose certain companies over others?

Maybe it’s a great product.

Perhaps it’s how unique they are.

Or maybe they’re the only place that cooks a burger right.

How many coffee shops did you pass on your commute? How do any stand out?

The most successful brands know that there’s a lot that goes into making a company thrive. Yet, there’s one thing, no matter what you are selling, that all of the best franchises have in common:

Fantastic customer service.

Duh, right? You know that your company needs to make the customer experience a top priority. Is the service you’re providing your customer at its best, though?

Don’t just take our word for it. When a franchise is successful, the roots of that success can be traced back to amazing customer experiences.

Successful Franchises that Offer a Great Customer Experience

IKEA

When we say customer experience, there’s a lofty abstract way of thinking of it, or you can be like IKEA and take it literally.

Going into an IKEA is a real experience.

Every turn through their store allows customers to imagine themselves in a home rather than a retailer. There’s even the IKEA Place app that takes this idea to the next level by utilizing augmented reality to give customers a clearer image of the product in their home.

What if a customer gets hungry in the labyrinth of furniture? IKEA has that covered too with in-store restaurants. The customer experience for IKEA means giving excellent service and keeping their customers within their building, which helps drive conversion.

Apple

You can’t talk about successful franchises without bringing up Apple.

The tech giant has stayed on top because the first thing they always think of is the customer experience. Even the design of their open-concept stores allows customers to feel a sense of freedom.

Apple goes above and beyond just products. There are free classes in stores around the globe that aim to teach kids about coding.

All of this is fueled by employees selected from the best of the best in the industry. Apple is a company that knows customers will interact first and foremost with their payroll in stores. Those employees go through extensive training to ensure that the customer gets the absolute best experience possible.

Trader Joe’s

Compared to the previous two entries, Trader Joe’s seems like small potatoes (which they have organic options of in-store).

In the competitive grocery store industry, Trader Joe’s has grown to over 500 stores nationwide.

How do they make themselves stand out against such large competition? In addition to great prices and unique product offerings, Trader Joe’s knows about customer service.

A story from ten years ago shows just how far out of the way Trader Joes will go to service their customer.

A Reddit story about a woman’s grandfather, trapped home alone because of a snow storm, blew up the internet. In it, she tells of how Trader Joe’s delivered food (not typical for the grocery chain) to the Navy vet, and then didn’t even charge.

Those are the kinds of stories that stick with customers and why it’s hard to go very far without someone gushing about what they love at Trader Joes.

Key Aspects of the Customer Experience

These brands show that the most successful franchises focus on key factors with their customer service:

• Give customers more than they expect
  
• Ensure your team has the best customer service training
  
• Allow customers to see what you sell in action
  
• Technology is the key to interacting with customers
  
  

These factors take a lot of work to get right. How are you supposed to keep track of your growing customer base at all times?

That’s where Mentor’s customer feedback platform can make your company stand out.

Mentor goes beyond the typical customer survey and lets you have a direct and personal connection with your customers via email, SMS, and phone.

Customers themselves have options on giving your brand feedback, from open-ended text boxes to photo and video.

The most successful franchises got that way through constant growth and always keeping the customer experience at it’s best.

Mentor gives you the tools to take your customer experience to the next level too.

Explore more here.

Customer surveys have long been the gold standard for collecting feedback. However, innovation and technology have paved the way for new ways of interacting with customers and getting actionable feedback. Brands today are constantly searching for newer and better ways to improve customer experiences. A new study from Adobe and Econsultancy found that the single most exciting opportunity for B2B companies in 2020 is customer experience. So what does that mean for customer surveys? Let’s explore the types of customer surveys in the market today and if they’re effective.

The 3 Most Common Types of Customer Surveys

Net Promoter Score® (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, is one of the most popular customer surveys today and informs many of the customer experience solutions growing in the market. It measures customer loyalty by asking questions on a sliding scale, usually from 0 to 10. Here’s an example:

Based on your experience, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or loved one? 

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Those responses are categorized into 3 main groups – promoters, passives, and detractors – to determine how happy your customers are with you and how likely they are to recommend you to others. Emails and text messages are good avenues to send NPS surveys as well as within pop-ups or chatboxes on a website.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

A customer satisfaction survey, or CSAT, is similar to NPS® in the sense that it measures customer satisfaction with your brand. However, they zero-in more on overall satisfaction with your brand rather than if they would recommend you to a peer – and often fall on a 5-point scale. 

