Customer service is central to the growth of your business. Regardless of how good your product is, customers will most likely remember the quality of support they receive. If you want to improve your customer relationships, then you should think about streamlining your customer support process.
Providing good customer service requires talented and motivated customer service representatives to listen carefully and attend to your customers.
Customer service representatives deal with customers constantly, providing them with information regarding products and services, and making sure they are satisfied. This is crucial to the continuous growth of your company.
Below we will discuss why customer service representatives are more than just employees and how they hold the key to building your brand image, boosting sales and increasing revenue.
1. Your customer care reps are your public face
Retaining customers, and attracting new ones, both depend on providing excellent customer service. In fact, customer service is one of the most important parts of any business. Offering excellent customer care requires a strong, well-functioning team.
Your customer care reps are the only real connection between the CEO, team leaders, and the customers out there in the real world. If the connection is weak, the company suffers, with competitors happy to swoop in and take advantage of your shortcomings.
All too often, companies lose customers because of poor customer service. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Make sure your customers are greeted appropriately, their complaints are handled properly, and they receive the information they need regarding your products and services.
Fulfilling expectations by offering the best possible customer support depends on your customer care representatives. They are constantly in contact with your customers, and even help to create calm when customers are angry. When it comes down to it, they are the public face of your company.
Provide proper training to your customer service agents in order to streamline the customer support process and to boost customer satisfaction. Through effective customer service training, agents increase their ability to resolve issues.
2. Customer care reps with the right communication tools make powerful assets
“When it comes to business you don’t need to learn new language, you just need to manage a communication tool.” – Kenneth OE Sundin
Direct communication tools, like live chat, are great for delivering top-notch customer service. Combining live chat with cobrowsing or video chat can further increase sales and take your business to the next level.
Link this all up with CRM and store the customer details. This will prove invaluable down the line when it comes to analysis.
What you need is an easy-to-use toolkit, with everything accessible on one platform. It shouldn’t be a chore, having to download third-party software just to reap the benefits.
Acquire offers best-in-breed customer communication tools, at reasonable rates, to help you streamline your customer service process. For the long-term growth of your company, empower customer reps with the right tools to help increase efficiency and improve performance.
3. Customer care is your best marketing strategy
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker
Customer service and marketing go hand-in-hand, strengthening customer relationships and drawing in new customers. The stats show 7 out of 10 Americans said they would spend more with companies they thought provide the best customer service.
Encourage your customer care team into action and set yourself on a voyage to success.
Dealing with the public isn’t easy. Here are some skills that help customer care representatives with the process.
- PATIENCE - one of the most crucial skills for customer care representatives. Whoever the consumer, customer care personnel must maintain a cheerful persona and create a pleasant experience.
- LISTENING - talking too much and neglecting to truly listen to customers prevents a true understanding of their issues.
- EMPATHY - a great skill for helping the customer service team. Sometimes people can’t express themselves properly, so being able to understand things from their perspective can prove invaluable.
- ANNUNCIATION - a crystal clear voice with smooth pronunciation is great for avoiding confusion when dealing with customers.
- POSITIVITY - no-one likes to hear things framed negatively, so keeping a positive spin is often required when dealing with customers.
4. Rewards and recognition motivate to achieve
“To win in the market place you must first win in the work place.” – Doug Conant
Being the public face of the business, your customer care team experiences all the ups and downs of dealing with your customers. Whatever happens within the business, they are there to answer for it. To keep doing this successfully, they need reward and recognition.
[ctt template="1" link="fEbiM" via="yes" ]Employee motivation is important. Without motivation, businesses could be placed in a risky position.[/ctt]
A dissatisfied agent will find it hard to maintain a pleasant persona. To deliver their best, they need to feel their best.
“Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.” – William Makepeace Thackeray
Direct monetary rewards might not have the desired impact, creating negative competition and resentment within the group.
But a bonus structure such as “variable compensation,” creating payment based on performance, works well for many companies.
Appreciation leads to satisfaction and, as a result, productivity increases.
A happier and healthier customer support team encourages members to achieve their goals, and build strong customer relationships.
Once those goals are achieved, give out praise, and it will drive them on to achieve even more.
5. Your customer service reps are social media managers too
“Don’t use social media to impress people; use it to impact people.” – DaveWillis.Org
Using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to efficiently address queries is a great way to engage with customers.
Nielsen’s 2012 social media report claims that almost 50% of US customers use social media for their queries, to express gratitude, or to complain about something.
Social media is therefore useful as it provides a large audience. You and your site are out there for all to see.
“Engage, Enlighten, Encourage and especially... just be yourself! Social media is a community effort, everyone is an asset.” – Susan Cooper
Responsibility again falls on the shoulders of your customer care team. They become the media gurus to connect you with more leads.
A prompt reply from customer service reps on social media shows everyone you care.