Providing excellent customer service is crucial in running a successful business. With the increasing competition in the market, companies need to go the extra mile to make their customers happy and satisfied. In this blog post, we will take time to discuss the top 10 best customer service strategies that you can adopt to help improve your business today.
1. Train your team in exceptional Customer Service Skills
Your Customer Service team are the at the coal face of your business. Therefore, it is essential to train them in delivering exceptional customer service. Teach them how to greet customers, listen actively to their issues, empathize and offer personalized solutions. Achieving this with a first call resolution mindset will ensure your team are knowledgeable, credible and focused.
2. Deliver fast Response Time, regardless of channel
In today's fast-paced world, customers expect quick responses to their queries and problems. Ensure that your business knows what good looks like in your industry and try to deliver a more flexible and faster response time. Managing these response times across all contact channels is crucial too, many businesses simply focus on inbound phone calls as a measure, however if you offer alternative means of contact then all of those contact channels need careful benchmarks for delivering fast response times. Setting a benchmark for response time and using different channels such as chatbots and automation to speed up the process will help deliver customer excellence.
3. Personalise Customer Interactions
Customers appreciate personalised interactions, it shows you care, and as a consequence they feel valued and heard. Gather relevant customer information and use it to tailor interactions and experiences for each customer. This can include sending personalised emails, offering customised recommendations, and remembering key details about their previous interactions, regardless of when or how they contact you.
4. Always Use Positive Language and Tone
The language and tone you use during customer interactions can significantly impact how customers feel about your business. It is easy for your team to sometimes feel differently if they are under pressure from high call volumes, but consistently using positive language, offering reassurances when needed and avoiding negative words or tones that might be perceived as dismissive or rude is crucial for excellent customer experience. Our dedicated training team regularly train our team on resilience and positivity. Our auto QA process at CC33 can pick up any negative issues automatically, enabling instant intervention and retraining.
5. Actively Seek Customer Feedback
Actively seeking customer feedback helps you monitor your customer service, understand their needs and preferences, and make relevant improvements. Utilise surveys and other customer experience models to better understand what your customers are looking for and improve accordingly. Net promoter score (NPs) is a really great way to do this too. At CC33 we can automate the NPS question at the end of every interactions giving you very clear and actionable insight too.
6. Offer Multiple Communication Channels
Customers want to communicate with businesses in a way that is most convenient for them. So let your customer contact you through their channel of their choice, not yours. Taking advantage of the technology that helps you have multiple communication channels, such as phone, email, social media, and live chat is crucial. Enabling your customers to reach out to your company via their preferred channel makes their lives much easier too.
7. Resolve Complaints and Issues Quickly
Unfortunately, things do go wrong from time to time. So, when customers encounter problems, they expect prompt and satisfactory resolutions. Ensure your team know what the process is for any complaints raised, and ideally on how to resolve complaints and issues quickly themselves, providing multiple resolutions and options for the customer, and getting to the root of the problem. We know customers are much more likely to promote your business after the quick and satisfactory resolution of an issue or problem, than if they had no issue at all.
8. Set Expectations with Customers
Make sure that you set expectations with your customers to avoid any misunderstandings or disappointments. Getting in front of any problems you may have in your business will help keep customer demand to a minimum and keep customer satisfaction up. So, inform your customers of any possible delays, price changes, or limitations to your product or service, upfront, and as quickly as you can. This will help them plan accordingly and avoid any negative emotions.
9. Foster a Culture of Customer Service
To deliver excellent customer service, it is essential to foster a culture of customer service within your organization. Empower your team to make customer-centric decisions, celebrate customer service wins, and provide open lines of communication for feedback on improving customer experiences.
10. Appreciate Your Customers
Lastly, appreciate your customers for choosing you! That’s easy to forget when you’re under pressure to deliver for them; they do pay the bills after all! So, thank them for their business, offer loyal customer incentives in whatever form you can, maybe even sending personalised messages on their special occasions such as holidays and birthdays. Surprise and delight your customers whenever you can!
In conclusion, delivering quality customer service is never an overnight success, but hopefully the above tips and strategies can help you on your journey to exceptional customer service. Remember, a happy customer is a loyal customer!
At CC33 we can help your business improve its customer service, and we already are for a number of our partners.
If you think we can help, get in touch here we’d love to talk, or email us at onlineinfo@cc33.co.uk for more information.
Our commitment to industry leading communication and management begins with energetic and passionate people.
