Being available consistently
It is essential to remain responsive on all channels of customer service, whether through live chat, over the phone, via email, or in person, and avoid automated responses. Your customers should always be able to access help easily so make it clear what your availabilities are for communication and what channels are best, responding to all messages/forms of communication with at least an informative message about when/how you will get back to them.
Prioritizing the needs and experience of customers
You don’t want customers to feel like they are talking to a robot – provide personalized assistance, take responsibility, and show autonomy and intuition to ensure customers experience high-quality, effective service.
It is not only vital to show your customers that you care but also that you listen to their needs and suggestions, take complaints constructively, and demonstrate that you value this feedback. This will improve overall customer experience, through unique interactions between your representatives and customers, accommodating for their needs, and prioritizing customer satisfaction.
Not taking loyal customers for granted
Customer loyalty refers to not only the likelihood of customers returning, but also the likelihood of them recommending you to other potential customers. Returning customers will ultimately spend more money than one-off customers. To stay ahead of the competition and encourage return business, reward loyalty to increase your conversion rate (i.e. one-off customers becoming returning customers). This may be through implementing a loyalty rewards program, as well as simply keeping a record of their previous purchases to provide more personalized customer service. Remember, it costs more to attract new customers than to retain existing customers.
Taking advantage of technology and social media
Keeping up-to-date with new technologies that may help you to maintain superior customer service quality will facilitate improved productivity as well as boost overall customer experience.
As previously mentioned, you should provide accessible channels for your customers to provide feedback and share their experience on social media and make use of social media listening tools to stay on top of what people are saying about you – always respond to messages and posts that relate to you and your services/products/etc. so your audience will see that you are plugged in and value their opinions and individual experience.
Effective training and teamwork
When it comes to customer service training, there is a bottom-up effect from individual customer service quality to customer service performance at the team-level. This means investing in the individuals on your team to ensure they are uniquely prepared for interpersonal interactions with customers. Training should aim to improve employee skills and knowledge, as well as provide them with plenty of experience in a range of potential situations to fully prepare them. However, it is important not to neglect training for effective teamwork in customer service and cultivating a helpful, inviting atmosphere for customers.
Cooperation and good inter-company relationships allow for smooth and speedy problem-solving – departments with strong communication and good relationships will be better able to collaborate by contributing their various and respective expertize/specialities to tackle any potential issues.
Customer service representatives should be friendly and appear extraverted, sociable, talkative, and willing to help. Customers need to perceive your employees as assertive and confident, organized, and high-energy. Through training and continually throughout the management of customer service representatives, encourage employees to not only appear to be conscientious, dependable, hard workers, but to also consider these values as core to their attitude towards their work.
Supporting and organizing employees
If and when employees become stressed and overwhelmed by customer complaints/requests, multi-tasking too many responsibilities, and/or a dysfunctional working environment, it can lower their customer service performance quality and slow their ability to respond appropriately or resolve issues, as well as dampen positivity and demotivate them.
As a result of this, customers’ perceptions of representatives will be less friendly, helpful, committed, and dependable. In order to avoid this, actively focus on keeping the team organized and motivated, holding regular meetings and being open to feedback and suggestions. Creating a positive environment where employees feel they can share and contribute to the workspace.
Evidently, training alone will not guarantee high-quality employee performance: you will need to take a combination approach, including, but not limited to, effective and comprehensive training, encouraging a positive attitude and friendly/extraverted personality, and a working climate which facilitates communication and continuous service improvement. Taking these measures will improve customer service performance quality and, in turn, boost customer satisfaction, loyalty, and conversions – thus increasing company revenue.
Molly Crockett is a dedicated marketing blogger for Australianhelp and Academized, focusing on how businesses can effectively protect themselves from industry advancement and legal threats. Molly is always seeking new and innovative ways to help develop writing and research skills in young people and contributes to the online writing service Paperfellows.