Did you know that customer service is often an under-valued aspect of doing business?
When in fact if you want your business to be successful, you need to train yourself and your employees to understand that the customer must always come first.
When it comes to providing good customer service it is important to personalize your approach as much as possible.
One thing all customers have in common is the pleasure they receive when establishments they patronize make it clear to them that they know who they all are.
You have to prove to your customers that you appreciate them. You can do this by addressing them by name during all of your communications with them.
The golden rule is; make them feel important and they’ll prove that you’re important to them, too!
– Always give your best plus more!
You should train your employees to go the extra mile for the customers as well.
Being respectful and smiling at all times may seem like a little thing but it can go a long way towards improving your business’s customer service record.
Remember, it’s often these little things that make a big difference to your customers.
– Always be fair!
No request should be too small to be considered, and no customer should be too insignificant to take care of.
Sure, there are certain privileges that VIP customers are entitled to and other customers are quick to understand, but there are also certain privileges that everyone has the right to enjoy like common courtesy and dedication.
Never let your customers think that you’re guilty of favoritism!
– Make sure you listen!
It is extremely important that you listen to what your customer’s have to say. This may be hard when the customer is stubborn and unreasonable.
Even if you end up unable to resolve the issue, your customers should still put the phone down in a good mood because they knew you cared enough to listen to them without confrontation.
– Make good use of FAQ’s.
If you don’t have a frequently asked questions file or webpage for your business, create one immediately.
Having a FAQ page is an effective way of offering good customer service on the fly.
Keep a record of common questions and problems that have been discussed for quick reference.
This will help to negate the need for repeat calls regarding the same issues. FAQ sections can help prevent your customers and employees from wasting their time.
– Never left issues unresolved.
Every complaint must be successfully addressed. Train your employees to perform follow-up calls to ensure that all complaints had been resolved.
For complicated issues, make sure that you give customers progress reports to let them know that you’re still working on their case.
Do your best to give them a specific time period for which they can expect the issue to be fully resolved.
These are just a few basic strategies that you can use to beef up customer service for your own business.
Follow them and you will be well on your way to providing excellent service to all of your customers.
It is no secret that if you are in the service industry, good customer service can be your bread and butter.
By providing good customer service, you can generate more profit and promote business loyalty at the same time.
In fact it can create a win-win scenario for both the business and the customer.
The customers have a good experience and get their money’s worth while the business gets to enjoy increased profits!
Let’s go over a few simple secrets that you can use for your own business.
– Strive to build customer loyalty!
Customer loyalty is the most important secret to achieve good customer service.
Do your best to collect your customers full name, contact numbers and other information, such as address, birth date etc.
Remember if you show concern for what matters to your customers, you will build their loyalty and acquiring customers for life.
– Provide authentic customer service.
Nowadays, service has been a cliche and just a traditional way of dealing with customers. If everyone’s doing it, it’s a high time that you personalize your service. Be creative; personally know your customers and identify their individual needs. Make certain that your offer extreme value to your customers.
– The customer is always right!
The old adage “customer is always right” is still applicable. If a customer approaches you and complains, be serious when handling their concern.
If the customer is angry and upset do your best to defuse the situation and show them how serious you are when it comes correcting any problems.
Once the customer is satisfied by how you addressed their complaint, thank them for conveying the problem to you.
Keep in mind that advertisement will not be enough to repair a damage done by failing to address customer complaints.
Silent complainers can do a great deal of damage to your business. Beware of people who walk away without having their issue resolved.
You may never see them again, if they are unhappy you can bet that they are openly criticizing your services to other people and establishing a bad reputation for your business.
– Be honest with the customers.
Once your customer suspects that you are lying to them, they are a lost buyer.
If a customer seeks for your advice about a product, openly tell them what they need to know. In the end, they will thank you for being so genuine with what you offer.
– Go the extra mile.
If you want superb customer service, you should always go the extra mile.
For instance you can send a birthday card or insert a thank you note in a customer’s package.
You can send a congratulatory note when a customer gets promoted or you can clip the article if you see their photo or names in print.
There are many ways to encourage your customers lifetime loyalty. You just have to be willing to make the effort.
– Train your staff well.
Educate and train them about good customer service.
There will be times when you can’t directly deal with your customers and your staff must be able to show them the excellent customer service that they want.
Always keep in mind that your competitors are just waiting to cater unsatisfied customers of yours so you should always be sure to take care of your customer by providing good customer service.
Did you know that effective customer service training can be done in three quick steps. Once your employees have completed the training course you can rest assured that your business will benefit and enjoy increased revenues as well a bigger and more loyal customer base.
Let’s jump right in to the steps you should take when training your employees to provide top notch customer service.
Step 1 – Prepare materials and tools for customer service training.
Be as detailed and specific as you can when composing materials for customer service training.
It is imperative that your employees understand what you think good customer service should be.
Give them concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Provide them with a list of do’s and don’ts to remember.
Secondly, help them understand why offering good customer service is important to the business and how it will ultimately affect them as well.
Employees will be more motivated to improve their customer service skills if they believe that doing so is beneficial to them as well.
Prepare scripts for common customer service issues.
This will ensure that your customer service team will be able to deliver a speedy and uniform response to your customers.
Determine your desired response schedule and make sure that the training materials are designed to help them comply with the desired response time.
Step 2 – Take all the time you need to train your staff.
Focus on one lesson at a time and don’t progress to another level until you’re sure that they’ve mastered their lessons.
It is a good idea to hold periodical tests to ensure that they continue to retain knowledge from your previous lessons.
Let them take a gradual approach to their new set of responsibilities.
Have them start with something small and relatively easy like handling routine customer service calls.
