Best practices that companies need to put in place to deliver Superior Customer Service
When it comes to Customer Service , companies that place high priority on this aspect of business often capitalize on customer’s loyalty to their brand. Observing best practices leads to providing a world-class service, which will surely be transformed into good references, testimonials, and recommendations to third parties.
The best customer service starts within the organization. If the internal operations are fast and efficient this will result in better customer service. Another important aspect to providing good customer service is an incentivized and motivated customer service team. This is key and will be reflected in the quality of service they provide in return. When team members know they will be rewarded for going the extra mile to resolve a case in an efficient and timely manner, it motivates them. A motivated team will more directly embrace the culture of customer-oriented service, cultivating a genuine and positive attitude of helping customers with a vocation for service.
It is important to cultivate a sense of commitment in your team. Meeting due dates and adhering to promises is considered commitment and should be performed consistently. The team must have confidence that they can deliver, and should not commit to promises they may not be able to fulfill in an attempt to pacify a dissatisfied customer. Team commitment is usually performed with greater impact if each client is assigned a dedicated team. The team can thus establish a more personalized relationship, and gain better knowledge of the clients’ organizational culture. A more personalized relationship with the client will allow the team to build a well-defined customer service team structure that is clear and prioritizes the customer’s goals.
These teams should be provided with tools, and trained in processes that enable them to achieve the quality of service that the organization is requesting, and that the customer is expecting. Customers expect businesses to respond to their queries quickly. Immediate response is crucial to satisfy the clients, as they expect that in a connected and omnichannel communicated world this can be accomplished. The Service Level Agreements (SLA) are evaluated closely and appreciated when accomplished. Nevertheless, it is important not to sacrifice quality over speed, it is essential to provide customers authentic resolution to their issues and concerns. A good example of providing good timing and quality information is making it easy for clients to find answers on your website or even proactively find references to certain topics on the organization’s social media. It is always beneficial to your customers to have a resource page, frequently asked questions, and/or instructional videos on your products’ features and functionalities available on your website. This practice allows the customer service team to save time from answering common questions.
Establishing a good process to case resolution is as important as following up after resolving it, whether it is a request, a concern, a support ticket, or any other form of help needed from the client, categorizing it as a case and following the appropriate steps to respond and resolve it is key. Doing follow-up checks with the customer is another of the key practices to achieve high qualifications when evaluating the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) of the organization. It reinforces the customer’s mindset on the fact that the case was resolved, and that the organization wants to make sure that it was done to their satisfaction, it shows the client you’re genuinely concerned. A very important tool to support the customer service team is doing surveys. One of the best ways to improve the quality of your customer service activities is by having feedback from your clients. Surveys enable the organization to identify happy customers and spot unhappy customers who need nurturing. Follow-up checks and Surveys are useless if no records are kept. Having a record of your customers’ past communication with your organization saves them time from repeating their concerns, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of getting customer service help. Therefore, knowing your customers’ profile and activity history is imperative to providing world-class customer service. To have all in record helps the personalization of the service to customers.
When striving for excellent customer service and providing a more personalized experience to your customers, there are several customer service software that help businesses to centralize customer communications in a single platform. These enable organizations to capture all the questions and queries from the customers. It also enables them to get in touch with the clients through various channels, including live chat, in-app phone, social media, and email. Utilizing these to their maximum capacity is another key factor to deliver superior customer service.
In conclusion, implementing best practices in relation to customer service will allow your business to provide excellent service and a superior experience to you consumers. Excellent customer service leads to growth for your business, and high customer retention rates. All of which will define the culture of an organization and result in the growth of a company.
Source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/customer-service-best-practices/