How satisfied are you with your experience today?

1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very Satisfied

CSAT survey scores are measured differently than NPS®. Take the sum of respondents who were “Very Satisfied” and “Satisfied” and divide that number by the total number of survey respondents. Multiply that number by 100 and you’ve got your CSAT score as a percentage for easy measuring.  

Post Purchase Surveys

When a customer purchases something from your business in-store or online, it’s vital to collect feedback on their buying experience so you can make improvements to the checkout process and overall experience. Post-purchase surveys include questions on a sliding scale that typically ask customers to agree or disagree to a degree with a set of statements from the first-person point of view. Open-ended questions offer a chance to get more in-depth feedback from customers.

Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of my product. 

• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree

Please explain your response.

Going Beyond the Customer Survey

All three of these customer surveys – the NPS, the CSAT, and the post-purchase survey – are great options for measuring your success as a company in the eyes of a customer. Aspects from each of these customer surveys are must-haves in whatever customer feedback platform you incorporate into your CX strategy.

However, what most of these customer surveys lack is a way to respond to customer feedback and solve problems swiftly. While all of the metrics that come with these surveys are vital for measuring the success of your CX efforts – that’s only half the job. Incredible customer service comes with not only knowing what the problems are but being able to fix them. 

A customer experience software solution like Mentor offers the opportunity to interact with your customers one-on-one through direct communication. Follow up with a customer issue through a phone call, text message, or email – and be able to solve their issues before they even leave your storefront. After all, studies show that 86% of buyers will pay more for better customer experience. That’s extra revenue your business could be bringing in by investing in the people who buy from you.

Mentor allows you to tailor your customer surveys so you can get a full picture of the situations your customers are going through. Users can not only fill out sliding scale surveys, but also upload photos and videos regarding their issue alongside an open text form for in-depth descriptions. The key to a great customer experience solution is being able to solve problems quickly and easily with the added benefit of having context regarding the issues your customers are having. Mentor gives your customers a voice and your CX team a way to listen – and solve problems on the fly. 

If you’re looking for a way to supercharge your customer experience capabilities and go beyond the typical customer survey, reach out to us today and see how Mentor can transform your business. 

Every brand is hungry to create brand loyalty among its customers. Not surprisingly, this is easier said than done. Just think about how many brands, businesses, and products you interact with every day. There’s probably only a handful that came to mind when narrowing down your favorites. With so much competition in just about every industry, how can brands stand out and cut through the noise? Let’s explore why brand loyalty matters and how you can earn it. 

Brand Loyalty: Why It Matters

Many businesses fail to realize the importance of creating valuable customer experiences until its too late. Leaders at large companies struggle to manage their time between all of the different areas of their business, from HR to finance to product development. However, companies can’t exist without customers. The only way to create brand loyalty is by pouring into your customers and making their feedback a top priority. 

Examples of Incredible Brand Loyalty

When we talk about brand loyalty, a few companies come to mind that pioneered not only the world of branding but customer experience as a whole. How did they create such a cult following within their brands?

Trader Joe’s

In the United States, we’re lucky enough to have a plethora of grocery options available in most of the country. No grocery store chain has been more iconic than Trader Joe’s when it comes to branding and customer service. A dedication to customer service and their focus on creating their own Trader Joe’s-branded products helps them stand out from the crowd. Not to mention an impressive Instagram following and the coveted Hawaiin t-shirts employees wear. 

Goop

While Goop, the lifestyle brand brainchild of Gwyneth Paltrow, has been a controversial brand from the start, there’s no doubt that they’ve reached the gold standard of brand loyalty. By covering taboo topics and going deep into the growing world of self-care, Goop has garnered a loyal following over its lifetime. By introducing its own product line in addition to compelling content, rest assured that Goop and its fans aren’t going anywhere soon.

Zappos

Zappos has literally built its brand on providing outstanding customer service. CEO Tony Hsieh has made customer service his mission, once saying that “Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.” It’s that customer-centric mentality that has made Zappos a favorite for shoe lovers and a company to admire for startups looking to break into a competitive industry.

How to Earn Brand Loyalty

So how can up and coming brands earn brand loyalty? The list is endless – but here are the top 3 things you can do. 

