Customer service is like the bread and butter of business, the foundation to your company – it cannot be ignored. Essentially, the interaction that a customer has with your team will form the first impressions that they have for your organisation, so you need to ensure that it’s a good one. Maintaining a high level of customer service doesn’t have to be difficult, and now that we’ve swarmed into a new year already, you can start making some resolutions to make your customer service more efficient and effective.
- Schedule More Training: On & Off
Of course, customer service training can cost time and money, however it’s essential to ensure that your employees understand the value of good customer service and the huge impacts that it can have on the company as a whole. However, training doesn’t just have to come in the form of courses in the workplace – encourage your employees to conduct some training out of the office, too. Send over resources for them to read through, online examinations to become certified, and books to read through in their spare time. All of this off-site training will develop and strengthen their customer service skills, creating an unbreakable arsenal.
- Attend More Conferences
Some businesses feel as though they don’t have the time to attend conferences with their employees, because time is money, right? True… kind of. While customer service conferences may take yourself and your employees away from the office, it will generate you larger profits in the long-run, as you’ll learn a whole range of things that you may not have known before from content exclusive to that conference, improving your customer service and generating a higher volume of happy customers.
- Be More Organised
This is very generic, but in terms of customer service, organisation is essential. Following-up with clients is paramount for maintaining strong relationships with your clients, but this is often brushed off by companies and completely ignored, or possibly just forgotten. Regardless, you should always try your best to regularly check in on your clients, whether that’s frequent emails or phone calls. To ensure this gets done, you should schedule all future emails and phone calls in a diary, or even in your CRM so that you can receive a reminder. This way, you’ll never procrastinate or put off that client call again.
- Introduce More Surveys
You can try your utmost hardest and put blood, sweat and tears into your customer service, but it’s useless if you’re uneducated about what your clients want. Once one of your services have been utilised, or a month after a customer has purchased a product from your company, you should send out a feedback survey to them, asking about the satisfaction that they received when interacting with your business. This way, you can gain deep insights into how your customer services team is performing, and tweak the details to better match the wants of the customer.
- Make Time For Your Employees
At the end of the day, your employees are your greatest asset – without them your business wouldn’t stand a chance. As your fifth new year’s resolution, you should aim to bond with them more. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What motivates them best? By taking time out to properly communicate with your employees outside of the office not only builds a stronger community within the organisation, but allows you to understand how they tick. With this information under your belt, you can adjust methods within the workplace to allow them to work to their maximum potential.
In every industry, it can be difficult to get heard among an entire army of organisations, all fighting to get the top spot. The truth is though, that high quality customer service alone can make you stand out from all the rest, which is why it’s fundamental to get it perfect as soon as possible. In 2018, make it your goal to improve your customer service, and allow it to reach its full potential.
