Tips for Delivering Customer Service Excellence
Excellent customer service creates loyal customers who are willing to refer your business to friends, family, and colleagues. Providing this type of excellent customer service starts with a genuine desire to delight your customers, but you also have to think beyond selling your products or services. You need to consider the cumulative experience your customers have when they visit your store or website, what they think and feel, and what you can do to make it better.
1. Think Ahead
Don’t wait until you have a customer service breakdown to start thinking about how to handle difficult situations. Think about what constitutes good service and create a customer service manifesto. Establish a system for dealing with all sorts of customer-related issues.
2. The Customer Is Almost Always Right
As the old saying goes, ‘The customer is always right.’ Of course, they aren’t always right. But what this saying really means is that no matter how wrong a customer might be, you should treat them with the utmost respect. Even an angry customer is worthy of your focus and time. Create a culture of respect within your company, both for internal interactions among employees and externally when dealing with customers.
3. Keep On Communicating
Broadcast your philosophy and standards loudly and clearly. Make sure that everyone who has a touch-point with customers, no matter how small, understands your customer service philosophy. All of your employees, whether full-time, part-time or consultants, should be on the same page.
4. Listen and Take Action
Listen to your customers and act on all feedback. Seek ways to get their opinions and have them share their experiences with you. A good company uses this feedback to improve its operations and products, and customers can see the difference. Always be attentive and responsive.
5. Focus on the Customer
When you have a problems with customers, your goal isn’t to get rid of them or to save your company’s reputation. Your goal is to help them solve the problem. This is what it means to be customer-focused. Take on their problem as if it were your own and reach a solution that makes both parties satisfied.
6. Always Under Promise and Over Deliver
While you should bend over backwards to help your customers, don’t promise what you can’t deliver. If you make promises you can’t keep in the hopes of pleasing a customer, you’ll end up doing more damage than good when you break that promise.
7. Learn from Your Competitors
If your customer service beats that of the competition, you’ll quickly gain a reputation for it. To know where you stand, keep an eye on your competition. Use the internet and read what customers are saying about them on Twitter, forums, review sites, and social media sites like Facebook. When you know what your competitors are doing, it’s easy to figure out how to do better.
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Culled from: CSM.