What are the best ways to deliver impeccable customer service?
According to Microsoft's report, 90% of customers think that customer service is essential in their choice of loyalty to a brand.
The harsh reality for today's businesses is that it takes months to find a customer and just a few seconds to lose one. In today's age of instant gratification, customers are rewriting customer support rules.
Now it becomes your job to understand how to provide the best customer support to keep your customers loyal to your brand.
Building an outstanding customer experience doesn't happen by accident but by design. A perfect customer support system can be a game changer for your business to outshine competitors by offering impeccable customer service.
So, in this blog, we will unravel the top 7 ways to deliver the best-in-class customer experience. Let's start!
Put yourself in the customer's shoes
Customers are not just mere means of profits but real people with emotions. You cannot just put your customer service on "autopilot" mode and leave it to run on its own. Every customer is different and deserves to be treated how they want.
Ask yourself: "Is this how I would want myself to be treated if I was the customer?" If your answer is in negation, then think about what you would want the brand to do as a customer to satisfy you.
So, always treat your customers in the very same manner you would expect a brand to treat you. Remember this at every step of your customer service journey, and you will become unstoppable in delivering seamless customer service.
Don't promise what you can't deliver
The crux of any business is honesty and faith. Don't make wild promises to your customers just to get them on board when you know that you can't deliver the same. When you make a mistake, don't let it consume you. Instead, uncover the problem and work on fixing it.
If your customers lose their trust and confidence in you, they will never return. Always remember:
- Be honest with your customers
- Keep their expectations realistic
- Communicate properly
- Always keep your word
Lead by listening and paying attention to details
As a leader, it's important always to be a good listener. Leaders don't just speak, but they first listen and observe. Clear and transparent communication will keep things going for your customers.
A lot of good customer service experience depends on listening to the problems that your customers are facing.
As your customer's expectations change, experiences must evolve too. Hence, you are more likely to deliver an outstanding customer experience when you know every aspect of what your customers are looking for.
Image Source: Twitter
Today, customers don't want to wait for days to receive your response. So, you should focus on creating a better customer experience by responding as fast as you can, that too without compromising on quality.
Language is the key
The human brain is likely to concentrate better when it hears friendly and positive language. And that's precisely why you should pay attention to your language during a customer support session:
- Make use of positive expressions: Using the words like not, no, sadly, and unfortunately will leave a bad taste in your customers and might turn them off. So rather than saying, "Unfortunately, we can't deliver your product today," try saying, "We will deliver your product by tomorrow."
- Make your conversation engaging rather than completely explanatory: Rather than making a verbal explanation, lead your customers out of the problem step by step and keep checking if the customer gets it all.
Image Source: Twitter
Make use of self-service
81% of customers want to find a solution by themselves before reaching out to a live representative. And not being able to find a solution online is way more frustrating for your customers than having bad live support. For businesses looking to enhance their customer service capabilities, collaborating with a support outsourcing company can provide access to specialized resources and expertise, ensuring a high-quality customer experience. Therefore, businesses should invest in a customer self-service portal to allow customers to find answers on their own. Here's how you can incorporate self-support for your customers:
- Interactive guides: Introduce interactivity in your product itself.
- Knowledge bases: Store all sorts of technical information, such as user manuals, glossaries, and support articles about your business in a knowledge base or e-learning platform.
- Chatbot solutions: Chatbots work as interactive guides to hand-hold customers to make user onboarding easier and ensure the customer can self-service.
Image Source: IKEA
Go the extra mile
With access to all kinds of tools and technologies to build a product, what makes a clear difference in businesses is customer service.
Do you think the biggest of the biggest companies out there, like Apple, Amazon, and Google, have the most unique product in the market? Probably not. Then, what did they have? An excellent understanding of the customer's expectations and the will to go the extra mile to create lifelong fans.
Newer companies might not have the big budget to go the extra mile like these big companies, but you can win your customers' hearts just by doing small things, like sending them handwritten thank you notes, discounts, coupons, or simply checking how they have been. In fact, it's the small things that make a huge difference often.
Here's how brands can go the extra mile in delivering customer service:
- Deliver the unexpected
- Truly add value to your relationships with your customers
- Offer unexpected rewards
- Appreciate your customers for their feedback (even if it's negative)
- Do more than just selling
Leverage social media to improve customer experience
Social media customer service is the new normal for businesses. Customers turn to social sites for providing reviews, no matter positive or negative. Now, it's up to your customer response team to solve their concerns and deliver the best satisfactory experience.
You can strengthen your customer response team by setting clear standards for them. For instance, every team member should know how to turn negative customers into positive ones by solving their queries.
Image Source: Twitter
The quality of your customer service on social media will heavily influence the way consumers feel about your brand. Enterprise Social media software can help you deliver quick customer service on several social platforms.
An essential part of delivering customer service on social media is handling the spam, fake and irrelevant comments that try to destroy your online brand reputation. For instance, you should moderate and hide comments on Facebook when there is a want for more controlled discussion.
Here are the top ways how you can deliver an outstanding customer experience through social media:
- Create social media profiles just for customer service
- Monitor online discussions about your brand using keywords
- Adhere to your brand's guidelines while replying to customer complaints
- Be quick in your response
- Take your conversation in private when needed
- Measure your social customer service efforts
- Strive for an omnichannel experience
Ready to lead an outstanding customer experience?
Customer service is way more complex than what any article can make it out to be. But this doesn't mean that customer satisfaction cannot be achieved at all. Although different businesses from different industries have their way of providing customer service, one thing is for sure for all customer service teams: customer satisfaction is the top priority. So, whatever your industry might be, we hope you tackle all customer service issues using the fundamental tips above and the right mindset. You got this!