Always clarify their job duties and the level of authority they’re working with before allowing them to interact with the customers.
Last but not the least, remind them to consult your FAQ section before delving in to more complicated processes of resolution.
Step 3 – Monitor the performance of your customer service team.
Subject your employees to scheduled and spontaneous simulations to give you a chance to evaluate their response in critical situations.
Make sure that you provide them feedback afterwards, identifying their strengths, weaknesses and offering suggestions for improvements.
You may even consider developing an incentive program to further motivate your employees and encourage them to always be on their best behavior when interacting with customers.
It is also important to evaluate your employee’s customer service abilities on a regular basis.
Last but not the least, always be prepared to make changes with how you run your customer service team.
Remember they’re the ones that are directly interacting with your customers, so your team and its policies must be flexible in order to respond quickly to a customer’s needs.
If you want to learn how to make your customer service training more effective and fun for your employees, I recommend that you check out the Big Book of Customer Service Training Games.
It isn’t very expensive at all. You can find it and read the reviews on Amazon.com
Many business owners don’t realize that good customer service creates happy, satisfied, repeat customers.
One way to measure the customer service standards for any business is through customer surveys. This is a vital tool that is often overlooked.
A customer service survey shows the solid reputation of the business you have established.
Customers have the chance to evaluate whether their expectations are met and if they have been treated well by the business.
Through customer service surveys, positive and negative remarks are clearly shown.
Basically this is just a simple way of getting feedback from your valued customers.
This information allows the business to evaluate their standards and develop better customer service policies.
Customer service surveys can also help when it comes to making good business decisions.
A well written customer survey can give you all of the information that you need to make positive changes for your business.
On the other hand surveys that aren’t well written will not help you achieve the results that you want.
To avoid this it is important that you follow a few simple guidelines to craft an effective survey questionnaire.
– Identify your objectives.
The survey objectives are very important; carefully identify your specific objectives.
When goals are not clear you will end up with a questionnaire that is unfocused and ineffective. Always be direct about the information you want to acquire.
Successful surveys act as tools in denying and confirming the customer’s expectation’s from your business.
Questions in the survey must be easily answered. Customers don’t want to have a hard time answering your questions.
Never use abbreviations, slang or any technical jargon in your questionnaire. You will obtain more helpful answers if you make the questions easy.
When it comes to crafting a good survey you can use a few different types of questions, such as:
– Questions answered with a simple yes or no.
(For example: Will you purchase this product again?)
– Questions answered by multiple choices.
(For example: Which products do you like most? Product A, B. or C?)
– You can also use scale or rankings and ask the customer to rate their
experience. (For example: Please rate our service from 1 to 5)
– Use open ended questions.(For example: What are your suggestions to better improve our services?
– Alternate your questions.
Try mixing easy and difficult questions throughout your survey. This will help keep the customers interested and encourage them to answer more questions.
A good rule of thumb is to set two easy questions first, like the yes or no and the multiple choice questions. Then start to include your open ended questions.
This process will keep your customers from feeling like you are requesting too much from them.
– Don’t be biased.
Lastly don’t make the questions biased. Successful surveys should get the true opinion of the customer and not just the answers that you want to hear.
This is the best way to measure customer satisfaction.
Customer service surveys are a very important tool that can help you make informed decisions for the betterment your business, products and services.
If your goal is to achieve a 100% satisfaction rating from your customers, using surveys will definitely help you to achieve that goal.
When it comes to achieving great customer service ratings it is important to keep these simple tips in mind:
– Happy employee’s make happy customers.
Keep in mind that there is no way to provide quality of customer service without the qualified people providing it.
Having contented employees is a great way to ensure good customer service. Pay your employees fair wages; give them good benefits and train them well.
This will allow them to exude confidence when dealing with customers and will naturally lead to better customer service.
– Be a good role model.
Always remember that the way you treat your employees will be reflective of how they treat your customers.
You are their role model so always be the epitome of a good server. Greet your employees enthusiastically every day and listen when they speak.
Rude customer service is not merely a reflection of the employees’ attitudes but more of their employer.
– Know your customers.
And let them get to know you. Recognizing your customers and calling them by their names are indications that you really know them.
They will feel important by this simple gesture.
On the other hand, by letting them know who you are, they can also feel comfortable that they can reach you easily when problems arise.
– Be pleasant
Give pleasant greetings when your customers walk in the door or contact you.
Greetings are important part of customer service and will let the customers know that they are respected, valued and appreciated.
– Provide proper training.
As we discussed previously, give your employees proper training on how to handle customer complaints.
Guidelines must be set on what to do and say in each conceivable case. Front liners play the most important role in the customer’s experience.
Be sure that your staff know what to say and do to create a more positive and pleasant customer experience.
– Don’t forget to survey.
Devise a “What do you think of our business” survey. Create a short and simple questionnaire with questions like we discussed in the last section.
For example; find out what your customers don’t like, what should be changed and what should be done to provide better service.
The answers to these questions will be very useful in creating your customer service plan, since your customers will be the ones making the suggestions.
Make sure you take note of all of the important points and act on them. The questionnaire can help you anticipate and identify customer needs.
This may sound odd, but customers don’t usually buy products and services. They buy good feelings and solutions to their problems.
Most customers are emotional rather than logical. It is important to anticipate their needs by talking to them regularly.
This way, you can be aware of their problems and you can take care of their upcoming needs.
Customer service is an important part of any business and it should be viewed as an natural extension of the business.
Always remember that the customer is the most essential asset of your business and without them, your business will not exist.
Keep them happy and satisfied by providing superb customer service and you will reap the rewards.
