Growing your business and providing great customer service go hand in hand. You can have a brilliant product or service, but if your customer service isn’t up to scratch, is unreliable, and unhelpful, or your customer experience is dire, people will hear about it, and you will lose customers over it. 

Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay 

That means that investing in customer service is the key to your long-term business success. 

What does it mean to be providing great customer service, and how can you ensure that each customer has the best experience with your company? 

Here are our 7 best ways to deliver great customer service: 

Know The Product Or Service

As a manager or owner, you are likely to be very familiar with our products and services, but are your employees? Customer support agents and sales staff will spend their day troubleshooting or assisting customers, and that means they need to be product experts. It is essential for extensive knowledge to be included as a necessary customer service skill. Whether it’s face-to-face service, online chat, or help over the phone, your employees need to have the right training to provide them with the knowledge that they need to provide a high level of customer service. 

Your Website 

Your website is an important part of your customer service. Although, yes, your customer can browse for products, make a purchase, see FAQ’s or even speak to an agent online, it’s not just about enabling them to do this, it’s also about how well and easy it works. There are several elements you have to think about such as providing instant help online, making sure the website is dynamic and responsive so your customers can shop on all devices, and even providing different pages depending on location or login details, etc. One of the best ways to test that your website is delivering the service you want to provide is to utilize tools like click testing software. 

Creatively Problem-Solve

You will find that the majority of customer losses are due to them receiving bad customer service. This makes it even more important for you to thrive on solving problems for your customers and also make it a focal point in your customer service teams. There are always going to be problems to solve, try giving your employees a little bit of leeway when it comes to solving problems and you will find that customer service experience rating rise. Of course, you need ot set boundaries, however, enabling them to solve problems on the spot quickly and efficiently will go a long way in the eyes of your customers. You should also make sure that your customer service teams make your customers aware that they will do everything they can to solve their problems. 

Have A Quick Response 

People value their time, therefore, resolving customer issues and queries as soon as possible is a crucial part of good customer service. Time is of the essence, especially when it’s a smaller issue that shouldn’t take a lot of time to solve. That been said, if it’s going to take time to get the right outcome, then great customer service beats speed every single time. Just make sure your customers are aware of the time frame for their issue. Often, it’s not knowing the time frame that frustrates customers the most. 

Personalize Your Service

People want to feel like more than just a number in line, and easily get frustrates when they are made to feel like everyone else instead of an individual. They get even more frustrated when someone doesn’t take accountability and they get passed from pillar to post. Customers want to interact with one person, not the entire company. Getting to know your customer names, and building a good rapport, especially when dealing with a complaint can go a long way. It’s the personal touch that counts rather than reading from a script. 

Help Your Customers To Help Themselves

On the other hand, some customers prefer to not talk to someone to solve their problems, they would rather sort the issue themselves. Customers will often try to solve a problem themselves before reaching out for customer support.  Self-service is cost-effective, scalable, and keeps customers happy. Put your help content in focus so your customer can find the answer they need without having to search for it. If they are unable to find the answer to their question, make sure that the help from a real person isn’t far away. 

Could you include FAQs or a commonly asked questions section? Perhaps think about adding a few guides to your website that can be downloaded by your customers. Any way your customer can find the answers themselves without needing to call in or speak online is good to include and make available such as common questions like how to send an item back for a refund. 

Be Proactively Helpful

When it comes ot customer service, going the extra mile is one of the most important things you can do. This is when you have already ticked all the boxes, but you still want to and can do more. Sometimes this means anticipating your customers’ needs before they even have them. Some customer may be asking for one thing without realizing that they need something completely different, just don’t know how to ask for it. 

When your customer feels valued, they will keep returning. Giving them an extra discount, relooking at their contract or service package, offering them a new product will help your customers to understand you are appreciating their business. 

All of the tips above combined equal great customer service. Customer service is what holds your company together, keeping your customer loyal and only speaking great of you. It’s all about creating and maintaining a fantastic reputation and becoming a company that is known for looking after its customers. Customers like to be treated like people, not just another number in the queue. 

Do you have any other tips that could help? Please share them in the comments below.