That is a significant factor in why putting money into customer service is essential for long-term business success.
But what exactly does excellent customer service include, and how can you make sure that each and every customer that contacts your business for assistance has a positive experience? We've come up with numerous ideas for elevating your company's customer service to the pinnacle of your sector.
What is great customer service?
Following best practices, such as respecting customers' time, being friendly, and offering informed and helpful information, is one aspect of providing great customer service, but another is going above and beyond expectations.
10 ways to deliver great customer service
You may thrill your clients and get them talking about your assistance to their friends by employing a variety of techniques as well as the built-in features of customer service software, shared inbox tools, and help desk software.
Here are our top 10 suggestions for providing excellent customer service.
1. Know your product
As a customer support representative, you spend the entire day troubleshooting for clients, thus you must be an expert on the product.
Comprehensive product knowledge is a crucial customer service competency. Ideally, you should have confidence in your product, be able to intelligently discuss features and use cases, demonstrate to consumers how the product can help them, and fix any issues that may arise!
Your responsibility is to ensure that your consumers receive actual value for their money and get the most out of their purchases. Make it a point to become an expert on your product so you may wow your clients with timely suggestions for utilizing fresh features and offerings.
2. Maintain a positive attitude
A good attitude goes a long way in offering top-notch customer service since attitude is everything.
“The right attitude changes negative customer experiences into positive customer experiences,” says Flavio Martins, VP of Customer Service and Operations at DigiCert, Inc. Since the majority of client contacts take place in virtual spaces, your language and tone of voice should convey your attitude.
The tone of written communication can be misinterpreted easily, and email or live chat may come off as frigid. The body language and facial expressions—many of which are missing online—are among the many clues that the brain utilizes to decipher another person's emotional tone.
Use emoticons to express friendliness and fun, and pick up the phone if an email or chat conversation becomes tense.
3. Creatively problem-solve
Bad customer service has led to the turnover of more than 80% of consumers. There will always be problems to solve, so you must relish the opportunity to do so and make it a key component of your support role.
Everyone has heard of Zappos' renowned customer service. For instance, they once gave a best man complimentary shoes the night before the wedding since the delivery company misplaced his purchase and sent it to the wrong place. They won a client for life and provided the man with a tale that he couldn't wait to tell. Zappos fixed a problem and demonstrated exceptional customer service.
As you work to find solutions for your clients' problems, don't be scared to impress them. You might simply solve the problem and move on, but by coming up with innovative solutions that go above and beyond, you'll win over clients who will be loyal to you and your goods.
4. Respond quickly
According to 66% of respondents, the most crucial aspect of any online customer experience is respecting the client's time. A key component of providing excellent customer service is promptly responding to consumer inquiries. Speed is crucial, especially when dealing with minor problems that may be resolved quickly.
That being said — great customer service beats speed every time.
Customers are aware that more difficult questions require more time to answer. There is a distinction between how quickly you reply and how quickly you fix their concerns. Although customers would prefer not to wait in a ticket queue, they are willing to take as much time as necessary to address their problem. And you ought to.
While you should respond to clients as soon as you can, don't rush to end the call or dismiss the ticket before the problem has been fully resolved.
5. Personalize your service
Customers demand better human service, according to 40% of them. They want to feel like more than just a ticket number, in other words. They become irate when they don't receive personalized attention, boilerplate responses, or when they are treated like a tennis ball by several individuals.
Customers like interacting with people rather than businesses. It contributes to the widespread practice of sending birthday presents to clients by numerous companies.
Do you have knowledge of the birthdays as well as the names of your customers? What about their pastimes or interests? Are you able to make them laugh? Going off script and adding a personal touch when you can is a crucial approach to demonstrate to your consumers that you know them and care about them. Of course, you can't do this for everyone.
Help Scout refers to tickets as "conversations" to encourage support staff to approach requests in the queue with a more individualized perspective. Consider how the support tool you use can help you customize your support interactions whether you're using Help Scout or one of its rivals.
6. Help customers help themselves
That said, customers don’t always want to talk to someone to get their problem solved — often, They want an immediate self-solution to their problem. Before contacting a live operator, 81% of consumers try to handle things on their own. According to another study, 71% of people want to be able to handle most customer care concerns on their own.
The idea behind Assistance Scout's Beacon, which places help information front and center so users can obtain answers exactly where they are without leaving the website, is that self-service is a scalable, affordable method to satisfy customers. Then, if they are unable to resolve their own problem, real-world assistance is only a few clicks away.
7. Focus support on the customer
Customers come before items or profit since they are the most important aspect of your company. Because they are, treat them as if they are the center of your universe.
According to Kristin Smaby in "Being Human is Good Business," “It’s time to consider an entirely different approach: Building human-centric customer service through great people and clever technology. So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it.”
One of Southwest Airlines' pilots famously demonstrated this idea by holding a flight back to wait for a passenger going to a funeral. They prioritized people before their objectives, and that client will never forget that.
8. Actively listen
In addition to listening in real-time, paying attention to consumer input involves reviewing historical data. When your consumers take the time to contact you, let them know you are listening to them. When you listen, you're more likely to understand the genuine issues that your consumers are facing and to be able to address them in a way that makes them happy.
Allow them to speak without imposing your own agenda. Don't presume to predict what your customer will say.
Active listening skills must be displayed; when you’re on the phone or live chat, use phrases like “It sounds like … ” and “Do you mean … ?” or “Let me make sure I’ve got this right.” To demonstrate that you have heard them, be careful to restate the issue back to them in your own words.
In order to customize your answer to the circumstances, active listening also entails being aware of your customer's particular personality and current emotional state. The same cannot be said of customer service.
9. Keep your word
It is basic sense customer service to make sure you fulfill any promises you make. Don't let down your clients. Respect and trust are based on keeping your promise.
For instance, if you guarantee 99% SLA uptime, be sure to adhere to that level. Make sure you follow through on any promises you make about the development of software features.
Offer anything as compensation when you violate your word, such as when you promise to respond to a consumer within 24 hours but don't. Offer to replace the item and provide your customer a refund if the delivery is defective. In the short term, you might suffer a financial loss, but you'll win over a devoted client.
Interestingly, when you deliver more than you promised, customers do not feel very appreciative. However, if you breach a promise, they get outraged. To ensure that you never breach this significant social compact, it is still preferable to make modest promises and execute on them.
10. Be proactively helpful
One of the most crucial things you can do to provide excellent customer service is to go above and beyond. When all the boxes have been checked but you still want to do more, this is the situation.
Occasionally, being helpful entails foreseeing the needs of your clients before they can even express them. In fact, customers may make requests for one item when they genuinely require another. It's your responsibility to foresee their wants and meet them.
Customers will continue to patronize you if they feel valued and truly special to you. If you do something good for your customers, they will want to do something in return, like buy your items. This may be related to the social psychology concept of reciprocity.
It can boost their egos and demonstrate your sincere appreciation for their business to give them a special discount code or send them a small gift "just because."
When a visitor inquired about where she could purchase a certain alarm clock they had in her room, the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville provided genuinely helpful customer service. As a surprise parting gift, the hotel handed her one, earning them a very happy patron.
Growing your business by providing great customer service
Great customer service is the result of the aforementioned factors coming together. Excellent customer service not only wins you a reputation for being helpful and enjoyable to work with, but also keeps your clients loyal to you and your company.
Customers prefer not to be treated as numbers in a ticket queue but as actual persons. For growth that is driven by exemplary customer service, humanize both them and yourself.
