Customer Service Processes: The Go-Getter’s Guide for Success
Customer service has many different definitions. However, most business leaders simply spin the same words without really understanding the needs of their customers. Customer service is not just about supporting your customers before, during and after the purchase of the product or service.
Customer service revolves around prioritizing the needs of your customers and making them happy using a smooth, enjoyable and recognizable customer experience.
Experienced brand owners and customer experts predict that customer experience is going to be the best marketing tool any business is going to use in the future. Today, we are going to explore what customer service is and some of the proven ways to make this process a success. Without further ado, let’s get started!
Defining customer service
In the past couple of years, customer service or customer support was all about helping customers before, during and after they had made a purchase. Additionally, some companies considered customer service as reactive. This means that they only took a stand when a customer filed an issue or complaint with the organization.
Today, customer service goes beyond supporting customers through the telephone. There so many channels of communication today like never before. Customer service agents can be contacted using several different channels, for example, social media platforms, e-mail, text messages, and live chat.
Companies that want to boost their revenues and profits find that customer support involves much more than just solving the problems of customers and providing answers quickly. It involves the experience that a customer with a particular brand.
Since customer service is all about teamwork, more departments are becoming a critical part of customer servicing. As businesses evolve, the need for departments to collaborate to improve customer experience is critical.
Customer service plays a critical role
Today, companies are competitive like never before. In recent years, customers made buying decisions based on prices, locations and quality of products or services. Today, thanks to technological advancement, customers are focused on the experience they have with a brand or organization like never before.
According to paper writing service, providing great customer service will not only reduce customer complaints but also increase customer retention rates.
Above all, organizations with a great customer service culture will have more loyal customers who will act as their brand ambassadors. They will gladly recommend the product or service to their friends, family, and colleagues. Word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective form of marketing in the business world.
How does bad customer service affect the customer experience?
The relation between customer experience and customer service is very strong. Every action performed by the customer service department will reflect on customer experiences either positively or negatively.
Customer experience can be defined as a journey that sums up all forms of customer interaction with an organization or brand. The journey begins when the customer interacts with the organization for the first time. And this process never ends.
Customer experience involves much more than just buying a product or delivering a service. Customer experience measures the feeling that a customer has about a specific company. These feelings include several connections such as psychological, emotional and physical.
Having said that, you can see how customer service culture can improve customer experience. 75% of customers will leave a brand or organization if they are not satisfied with customer service.
Keep in mind that bad customer service will negatively impact your reputation just as amazing customer service can build your reputation and grow your business. Among the side effects of poor customer service is high customer churn rate.
Some of the common indicators of poor customer care are:
- Leads failing to convert
- A drop in customer lifetime value
- Experienced support agents leaving the organization
- Lower sales and revenues
There is no particular formula that will solve all customer problems that you are currently facing since every industry has unique customer needs and challenges. You’ll have to come up with perfect solutions for your problems to improve customer experience and customer service.
According to assignment writing help, some of the common examples of poor customer service is failing to listen to your customers and delaying or ignoring their needs. In general, bad news spreads faster than good news. Therefore, you should do your best to minimize bad customer service.
Fixing bad customer service
Fixing the effects of bad customer service is a great challenge to most customer support teams and managers. However, there are simple rules and methods that you can use to improve customer service. They include controlling the damage of poor customer experience and clearly understanding how to retain customers.
First, keep in mind that the customer is king. And the king is always right. Endless arguments and discussions with your customers will lead to poor ratings and negative feedback, no matter how right you think you are. Instead of focusing on your side of the story, give a sincere apology and offer to make corrections or adjustments.
You can calm angry and dissatisfied customers by giving them a discount on the next purchase they make, offering free delivery replacing their products or sending them gifts.
If you are intolerant and can’t empathize with your customers, you’ll not only have issues with your customers but also your support agents. How they communicate will eventually drive your customers away and they’ll leave the organization too. Your business is going to get negative reviews that will be published in forums on social media platforms and web pages.
It’s critical for your customer service agents to undergo training courses regularly to communicate and understand your customers. Since the rapid advancement of technology has opened up many channels of communication customer service agents need to know that every new conversation is an opportunity to acquire and retain potential customers.
The difference between customer support and customer service
If you google the definitions of customer support and customer service, you will most likely get similar results. Most businesses cannot differentiate between these two terms. And this leads to confusion and poor customer satisfaction. Let’s discuss these two concepts.
