If you’re a business owner, then you know that providing good customer service is key. It’s not enough to just have a nice website or make good products — you need to provide your customers with the best experience possible. What does that mean? It means building relationships with them and providing them with top-notch service at every turn. This blog will walk you through the basics of great customer service so that you can start implementing them right away!
A good customer service representative provides excellent support to their customers by making sure they’re satisfied with the product or service they purchased and helping solve any problems that arise while using it. Good customer service is all about building a rapport and relationship with customers, not just providing them with answers to their questions.
An excellent customer service professional will be personable, friendly, and eager to go above and beyond for the benefit of the client. They ought to be able to respond to inquiries politely and without being condescending. Even if it doesn’t seem urgent at first — which it surely won’t be if you aren’t a consumer who has been inconvenienced by that mistake — they should be willing to apologize when the company has made a mistake. Being a good person yourself is the simplest way to please your clients. If you’re pleasant, people will return the favor. People will feel comfortable enough with you to ask for assistance or guidance when they need it if you treat them like fellow humans. They will trust you enough to tell their friends about the excellent service they received from your company.
If all of this sounds a little too touchy-feely for your tastes, consider this: research shows that customers who are treated well are more likely to spend more money than those who aren’t. So if we’re talking strictly money here, then making sure our customers have a good time while they’re spending them makes sense as well. Ultimately, though, I think that being kind is just the right thing to do — even if it doesn’t increase profits directly (which it very well might). It’s important because treating others well allows them room to grow as individuals and lets them reach their fullest potential within society at large – not just within one particular organization’s profit margins.
Consistency is king. We all know this and yet, consistency is the most neglected thing when it comes to customer service. If you hire someone new and give them a manual, they’re going to do everything exactly the way that it says in the manual… for about two days. Then they will start making up their own rules because they don’t understand why you have so many rules or why those rules are important.
This happens on a macro level too – big brands change their branding and messaging every few years just for the sake of change itself; even if there was no reason for it! Why would you want to introduce this level of uncertainty into your customers’ relationship with your brand? This kind of gamble wouldn’t be ideal for your business.
Giving your customers what they want is good customer service. Customer service is not about what you think the customer wants. Nor is it about doing what you think they want. It’s not even about giving them what they want. It’s about giving them what they need — because if someone buys a product or service, then that implies that there was something about the way it was marketed to them that made this particular purchase seem desirable in some way.
Good customer service is all about building a rapport and relationship with customers.
Good customer service doesn’t just involve offering goods and services to your customers, but it’s about developing a long-standing relationship with them. It is about developing an empathic relationship with them so they think of you first as soon as they are in need of a particular good or service that you offer.
Good customer service is strategic and well executed. To provide excellent customer service and keep your customers coming back, you should plan for it. Have well planned strategies and execute them. It is important to plan ahead, have a backup plan, and also have a contingency plan.
Good customer service is a collective effort. To have excellent functioning customer service has to be a collective effort. Get the management team and all employees involved. Employees need to go through training to adequately equip them to be good customer service attendants. Employee training isn’t just about giving them a manual to prepare and follow rigidly. After a while, they are likely to pull away from those rules.
What is the importance of customer service?
Both current and potential customers are impacted by customer service. Did you know that 68% of consumers would use social media to inform relatives and friends about a negative experience? And almost 50% of consumers say that after only one negative experience, they would switch to a different brand. Additionally, a staggering 93% of customers are likely to return to businesses that provide exceptional customer service. That’s a great number, right? If you offer your customers good customer service, 93% are likely to keep returning to your brand and become loyal customers.
Customer service improves word of mouth recommendation and gives you more promoter-customers who are likely to recommend your brand to their family or friends (read our blog on the importance of NPS to find out more on who promoters are).
You get to know directly from your customers exactly what they need
Conclusion
Customer service is a relationship that you have with your customers. It’s not just about answering their questions and solving their problems. It’s about building a connection between the two of you so that they feel comfortable, safe, and happy when dealing with you (or your business).
