How to Use an Audit to Improve Your Customer Service Process
When you’re looking out from the inside, it can be difficult to fully recognize and understand what your customers are experiencing. But for many businesses in today’s world, customer service is the number one factor that separates them from the competition.
It is safe to say that most businesses have at least one weakness that can be remedied, but the only way to know is by conducting a customer service audit. Customer service has a few metrics that can be quantified in an audit, but many of the factors that make customer service great involve quality, which is harder to audit.
Get Customer Feedback
There are several places to begin when conducting an audit, but one important strategy is to collect feedback from the customers you serve. If you want the truth, you should gather feedback from customers who are loyal and satisfied as well as from those who no longer frequent your business.
When you request customer feedback, be precise in the way you collect it. All too often businesses turn to surveys with meaningless choices. For example, if you are asking about a customer’s satisfaction, giving them a rating scale that is too large is meaningless.
Consider asking customers if they were satisfied or not, rather than having them rank their satisfaction on a scale of one to seven. Be precise in the questions and in the options they can select. Choose questions that will help you get the information you want.
Evaluate Phone Statistics
Many businesses rely on the phone as a major means of customer service. If you haven’t looked at what is happening on the telephone, the time to do so is now. There are several metrics that will give you an accurate look at what is happening with your customers. Consider these questions:
- How many phone calls go unanswered?
- How long are customers waiting on hold?
- What is the average length of a phone call?
- Are phone customers coming back?
- How many customer calls go to voicemail?
In a perfect world, every call is answered, and no customers are put on hold. One of the easiest ways to make a customer go to a competitor is to put them on hold or miss their call.
Phone metrics are easy to collect and evaluate because they are statistics that do not rely on emotions or opinions. If 100 calls go unanswered each week, then 100 calls go unanswered. It’s that simple.
Talk To Your Employees
If your business has a customer-service motto, do your employees know it? The only way to find out is to ask them. If they do not know it, then there is a missing link in the chain of employee training.
If you want to see good customer service skills from your employees, then you must be sure they know how to operate. The only way that happens is through proper training.
Know Your Response Rate
Answering the phones is one thing, and managing inquiries is another. If a customer makes contact through the phone, email, or an online inquiry, then your employees should respond right away.
Unfortunately, not everyone will do this, which is why your customer service audit should include a close look at the response rate. Inquiries are akin to leads, so employees need to know how quickly they should respond. Failing to respond is like letting a sale slip through your fingers.
Consider that people can order items from anywhere in the world. If you have an inquiry that is left on voicemail or in an email for too long, that is a potential customer who will probably find someone else, somewhere in the world that can deliver the product they want before you get to the inquiry. That is bad customer service.
Focus on Staff Meetings
This might not seem like the most obvious way to evaluate customer service, but it matters. Companies need to get their staff together to talk about processes, successes, and necessary changes.
They need to have time for small groups to meet and brainstorm, and employees need to have time to share their ideas with their bosses. If your business is not holding staff meetings regularly, then you are missing out on a valuable way to share information, updates, and ideas.
Evaluate Your Automation
Businesses are turning to automation for everything from security and scheduling to packing and shipping. If you have turned over any of your customer service interactions to automation, look at how that has affected your customer service.
In some cases, customers want to speak to people. Customers can get frustrated having to deal with lengthy answering service messages, and many would prefer to talk to real people. Some also highly dislike interacting with chatbots who cannot understand the nuances of written language. Look closely if you are using too much automation in your customer service interactions, and make changes if necessary.
- How to Use an Audit to Improve Your Customer Service Process - August 5, 2020