Have a UVP

Brands are fighting for attention in a world filled with media noise. If you want to have staying power in whatever market you’re in, you need to be different. Establish what makes you unique and be clear in your marketing and publicity about what your unique value proposition is. 

Be Creative

Once you’ve established your UVP, you have to be creative in getting your products and services to the public. No brand ever made it far by doing what everybody else is doing. Invest in your team and hire creative employees to iterate on different ways of making your brand visible to the world. 

Listen to Your Customers

And finally, the most important thing you can do to garner brand loyalty among your customers is to listen to them. It doesn’t matter how creative or unique your product, service, or branding is if it isn’t appealing to your target audience. Everything from product development to your social media posts should be in direct correlation with your ideal customer. Knowing how to solve their problems – and better yet, being able to solve them before they’ve given up on your brand – is key to attracting and retaining customers. 

No matter what industry you’re in, Mentor is here to help you create amazing customer experiences. Reach out to us today and see how Mentor can help you establish strong brand loyalty by listening to your customers’ needs. 

Customer retention is a top priority for every business. At the end of the day, no business can survive without loyal customers. So what is the key to creating a brand built on customer retention? Making your customers feel seen and heard plays a huge role in building a loyal customer base – and this is the foundation that Mentor is built upon. ClickZ reports that when done right, “peer-to-peer communication can be used to assess customer health and sentiment.” This is exactly what Mentor does for businesses. 

Here are 5 reasons why Mentor is the best customer retention and feedback platform for your business.

1 – Mentor has advanced sentiment analysis capabilities.

Mentor is an incident-based platform that enables you to pinpoint specific customer feedback and experiences. Our technology analyzes sentiment and customer emotion to break down customer complaints so you can manage them individually. Classic customer experience systems like the Net Promoter Score® are – while beneficial in many ways – often one-dimensional. Our sentiment analysis capabilities allow you to go deeper and have a more personalized connection with customers.

Mentor’s advanced sentiment analysis technology searches for keywords and evaluates consumer sentiment and categorizes it as positive, negative, or neutral. Tickets are created and prioritized based on the magnitude of the issue, enabling your customer success team to take action when needed. Your reps can directly interact with customers if need be, either through email, SMS, or a phone call. 

2 – Mentor is easy to use for customers and businesses alike.

Consumers are used to seeing QR codes, and the general population is familiar with how to use them. A recent study by Statistia found that in the US alone, an estimated 11 million households will scan a QR Code in 2020. That’s no small number – and one of the main reasons we chose to use QR codes as the best mechanism for brands and consumers to interact through Mentor. 

As customers are interacting with your business, whether it’s online or at a brick-and-mortar location, leaving customer feedback through the Mentor platform is as simple as having a smartphone. Customers can hold their phone up to your company’s QR code to leave feedback. They’re then taken to your store’s custom Mentor page, where they can leave responses in a variety of ways – including open text forms, photo and video uploads, and ratings. Once they hit submit, their work is done – and it can all be done in under a minute. 

3 – Mentor allows for one-to-one customer interactions.

Once your customer leaves feedback through the Mentor platform, the software does the heavy lifting of analyzing sentiment, creating and prioritizing tickets, and evaluating the nature of the response. Your customer success team can easily manage the ticket cue and decide on what the next steps will be. Your reps can follow up with customers directly, either through SMS, email, or a phone call in order to solve immediate issues right away. 

This is one of Mentor’s prime benefits – breaking the barrier between businesses and consumers to create a one-to-one conversation. It’s no secret that personalization is one of the keys to customer retention. Every customer deserves to be treated like they are the most important customer you have. Mentor opens up an opportunity for your business to directly interact with customers through these personalized interactions – and it’s those interactions that make all the difference in a customer’s perception of you.

4 – Mentor lets you evaluate customer experiences across locations.

Do you operate stores or businesses across multiple locations? Do you struggle to evaluate the successes and struggles of those stores individually? Mentor is here to help. Through the platform, you have access to unparalleled insight into the customer experience not only by incident, but by location. This enables you to take the appropriate action to correct situations at individual locations before it’s too late.

Mentor also gives you the ability to proactively track incidents within the customer experience team and push tasks to affected locations – opening the door to understanding the customer like never before. Consistency across locations is a huge aspect of customer retention, and Mentor allows for the consistency you need for customer happiness across state lines.

