Providing positive customer experience is paramount in today’s business landscape. It can have a strong impact on your business growth and success by reducing churn and increasing revenues which ultimately leads to higher profits.
For most customers, customer service and the overall experience they get with a brand or a product has a huge influence on their future purchasing decisions. Moreover, today’s customers highly rely on the reviews and the experiences of their peers with a certain business when making their purchasing decisions. Thus, in today’s fast communication era, it is highly important to ensure that all your customers will remain with a positive impression of your business.
Pleased and loyal customers are more likely to tell their peers or leave online reviews that will be in the advantage of your business. On the other hand, clients that won’t get a satisfying solution for their problems or answer to their questions will more certainly share their negative experience with your company. Here are the 6 top ways to provide excellent customer service and improve your relationships with your customers:
1. Know your business inside and out
The first important thing in providing excellent customer service is to ensure that you know your business inside and out. Not only that you should know every single detail about your products or services, but also about your business values and brand. This is the only way that you can truly help your customers with their queries or challenges.
If your customer service team lacks the most relevant information that may be included in the questions of your customers, it is very unlikely for them to be able to offer good and relevant solutions or answers.
2. Give your customers a warm and friendly greeting
A friendly smile or greeting is the first element that should be included in the interaction with a customer. Whether the interaction takes place face-to-face, in the real world, through a phone call or in the digital world, a warm greeting can completely change the way the communication will take place.
Not only that greeting the customers with a friendly attitude is a sign of respect, but could also change their attitude in case they have reached to you because they have encountered a problem with your business.
3. Communicate effectively
In customer service, effective communication is the key to success. Listening, understanding and emphasizing with the customer are three key elements to offer excellent customer service.
Be honest and clear
Honesty is extremely important when you are communicating with a customer, especially if they have reached to you because of a problem they are facing. Admitting that your company has caused the problem is the first step into getting a calmer attitude from the customer. Also, make sure that you adjust your tone, language, and jargon to the person that you are speaking with to make yourself clear.
Learn how to listen
Knowing how to listen is the first thing you need to do before you begin to tell your customer your recommendations or solutions. Firstly, fully understand your customer’s question or problem and only afterward you can continue to proceed with any act. Not listening to the customer will make them feel frustrated and they will be forced to repeat themselves.
Use positive language
A positive language can have a strong influence on the way your communication will carry on. Instead of immediately frustrate the customer with a “no, we can’t do that” better try a more positive approach such as “let’s explore all the available solutions we have for this situation”.
Always be respectful
Respect should come from both sides when you are interacting with a customer. However, because of their frustration, they might show a rude attitude towards you. However, your duty is to understand your customer’s discontent and maintain a respectful attitude.
4. Take advantage of customer service technology
In today’s digital world, there is a number of technological innovations that can help businesses provide excellent customers service and support. Customer service technology encompasses different technological solutions that, combined, can help you provide a great overall customer experience.
Customer support chatbots- One of the most innovative customer service technologies these days is customer support chatbots. Their purpose is to simplify the communication between humans and computers by stimulating a conversation with online customers using a simple language. An AI chatbot has the ability to anticipate the intents of online customers and provide them with relevant data for their requests. Chatbots work by performing three tasks: analyze the request of the user, identify the intent and the entities, and ultimately compose a reply for the request of the user.
CRM software- Customer relationship management software can play a huge role in providing great customer service. It allows businesses to record customer interaction and customer data which can be used for personalized and improved customer support.
Website- Your business site can be a great source of support for your customers. You can provide them with a FAQ section where your online customers can find the most commonly asked questions about your business and the answers to them. Also, you may provide your customers with a commenting or forum section where they can communicate with each other about your products or services.
5. Invest in happy employees
Happy employees make happy customers and it is in your best interest to ensure that. Investing in your employees, by providing them with a good work environment, providing them training and growth opportunities, is the best way to ensure that they will do their best to keep your customers happy.
6. Always ask for feedback
Customer service should never be perceived only as a way to solve your customer’s problems. The information and feedback your customer service team gathers need to be taken very seriously for improving your business. Customer feedback is the number one key element to know how to make them happy and loyal to your business.
Providing excellent customer service is one of the most exciting opportunity to build strong customer loyalty. Your business’s top priority should be to have your customers come back to you over and over again and to ensure that the word of mouth strategy will work in your favor.