HOW TO GIVE THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE By; Myeshi Briley,MS,HS-BCP

HOW TO GIVE THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE

By; Myeshi Briley,MS,HS-BCP

Customer service is essential to every business and if you don't realize it you can be out of business very quickly. In order for your company to succeed you have to get customers to come and stay. The desire to deliver excellent customer care must be embraced by every employee, from the CEO to the latest new hire. Think of customer service as a philosophy, not a department.

Even if your products or services are wonderful and your staff is uniquely talented, what a customer remembers is the direct interaction they had with your company. Whether it’s in person, remote or digital. Give your customers the personal touch. They need more attention than automated email responses. Also your VRU system shouldn’t make them scream in frustration. In addition, when your customers post on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, reply to them. Post photos and bios on your website so your customers see you and your staff as real people who are there for them. Set up focus groups, interview customers or run a survey to get an idea of what your customers want. Meet your customers on social media, at webinars, interactive websites, trade shows and conventions. They’ll learn from you and you’ll learn from them.

Make sure your policies, procedures and systems, whether for sales, support, delivery or development operations, are absolutely user friendly. In today’s hectic world people are too busy, you must deliver efficient customer service. Prioritize continuous on-line accessible service, personalized service and faster responses. Make use of self-service and community forums to enable customers to find resolutions to issues on their own. After all, millennial consumers prefer trying self-service options before contacting a customer service representative.

Offering self-service can be simple, like posting a list of FAQs or complex like providing a searchable database of solutions. Also consider providing customer service with mobile apps or video streaming. If you run a small business that can’t afford around-the-clock customer-service use an always-on self-service channel. You’ll reap huge benefits from it.  Customers find the convenience of clicking on a company’s web site and easily finding what they need time saving and appealing. Compared to the cost of a fully manned customer service team, a website is a huge cost savings to an organization.

You must also make the online support experience personal. Your verbiage is important. For instance there is a big difference between Submit A Ticket and Email Us, though they may do the same thing. The customer needs to feel that the company leaders and staff are accessible to them and appreciate them as their profit base, the people who are keeping them in business. Also the website needs to convey a clear and positive message to customers of what your products or services are about and what your company stands for.

If your company has an actual customer service team, you need to make sure they are clear on how to interact with your customers and are fully trained in soft skills. Customer service isn’t for everyone. It requires a unique set of communication and people skills. Your customer service representatives need to enjoy speaking with people and helping them. They need to value each customer as an individual, and adjust to different types of calls from different types of people. The most important skill they need is active listening and the ability to think quickly. Your customer service representatives should listen to what each caller is saying and respond directly to that. They need to realize they are there to listen to that customer and to take care of what that caller needs. They representatives must take ownership of the customers issues, follow-up and make sue the customer is satisfied. In order for them to do that you have to empower your customer service reps with the authorization to solve the customers’ issues, even allowing them to offer courtesy credits or refunds if needed.

You must make sure you offer your customers an easy way to leave feedback such as a telephone survey at the end of a call, an email survey sent directly from your CRM tool, or a form on your Contact Us page. Feedback is absolutely necessary for customer satisfaction. Feedback is a win win for your company and your customers. Your company will discover areas that need improvement, and your customers will see that you are dedicated to delivering world class customer care.

Also, encourage feedback from your staff on better ways to serve the customers.  Involve all of your staff in improvement efforts. Help your employees help your organization. Figure out what's working for your company and what your firm needs improvements on. Your company needs to build up a solid reputation of competence to your customers so they’ll have confidence in your organization. That will create loyal customer relationships that will sustain your company long term.  To get to that point and to keep that advantage you have to offer ongoing training to your internal support staff in skills like probing, analysis, data gathering, problem solving and solution implementation.

Also encourage feedback from your customer service employees about their work environment. High morale is essential in that department. Many customer service reps work in harsh conditions of low pay, little to no time off, no empowerment, little management support with supervisors that often won’t even take supervisor calls per customer requests, and an environment with threats of termination for not adhering to strict three minute time limits on customer service calls or for requesting credits on something that’s not the company’s error. Conditions and policies like that are a stab in the back to a company’s customer service initiative. Make sure your customer service team is happy and engaged. Find out how they feel about their working conditions, including training, compensation, opportunities for advancement, and their colleagues and management staff. Then make any improvements needed to improve your customer service team’s morale. If you truly expect your employees to be the best in customer service, you have to treat them as well as you want them to treat your customers.

Clever companies are always looking to improve their customer service for both immediate customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. If you want to succeed long term, your business needs to make a serious ongoing effort to study what it’s doing to attract new customers and what it's doing to maintain existing customers. If you don’t have happy customers, you won’t stay in business.

Sources

http://smallbiztrends.com/2016/03/top-performing-customer-service-companies.html

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235050

http://www.desk.com/success-center/customer-service-principles

https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/6-keys-improving-teams-customer-service-skills/

http://www.inc.com/guides/improve-your-companys-customer-service.html

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/how-to-build-a-business-focused-solely-on-customer-service/

http://www.business-wisdom.com/articles/ArtclDevelopingYour.html