A good customer service can be something that can make or break your business. If a company has great customers services there is a great chance that customers would enjoy your service. Here are some tips and tricks that I recommend you to implement in your Customer Service.
Because in the end, retaining a customer is profitable, because selling to a customer is easier, it allows him to sell more products, to have positive word of mouth.
1 – Offer as many communication channels as possible to your customers and prospects,
A customer may be able to call customer service through the channels that best suit them depending on the context.
For example, in the evening after work, he will prefer email.
If it is a request during the day, he can use the Chat on the site, or email if it is not urgent.
If it’s a complex or important request, he’ll want to call on the phone.
Don’t be like some telephone operators or eCommerce sites that hide their phone numbers as much as possible in order to force their customers to use Self Care. Indeed, if a customer needs help by phone, it is because it is important or that he needs it.
By hiding your contact details, you only generate dissatisfaction.
If you’re worried about having too many phone or email contacts, at worst, here’s what you can do is:
Redirect some of the calls to digital channels (customer area, email, FAQ, etc.), via a waiting message that reminds you of other ways to get answers. You can also slightly increase the waiting time on the phone if your reachability is very important (indeed why use self care if your answer rate is 99% with a wait of 30 seconds!). Sometimes 30 more seconds can switch a large number of calls to digitial.
Digitize certain telephone calls with for example an IVR (type 1 for…), or better still a Callbot which understands natural language (see this file on Callbots ).
Highlight on the site a Chatbot, an interactive FAQ … in order to deal with the most common requests. For this, it is necessary upstream to identify the simple and recurring questions that you could automate in order to relieve the advisers.
2 – Set up a CRM solution coupled with your Contact Center solution for the historization of exchanges
You must centralize all customer knowledge (calls, emails, letters, satisfaction surveys, etc.) in a single place, with if possible a direct connection to your Contact Center solution.
This avoids the situation where the customer has the impression of being just a number, having to call back his customer number each time (even though it is the 5th time he calls), and re -explain his problem and everything he has already done previously …
Connect your CRM solution to your ERP, Outlook, CTI etc in order to avoid loss of information, data silos … and you can thus personalize the call (the advisor will have in front of him the customer file automatically uploaded , as well as the last calls).
3. Do not make the customer wait for hours in line. Offer to call him back (the call back system) or at least indicate a provisional waiting time before having an agent.
Contact center solutions also allow customers to save their inquiries as recorded messages, to be handled later by agents outside of peak call times.
If this is not possible, offer two levels of contract, a standard and a premium, with priority access in the queues.
If your organization allows it, you can also negotiate with the advisers a modulation of working hours, either to extend the time slots (eg: a permanence after 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., or on weekends).
If it is too complicated, you can outsource part of the taking of calls at staggered hours (eg with an external service provider that you will train, who will have access to your CRM and your contact center solution. Thus, with a group of ten agents, you can easily extend your opening hours (by delegating to them only simple requests, for complex requests your internal team will always be the dedicated contact person).
4 – Do not offer solutions without listening to the client tell (the heart of) his problem.
The customer always has the impression that his problem is unique, and he demands listening above all.
After the listening phase you can then be proactive, but not before.
A customer always wants to explain his situation, at least to make sure that the solution that we are going to offer him will be the right one.
5 – Set up a “recovery” service for customers who want to leave.
Sometimes a commercial gesture, a simple effort, attentive listening… make it possible to win back a dearly acquired customer.
This “Complaints” or “Retention” service is there to listen to the customer and negotiate with him, with more autonomy over commercial gestures, training in the management of dissatisfied customers.
To avoid having too many dissatisfied customers, do not forget to set up a procedure for welcoming new customers “on boarding process” (eg: emails, calls, online help, tutorial, etc.), or even to put set up a “Customer Success Manager” function who is there to support customers in their first steps in use and to ensure that everything goes for the best.
6 – Manage the urgency of customer problems
Sometimes some requests are incidental, while others are critical.
Likewise, some customers are always ready to pay more for a higher quality of service or more guarantees.
Do not hesitate to offer “Premium” services for guaranteed callbacks within X hours, for a dedicated contact, for personalized coaching sessions….
7 – Pay attention to both the content and the form of responses to customers
No technical jargon, no haughty or familiar words, no vulgarity … as we hear too often in some hotlines “You don’t understand each other, I have already explained how to do it”, “If you think you are the only one with this problem ”…
Likewise never say “Ah, you are the first to tell us that” /… which makes the client think that he is a liar. Every customers just wants to be treated specially.
