You need more than a great idea to build a successful business. Another extremely important, yet often overlooked, factor of a great business is the quality of customer service that is provided. In fact, a large number of companies (including big, well-known brand names) owe a large amount of their success to the quality customer service their able to provide.
A growing number of businesses are searching for a more effective wayt to provide customers with a great experience that far exceeds their expectations. If you are on this path, then be sure to keep the information here in mind. Doing so will ensure your customer service exceeds your customer’s expectations at every turn.
1. Keep it Real
When it comes to customer service, there’s one, universal truth – people want to talk to other people. Starting off on the right foot with a cusotmer is much easier when providing them with truthful and verified information.
What does this mean? You need to avoid recordings or automated email replies. Having enough staff to field these types of communications is a must. To ensure phone calls and emails are answered in a timely manner, it may be wise to implement a helpdesk ticketing system.
Be sure that your staff knows they need to connect with customers, providing empathy and listen to their complaints and issues. Showing your customers they are valued is the best way to keep them loyal and content.
2. Make Getting in Touch Easy
Nobody wants to have to hunt for a company’s contact information. When a customer calls in with a complaint, you need to ensure they are speaking with an actual person instead of a recording. If a customer who is already mad is confronted with a recording or other types of automation, it may make matters much worse.
This means that you need to maintain a mailing address, email account, phone line and social media presences at all times. This will ensure your customers can contact you at any time to help with issues or problems they may have.
3. Remain Consistent
Be sure you create an extremely clear set of rules and standards. Always communicate these to your workers to ensure they know they should be followed closely. Doing this allows you to provide customers with the service and attention they deserve.
With that being said, there are situations where special cases will arise. Making sure your employees know how to deal with these specialized situatoins is vital. Consistently training your team is the best way to ensure they know how to deal with any situation they are presented with. If they are going “off the book,” make sure the employee knows to get approval for the “special resolution” from a supervisor.
4. Employee Incentives Can Be Beneficial
For the most part, employees seem to work harder when being offered some type of reward for their service. As a result, offering incentives to your customer service staff is a good idea.
Unfortunately, this is something that many customer service departments don’t focus on. When you offer incentives, you will find that workers are much more willing to put in the extra effort to ensure a customer’s needs are met and exceeded.
If you want your workers to focus on providing the best customer service possible, then it’s a good idea to use the tips and information here. The fact is, when you exceed your customer’s expectations and provide them with service that goes above and beyond, they are going to be more likely to return again and again.
