NEGOSENTRO.COM | Customer service is one of the most important aspects of every business. It can either make or break your brand and the image of your brand is the most important factor when it comes to doing business successfully.
Bad experiences over the line can result in bad reviews and negative rumors being spread about your company. Rumors tend to multiply fast and soon enough you will see the decline in revenue figures.
In order to avoid any kind of mishaps with the customer service team you have, you need to hire professionals but also educate them as much as you can.
Here are some important points that each member has to think about and know in order to provide the best possible customer experience which will be of great importance to your business.
Teaching them to utilize technology
Your agents need to know how to use technology that is at disposal the best way possible with the emphasis on efficiency.
That is why your employees have to possess some background knowledge about technology but you also have to make sure to provide meaningful customer information to your agents. These include the type of product or software the customer is using. This kind of information is important because you need your agents to be efficient when assisting the customer.
This kind of knowledge also prevents agents from troubleshooting the wrong thing. Failing to troubleshoot the item correctly can result in mistaken feedback provided to the customer. Also, put an emphasis on the usage of technology in order to review what solutions have already been attempted in the past. You don’t want them to waste time.
The customer should have no difficulty contacting your team and solving their issue with them. This kind of communication is what you need.
Remain positive
Seeing that you probably hold a higher position at your company and that it probably deals with management, it is fair to say that you get frustrated from time to time.
We are all different and working with people can be tough sometimes. However, you need to stay positive. Know that customer service is quite stressful and add into account that people on the other side are angry and upset. It’s not easy dealing with them.
Listen to your customer service agents, answer their questions and know that there are no dumb questions. However, teach them to remain positive, too. The way you deal with them needs to be up to standard since you should lead by your own example.
Can I download stuff on my work laptop? Is torrenting illegal in our company? Can I take more than three breaks? Do I have to answer every call? Yeah, these can be annoying but you need to remain calm and collected and answer them politely.
Teach empathy
Customers are not your friends, they are not your team’s friends. That has to be clear.
However, in order to respect them and make them feel valued, your customer service agents need to know that getting personal to some extent is advisable. Teach your team to ask for a person’s name. This may sound simple and insignificant but it actually goes a long way customer experience-wise.
Also, sending out personal emails instead of automated responses is great too. Lastly, learning something about the person on the other side should be a must. Knowing a detail or two won’t hurt and it will be worth it in the end.
Agents should say ‘no’ too
Saying ‘yes’ to everything is not necessarily good.
Instruct your agents when and how they should reject something their customer proposes. When they say ‘yes’ to everything, the conversation will be brief and the customer will be happy but sometimes satisfying all customer demands can be quite tricky. Especially if an agent is setting customer expectations at an unattainable level.
This can result in two ways – an internal failure can happen which will hurt team morale and the other way will leave a customer unsatisfied. Agents need to know when they should say ‘no’ and you need to teach them that. In the end, you need to have their back.
Agents also need to explain to the customers why they have said ‘no’. That is important too.
Feedback
Seek feedback from your customers. This is a sure way to track the performance of your agents.
Do not be afraid of contacting your customers and asking them for feedback. You can also send short surveys through email. Just make sure that you do that after that customer had an engagement with your customer service team.
It is important that the customer provides honest feedback where they can express their thoughts freely.
Final thoughts
Many companies undermine the importance of the customer service team. Especially the ones which outsource customer service.
Refrain from doing so, it can have detrimental effects. You need to be present and listen closely, monitor their activity from time to time.