Customer support
Customer support is all about technical support. Customer support teams are usually found in organizations that offer multiple and sophisticated IT products or services. In such organizations, the customer support agents also act as consultants due to the complexity of the job. These teams focus on troubleshooting and resolving problems that customers face while using their products.
Customer service
Customer service revolves around building customer relationships successfully. And since this is a challenging task, teamwork is crucial.
Customer service is a layered department because it not only provides support to customers but also contributes greatly towards the overall strategic plan of the business.
Customer service goes beyond solving the problems of your customers. It involves exchanging ideas, collecting customer feedback and increasing the value of products and services. Keep in mind that this relationship is focused more on the customer than the business.
6 Tips to provide exceptional customer service
Now that you know what bad customer service is, it’s important to know how your business and your HR software can provide exceptional customer service. No matter how big your company is, you can always implement these simple tips to transform and improve customer experience. As the popular saying goes, what’s easy to do is also easy not to do.
#1. Let word of mouth be the core of your service
In the past business owners used to be afraid that an angry dissatisfied customer would tell about ten people about the bad experiences, they had with the organization. Today, through social media platforms and web pages, the can tell ten million people in a matter of seconds.
On the flip side, serving your customers well will ensure that they become your advocates and one of the major sources of promoting your business. Remember, word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective form of marketing. Customers will always believe in what their peers and friends say about a specific product or service. This means that you indirectly control what you get in the end by how you serve and treat your customers.
#2. Understand your customers
To give your customers what they want, you have to know what they want. This means that you have to do your research to discover who they are, what they spend most of their time doing and what they need.
Customers will never buy something that they don’t need. And they will always follow the person who understands what they want. To avoid losing your potential customers to competitors, know your customers and deliver what they need efficiently.
#3. Lower response time
The world of yesterday is not the world of today. In the past, people could sit down for hours to watch a slow-paced movie or wait for days to receive a message or phone call. Today, people want to have everything as fast as they can.
Instant gratification is ruling the hearts and minds of people across the world. Customers want to connect with you all the time. And their issues to be resolved immediately. They also want an effective resolution upon reaching up to you the first time.
This puts added stress on the organizations’ infrastructure and resources. Since you can’t serve every customer around the world equally, you need to know your loyal and potential customers.
Using the Pareto principle, 20% of your customers will be responsible for 80% of the sales your company will make. Therefore, instead of spending a lot of time and resources focusing on the 80% who’ll only be responsible for 20% of the sales, prioritize. Once you focus on the 20%, you’ll easily reduce response time and improve the quality of service offered to them.
#4. Solution delivery
Once you’ve formulated a solution for a complaint, you’ll need a method of delivery. One of the best things you can do is to use the same channel that the customer used to raise his or her issues. In most cases, customers call the customer care agents to complain.
If the customer is not happy with your response or solution, you should ask for feedback that explains why the customer is not happy with the solution and get back to him or her after addressing the issues raised.
#5. Closing cases
Once you’ve delivered an answer that settles the issues raised, you should deliver a report that you can use to further improve the quality of service. The report should include a description of the provided solutions and some metrics. You should take into account:
The issues troubling your customers
- The channel of communication frequently used by customers
- A list of recurring complainants
- Satisfying answers and solutions that fail to resolve complaints
- The average time is taken to close cases
- These indicators will vary depending on the nature of your business.
- Your metrics need to be personalized to improve service delivery.
#6. Know your product
The more you know your product, the better the support you’ll offer to your customers. Ensure that all new employees undergo product training before serving customers. Remember, your employees are your brand advocates.
Nothing is more frustrating than a customer who seems to understand the product better than the employee. Product expertise should be a priority if you want to improve customer support.
Conclusion
Remember, a happy customer will always come back. And he or she will be ready to pay more to get a better experience. Therefore, how your customer feels about your brand will have a major impact on his or her buying decisions.
You can improve the customer experience by offering excellent customer support. With these tips in mind, we are sure that you’ll become a master of customer service. And this will have a positive impact on your business.
- The Ideal Customer Profiling – How to Identify Your Most Profitable Prospects - March 27, 2020
- Customer Service Processes: The Go-Getter’s Guide for Success - February 25, 2020
