How to provide better customer service

Do you know how to provide better customer service, here is that cheat sheet to help you lead the way in customer servicing. A few days back, I came across an interesting article on how SMBs were going down the success ladder through their wrong customer actions. From use of slang talk to bad grammar, there were many such examples of negative customer service actions.

Unfortunately all of us have come across such bad customer service actions where we have felt like saying – ‘These customer reps do not have any clue of their jobs’.

Sadly there is a possibility that your own customers might be listening to the same negative customer service actions that you complain about. (A check on how your customer reps are handling your customers is what you can do to find out).

If you find what is called a ‘’your call is most important to us’ starting note followed by a next 10 minute solo speech from the customer rep – then indeed you need to quickly work upon your customer service strategy, before your customers start getting frustrated.

So here are 12 customer service actions that you and your customer service reps should follow to bring about a 100% customer satisfaction rate:

1. Train your customer reps thoroughly about the products/services so that they can solve the customers’ problems in the first call.
2. Train your customer reps to have a positive and friendly attitude over the call.
3. Make sure your customer reps do not sound scripted. Prevent them from using a standard approach towards all customers.  Remember personalized is the key to good customer experience.
4. Train your customer reps to be a patient listener. They should not jump to conclusions without identifying what the customer needs.
5. Train your customer reps to address the customers by their names to make them feel important.
6. Make sure your customer reps do not up-sell products/services irrelevant to the customers.
7. If possible, use IVR menus. This will prevent your customers from going through several stages to speak to the customer rep.
8. Do not have a repetitive hold music that can irritate the customers.
9. Try and keep the on-hold time short. Remember long on-hold time can put your company under a negative light.

10.Display the customer helpline numbers on your website to make it easy for your customers to contact you.

11.Do integrate your cloud CRM with the telephony for the convenience of the customer reps.

12.Send post call surveys to your customers to get their feedback about the call.

Is following the above-mentioned customer service actions compulsory?

Today customers are very smart. They know exactly when their feedback is not taken seriously. In most situations, they lack the patience of customer service reps catering to their problem over days/weeks. What they want is instant or quick results. And if you do not provide them the same, they move.

Many of you might say that customers even after making up their mind to move take a bit of time before the actual switch. Well, even if they stay for a grace period, they tell others about their bad experience. And as we all know that in today’s always online society, viral publicity (good or bad) affects a company big time.

This is precisely why you need to follow a systematic customer strategy. Analysis of data, listening to customers, fixing of broken communication touchpoints and finally installing a cloud based CRM for small business is needed to improve customer experience.

For those who are still in doubt, cloud-based CRM is one of the most crucial tools for business’s bottom line. It gives you clear picture about the exact relation of your company with its customers. As a company owner, you need to understand that every company face chunks of rocks in their route to customer satisfaction. It depends on you whether you want to overcome them or stop right there.

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub