Always provide a 5-star service experience to your customers
As the saying goes, the customer is king.
Your personal ratings and income depend on them. They are essentially your employers.
In the gig economy, you will have lots of micro employers.
Always know when you have committed to complete the service for your customers. It’s always good to under-promise and over-deliver.
For rideshare platforms, your number one priority is always to provide safe and reliable rides that will get your passengers to their destinations.
Understand the rating system
Most platforms have some kind of customer rating system to rate the quality of your services or deliverables.
Find out how the rating system works for each platform, what you need to do to get the highest star rating and how to avoid de-activation.
Be aware that bad ratings will likely affect the level of income you can earn.
A low rating could put your account at risk in any platform.
Poor ratings usually come from subtle problems rather than big ones.
Utilize different customer strategy to maximize your profitability
Every rideshare ride can call for a different strategy.
On a short ride, you don’t need to offer the passenger anything.
On a longer ride, you can begin to offer water, phone chargers, music choice, etc.
Your ability to offer customized bonuses depends on what your customers buy from you. These bonuses need not be super expensive but they will definitely maximize your profitability.
When things are going bad
Always be prepared to give a complimentary service when things are going bad. It is not worth earning a couple of bucks for a very poor rating.
Do learn from your mistakes as to why the service is bad and constantly improve yourself.
If a rideshare ride is going very badly, consider canceling the ride toward the end and tell the passenger, “This one’s on me,” and apologizes for the ride.”
For other platforms, you can refund the money received.
The customer journey starts much earlier
Do remember that your customer’s journey with you starts much earlier. It is usually when they jump on the platform and visit your service page on that platform.
For rideshare passengers, your customers’ experience will start well before you even pick them up. Find out what you can do to be prepared and ensure that your customer’s first impression is a great one.
For other platforms like Fiverr, it’s your service offering page that will be the first point of contact for most of your customers.
Poor English, bad grammar and illogical statements are signs of possible poor service to come. If necessary, do invest money for professional writers and designers to make your service offering page very professional and that increases your personal branding.
Perceptions do count.
It is your job to create a positive one in order to attract your customers.
Customer satisfaction tips
Customer satisfaction is your number one priority.
Here are some customer satisfaction tips to take note.
- Provide the most needed service that people are looking for. As there are lots of services that people offer on various platforms, you need to provide a specific niche service to a particular target customer group that is an absolute stand-out.
- You cannot be all things to all people. Finding a niche target market and meeting that niche market’s requirements will be your number one goal. Start with a very small niche. Do well in that niche. Once you have mastered your service delivery capabilities and acquired good customer ratings, then slowly branch out to other related areas or services.
- Always provide quality and outstanding service to your customers. Serve them with your best efforts and ability. People always value good service no matter how much they spend.
- Always know and fully understand your customer’s demands, needs, and requirements before accepting the job. If you are unable to perform the service within the specified timeframe or you have other commitments that preclude you from doing your work, it is best to turn the job down or just flag on your service page that you are not taking in any jobs for the moment. People understand that you are busy or even on holidays. If you are going away for months, then you need to consider the status of your service page – whether to remain or take it offline.
- Always provide your service within the agreed deadline and specifications. If you succeed in satisfying your customer needs, then you’ll earn more reputation and eventually more customers.
- Always over deliver. In doing so, you will get raving reviews and repeat customers for life. Do look for every possible way you can over deliver services to your customers.
- The first impression matters a lot. It’s important that you create a well-informed, neat, and compelling service page on any given platform or marketplace.
- Be as accurate as possible in terms of what you are actually offering to your niche market. People do offer complete customer satisfaction for their service, while others will provide more quality but will have certain restrictions. Whatever it is, be absolutely clear as to what you are exactly giving to your customers and that there are no surprises or misunderstanding. Vagueness can cause disputes later on.
- Use audio or video files on your service page. People may feel more comfortable while watching, hearing, or talking to a real person.
- Build up your social proof. Show off some impressive samples. Quote testimonials of your raving customers.
Keeping your customers engaged
Find the time to constantly keep your customers engage.
Here are some ways to get your customers to remember you:
- Send notes for how to execute the work you provided earlier.
- Send other options of how they can reach their goal with less effort.
- Check in with them mid-project to let them know how you’re doing.
- Check back post project to ensure that they are satisfied with your work.
- Ask if they have any questions about your work (This may be a good time to ask them for testimonials. Seek their permission to include their testimonials on your service page.)
- Send templates, articles, e-books, or anything educational that you could find that would truly enhance your value to the customer. Perhaps an idea worth trying out.