Are your customer service efforts not meeting the desired standards? Is it falling short in spite of your relentless efforts? Then, we are quite sure, your efforts are not in the right place. ConvergeHub experts are here to tell you the secrets of how to improve customer service.
But, before everything else, it’s important to know that your customer support team is the face of your brand. They steer successful customer journeys and lead them in the right direction, and reroute them as required to reach the goal.
In a growing company, the quality of your customer service is always under lenses. It evolves every single day as it is one of the most important drivers of corporate profitability. In fact, giving exceptional customer service results in 20% of sales growth and adds to the ROI.
Fortunately, there are cool strategies to increase your team’s effectiveness. Implementing a quality assurance system, CRM Software, and responding to honest feedback from your customers will always contribute to a smooth customer journey from prospect to post-sale.
Identifying your customers’ needs is the most crucial advice when it comes to delivering top-notch customer service. Whatever your team performs, must focus on the needs of the customer. Even if it affects the interest of the team or company as a whole, keeping in line with your customers’ needs is all you need for a long term goal. Understanding what those needs are will help in the development of your customer service strategy.
But, how do you do it? Well, asking them about their needs is the best approach to learn about them. Many companies run surveys, feedback email, a phone call, or other resources you have available to do this. Social media analytics also tells you a lot about the customer’s needs and preferences.
Every customer’s personal and unique needs come to play here. To understand that you need to be a little empathetic towards their needs. Wear their shoes and listen to how you interact with them.What you say to them, and even more crucially, how you say it, is critical to the success of your customer service performance strategy.
When firms consider enhancing their performance management systems, they are often motivated by the bottom line; nevertheless, customer support staff should recognize that how a customer feels after interacting with you will enhance customer loyalty.
Empathy will help you focus on enhancing client satisfaction, which will improve your bottom line. Today, it’s as much about how you interact as it is the qualitative aspect of your product or service. So, you must be thoughtful about how you interact with your customers, irrespective of the fact whether they are your existing customers or the potential ones ( who could convert but have not yet).
Never let average customer reviews become your success parameter. In fact, honesty and integrity pays off more to maintain customer loyalty than displaying some publicity stunt on a billboard around the company. Effective customer service should be implemented in every meeting, emails you sent, and phone conversation that your customer service team has with your customers.
Listening to your customers not only makes them feel valued, but also makes them feel good about your business. Positive feedback comes from satisfied customers. Bad customer feedback creates possibilities for change. In fact, poor reviews show you the room for improvement.
Putting your customers at ease from the very beginning can transform difficult interactions into productive ones. Encourage your agents to uphold this culture, and you will eventually develop a strong customer-centric strategy that will help you and your team learn and improve performance.
Setting the performance tracking KPIs is a great way to measure the success of your customer service strategy. Focus on building a robust framework to guide you.
Depending on the primary competences of your teams, you could choose to track:
It’s important to track your KPIs right from the beginning and further use statistics to choose which actions to prioritize.
Once your KPIs are set, you may identify what your team and each individual are expected to accomplish. At this stage, set goals for yourself as well as your team. Because, that’s how you will be able to create a customer-centric ecosystem. This way, you can reach out to your customer satisfaction goals. Allow your agents to set and track their own personal goals based on what the team decided on.
Setting goals for your team will help you achieve these as a brand. This sense of accomplishment leads to increased engagement and productivity. Your team’s customer service performance goals will naturally match with the company’s goals.
At the same time, you also need to be sure that your team might not accomplish the goals as expected. To get an accurate insight on how your team is performing, you can fetch the data from your CRM Software. Tracking their performance (together with having an honest and open culture) will help you support your team when problems develop, allowing you to overcome them together.
Process optimization can save you and your team time and eliminate errors in many circumstances. One alternative is to employ CRM Software that seeks to automate reports, reduce monotonous processes, and calculate trends.
You can use the extra time to focus on more critical tasks such as team training, data analysis, and customer service. By eliminating these manual processes, agents can be encouraged to embrace technology that boosts their productivity.
Setting goals is not enough to achieve them. Create a structure for customer service quality assurance and ensure that your team is aware of your expectations. Give agents a quality assurance checklist that outlines what is most important while assisting consumers.
Whatever method you use to provide quality feedback to your team, make sure it is consistent, consistent, and clear. This level of transparency can do wonders and motivate your team to make efforts for significant accomplishments. This way, your company’s goal becomes a collective goal which is easily achievable.
Creating a sense of accessibility is critical in this fast-paced digital landscape. But then, it’s also difficult to assign and overstretch your resources at every touchpoint. Adopting omni channel service strategy comes to your aid, in this scenario. To improve the customer’s experience easier and faster, consider email, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter. The first step towards achieving this accessibility is determining where your clients like to seek assistance and focusing your efforts on those channels.
You can also set up a customer self-service (CSS) segment to reduce the number of times your team interacts with customers. A FAQ page, a help center, or a community forum often assist in this. Many companies implement AI chatbots to resolve issues on the basic level. The customer service personnel is only contacted if the issue is serious and not solved at the basic level.
Transparency among your team, paired with regular, high-quality feedback, will strengthen your relationship. Allowing each team member to see their figures in real time will not only motivate them but will also instill a sense of responsibility in them.
These days, customer service has evolved thoroughly and agents are aware of their performance at every level. Also, when you set KPIs, it’s easier for each and everyone to know the performance. If any of your team members is falling behind in terms of the performance, opt for open communication. It leads to more efficient 1:1 sessions. This knowledge enables individuals to be more productive, make faster improvements to their performance, and be prepared for discussions about their achievements.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements, our fourth need, after food, safety, and love, is esteem. This involves feelings of acknowledgment, attention, confidence, and accomplishment.
Create an employee rewards programme to show your employees how much you value them. Anything from a $5 gift card to naming someone employee of the month can instill confidence in both the individual and the brand he represents. If you are not comfortable with monetary rewards, opt for the recognition only. It could spell the difference between a mediocre and a great results month for some.
Keep in mind that irrespective of the smart tactics you adopt for delivering superb customer service, what always counts is the speed and efficiency of the resolution. Always encourage a culture where client issues are resolved at the very first time. Calculating and measuring your First Contact Resolution score (FCR) will help you appreciate the value of investing extra time up front to offer an excellent response the first time. However, make sure that the resolution you provide is effective. Otherwise, there will be a significantly higher rate of issue reopening and undermining all your efforts.
