Great customer service can help make or break a business by creating loyal customers who will tell others about their experiences, which will help offset any fake reviews you might receive. Providing quality services or products that consumers want is obviously the first building block, but providing excellent customer service helps build trust between a business and consumers for lasting relationships and repeat business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Providing accessible and concise self-service information for consumers will reduce service ticket queues significantly
- Consumers consider a knowledgeable service representative with a positive attitude to be the most important part of any service experience
- More than half of consumers will stop doing business with a company after just one bad service experience
There are multiple ways in which to ensure you give consumers the best customer service possible, and none of them are hard to grasp once or difficult to implement.
Defining Excellent Customer Service
Excellent customer service can be defined with several key aspects:
- A personable and pleasant interaction between customer and customer service representative
- Knowledgeable, resourceful, and concise representatives
- Going above and beyond what consumers usually expect out of customer service
- Respecting the consumer’s time and needs
Keeping these concepts in mind, here are a number of ways to consistently and reliably deliver the best customer experiences possible.
Knowledge of Your Product or Service
When a consumer contacts customer support, it should go without saying that they want to talk to someone who’s as knowledgeable as possible about the product or service they’re having an issue with. A customer service rep should always know the products and services a business provides as thoroughly as possible- not only does it help ensure a positive resolution for the customer, but it helps make the entire process less anxiety-inducing for both them and the service rep.
Positive Attitude
A positive, encouraging, and confident customer service team can turn a frustrated or angry customer into a happy customer- often even if their problem can’t be solved on a particular engagement. Nobody wants to contact customer service with an issue and be greeted by an unfriendly or stressed-out service and it will diminish customer confidence in your business.
Keep in mind, however, that most customer service these days doesn’t happen face to face, or even voice to voice much of the time, and that tone can easily be misinterpreted over text- so a service rep understanding how to convey a positive attitude even in email, text, or chat form is crucial. This is crucial even when knowing how to respond to fake reviews that a customer relied on when making a purchase.
Response Time
In one study, 66% of customers said that valuing their time came before anything when it came to customer service experiences. Proactive customer service is even more crucial for minor issues with easy, quick fixes- it’s frustrating to wait for a week for a response from a business only to learn that the problem took 30 seconds to solve. That said, don’t try to get through an engagement as quickly as possible- make sure you’ve done everything to solve a problem as thoroughly as possible.
Related: Learn how to get Yelp reviews and boost your business visibility.
Give Customers Problem-Solving Tools
More than 80% of consumers would prefer to solve an issue themselves than to interact with a service representative, therefore it’s essential to place any FAQ, guide on DIY fixes, or basic problem-solving information upfront in a clear, concise format on your website’s support page. This will save both you and the customer time and give the customer more confidence in your services or products.
F.A.Q.S
How important is good customer service?
It’s very important to a business’s reputation and for repeat business. One recent survey found that almost two-thirds of consumers react to a bad customer service experience by telling friends and family and writing about their negative experiences on social media.
How can a business reduce support ticket numbers?
One excellent way to reduce the number of support tickets waiting in queue to be dealt with is by having a comprehensive, easy-to-understand FAQ and database on your website’s support page, reducing the number of customers who need to contact support directly.
Which do consumers prefer for support contact- email, text message, chat, or phone call?
A 2020 study found that 42% of customers prefer phone calls to any other method of service contact.
STAT: More than 3/4 of consumers say they would prefer to solve problems themselves than contact customer service or support. (source)
STAT: A 2020 study found that 72% of businesses make better customer service their #1 priority (source)
STAT: More than half of all consumers typically surveyed say they stop doing business with a company if they’ve had even one negative customer service experience (source)
REFERENCES:
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/818566/preferred-channels-customer-service-issues-united-states/#:~:text=Preferred%20contact%20channels%20for%20customers%20to%20resolve%20issues%20U.S.%202019&text=Among%20the%20communication%20channels%20customers,a%20survey%20conducted%20in%202020.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar-hdBCVw74&ab_channel=Inc.r
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0veQ7_stI&ab_channel=DavidBrownlee
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_support