5 – Mentor enables positive ROI for your business.

A solid customer retention rate is essential to positive returns on your investments. Consider how much it costs to not only acquire a customer, along with how much your average customer spends on your business per year. When customers are dissatisfied, you’ve essentially lost their business. Plus, if they go to social media or a review platform like Yelp, they can leave negative reviews and deter other customers from buying from you. 

With Mentor, you’ll have access to in-depth data about your customer feedback and be able to make informed decisions based on specific incidents and locations alike. By knowing your average revenue per customer per yet, you can get an idea of how much cash you’re losing every time you have a dissatisfied customer who couldn’t be helped before it was too late. Mentor enables customer retention, which in turn, enables positive ROI – which is the common denominator of every business.
If you’re struggling with customer retention and are looking for a solution to keep your customers happy and coming back, contact us today to learn more about Mentor can help.

At some point or another, we all have had steller (and not-so-stellar) customer experiences. As consumers, we tend to forget the standard, mediocre day-to-day customer service experiences. However, most of us remember the ones that made a difference for us, whether it was positive or negative. Here at Mentor, our mission is to help empower both brands and consumers by turning as many negative customer experiences as we can into positive ones. When customer experience is done right, it’s a win-win for everyone. Here are the 3 key principles brands should follow to create an excellent customer experience every time. 

1 – Make the customer feel seen and heard.

You know that phrase, the customer is always right? In most cases, it’s true. As frustrating as it is to have a high maintenance customer, you never know the power of an unhappy customer until it’s too late. Unhappy customers often go to social media, Yelp, or their friends and family to talk negatively about a poor customer experience they had with a business. Unfortunately for brands, those reviews are powerful. A report from Nielsen found that 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other type of advertising. Brands need to find a way to turn negative customer experiences into positive ones before customers jump ship.

Luckily, Mentor was built to help brands do this very thing. With Mentor, all a customer has to do when a problem arises is scan a QR code displayed in-store to leave their feedback. Then, the Mentor platform does the heavy lifting of qualifying and prioritizing feedback. Your customer success team can then follow up with customers directly or contact a store manager to address issues immediately. This process not only gives your business an opportunity to fix a customer issue – but to turn this experience into something positive. Brand loyalists are made through personalized, positive interactions between brands and consumers. 

2 – Respond to customer concerns directly and quickly.

In the world of Amazon Prime and same-day delivery, instant gratification is basically a requirement among consumers today. The sooner you can react to a customer request, the better. Mentor’s AI-powered and patented technology analyzes customer sentiment by qualifying responses as positive, negative, or neutral. Tickets are then created and prioritized so your customer success team can make swift decisions on whether they need to contact a customer directly.

Direct customer communication is one of the reasons Mentor is working for businesses. You can follow up to customer concerns directly via SMS, email, or a phone call, allowing for a direct touchpoint between brand and buyer. Chatbots and automated phonecalls may work in the short term, but they don’t compare to the one-on-one interaction that comes when there’s a human to human connection. Modern Litho stated that “The brands who are most successful at engaging new customers and keeping them engaged are talking and acting like a human being.” Mentor gives your customers – and your brand – a voice and allows for an authentic customer experience to take place.

3 – Remain consistent across locations.

There’s a reason why Chick-fil-A – despite being closed on Sundays and sacrificing about $1 billion yearly as a result – is ranked as the number one fast-food chain in America. They’re the masterminds of building an unparalleled customer experience across all of their locations. A simple “My Pleasure” goes a long way when it becomes a brand staple that customers can depend on hearing at every Chick-fil-A across America.

This type of brand consistency begins from a company’s leadership team, but it becomes standard when a company has the means to keep it a top priority. With a customer experience solution like Mentor, you can collect, track, and analyze feedback from multiple locations to ensure brand consistency at all times. Whether you need incident-based statistics or overarching data, Mentor lets you measure it all. A brand that people can depend on is a brand that consumers will return to and become engaged fans for years to come. 

Creating amazing customer experiences is a powerful way to engage your customers and bring them into your business model in deeper and more meaningful ways. If you’re looking to expand your customer experience potential, reach out to us today and see how Mentor can bring your customer experiences to the next level.