Customer service is an essential piece to increasing brand loyalty for your business. Contacting a company with an issue is often the first point of contact a customer has with your brand. However, excellent service is more than just hiring a team to respond to inquiries. Here are seven ways you can provide the best customer service for your business.
Prioritize Customer Service Response Time
When it comes to customer experience, time is of the essence. Whenever possible, leverage tools to automate your response. Automated tools will help decrease the workload for your team while quickly answering customers’ questions. Outsourced customer service agents are another great option to increase your response time. These agents are an easy way to hire a dedicated customer service team to learn and advocate for your brand.
Create an FAQ Page
Have you been getting the same question again and again? One easy way to reduce inquiries is to create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. This page will act as a resource for your customer – and your team – to resolve any possible issue. Your FAQ page is an evolving document on your website. Update your FAQ often as the needs of your customers change.
Encourage Empathy in Customer Service
Companies often receive customer questions on multiple channels, including chat, email, SMS, phone, or social media. Frequently customers will reach out on multiple channels to try and receive a quick response. Encouraging empathy in your team is vital to responding calmly to an anxious customer. Empathy will show the customer you care about their experience and will answer their question as soon as possible.
Train Active Listening
On long phone calls, it can be challenging to remain focused. From the customer’s perspective, it will be obvious when the agent tunes out or is not paying attention. Train your customer experience team to engage in active listening and reduce customer agitation during a call. One example of this is repeating or rephrasing the issue back to the customer to ensure you have all the necessary details.
Use Positive Language
Empathy and active listening will take you far, but using the right words and phrases can make or break a customer’s experience. Using positive language can help reduce conflict in the conversation with the customer. Avoid negative terms like “we can’t” or “unfortunately.” Instead, aim for encouraging phrases like “I’m going to” or “absolutely.”
Document Your Customer Journey
Understanding the customer journey helps identify common pain points and helps you learn about your customer. Knowing these pain points is an essential step in providing the best customer service, as your team can use this information to provide quick resolutions. It can also help identify areas of your business to improve!
Invest in Customer Service Training
Creating a culture of customer care will help your team provide the best customer experience. Invest in training for your team early and often. Provide this training to more than just the customer service team. Understanding the customer experience is vital for everyone, from marketing to engineering to executives. Invest in customer service training for each team member and build a culture of customer care from the ground up.
Millennial Services’ Customer Care Solution
We provide outsourced customer service agents who will advocate for your customers. Our trained agents embody helpfulness with an emphasis on positive outcomes. We act as your brand ambassador and advocate for your business when interacting with your customers. Contact Millennial Services today for more information about our outsourced customer service agent options.