Every year businesses in the US lose $83 billion due to poor customer services. And this loss amounts to both abandoned purchases and customer defections to companies offering better services.
Therefore you need to invest more in customer support for the long-term success of your business.
Here is how you can do that.
1. Product Knowledge
Extensive knowledge of your product is an essential customer service skill. Ideally, your customer support experts should know the product like the back of their hand. They have to help out the customers in case they don’t know how to use it.
Your customer support experts should be able to discuss the features and intuitively use cases.
For repair shop owners, if you are using repair shop software, then you can schedule a training session for your customer support experts. Such training programs can help provide customers a seamless experience.
2. Positive Attitude
Your employee’s positive attitude goes a long way in giving excellent customer service. Equally, that attitude is capable of changing negative customer feedback into positive feedback.
Most customer service interactions are not face-to-face. So your customer support expert’s attitude should reflect in the tone of voice and language.
Customers can easily misinterpret the tone of written communication. Sometimes your live chats and emails can come across as unfriendly.
Hence use emojis to convey good humor and warmth. If you feel the conversation getting tense, you can always give the customer a call.
3. Problem Solving
Problem-solving is at the heart of good customer service. Therefore your team should thrive on solving problems for your customers.
Do not back down on wowing your customers while you help them. Your customer support experts should go above and beyond to make the customer happy.
Let’s take the example of cellphone repair shops. A customer complains about a screen your shop just replaced. Your employees should not just replace the screen but should also provide them a discount on their next visit.
So this way you will win a customer because of excellent customer service.
4. Quick Responses
Keeping the customer waiting is the worst thing any business can do. Quickly resolving the queries of customers should be a cornerstone for any business. Especially more minor issues should not take you much time to decide.
With that being said, some customers demand more time to be spent on solving their problems. Obviously, that depends on the complexity of the issue at hand.
In reality, there is a difference between how rapidly you respond and the speed at which you solve problems. Usually, customers don’t want to wait longer in a ticket queue. But they are willing to wait for a long time just to get their issue resolved.
So your response rate should be prompt but don’t rush to get the issue resolved.
5. Personalized Service
Customers always look forward to personalized service. Giving robotic responses and reading off a script is something that can make a customer angry.
Never ever let customers be batted like a tennis ball among your customer support experts. Because of this, you might lose a customer forever.
Train your employees to have a natural conversation with the customers. Dropping good jokes here and there can help lighten the mood and result in practical problem-solving.
6. Active Listening
Make sure that your customer support experts pay attention to the customer’s feedback. Active listening involves both looking over data and listening in real-time.
Your team needs to show the customers that they are being heard when they are speaking to them. Active listening scales the chance that your employees will listen to the real problem and effectively solve them. And this way you will get happy customers.
Instead of pushing their agenda, your customer support experts should understand the customer’s needs. So teach them to repeat the problem back. So that it shows the customer that they have been heard.
Active listening also involves being mindful of the unique personality and emotional state of the customer. Once this is understood, your employees should tailor their responses accordingly.
Don’t forget customer service does not follow the rule of one-size-fits-all.
7. Keep Your Word
Keeping your word helps build trust and respect for your customers.
There can be a possibility where keeping your word is not possible because of other priorities. For example, if you promise to get back to the customer within 24 hours and don’t, offer something extra.
Similarly, if a customer comes in for a refund on your service, your team should instantly issue a refund on your repair shop POS software. To make the customer feel better, you can offer discount cards.
8. Team Work
Your business must have several departments. And all these teams pull together to fulfill organizational goals.
If you are serious about making your customer service impeccable, providing excellent support should be your core objective.
Therefore your team’s problem-solving technique should be innovative. You can involve a few members of each department to turn on their live chat every now and then. It will enable them to get firsthand knowledge of what the customer wants.
In addition to this, there will be no lag in handling complaints from the customers. With more minds working together, innovative ideas can be brought to the table to improve your customer service.
All the techniques mentioned above will surely help you produce good customer service. Always keep in mind that customer service is something that keeps your customers loyal to your business.
Because of their excellent experience, they will tell their friends about your business. And you will get more customers. Don’t forget to humanize your customer support experience for customer service-driven growth.
