Attracting and retaining new customers is important for a sustainable business. To achieve this, a company should ensure that its customer service representatives follow customer service best practices.
What is customer service?
Customer service plays an essential role in providing an excellent customer experience. After all, the ones who primarily interact with consumers are the company’s customer service representatives.
This means that most of a customer’s experience would be reliant on how well a customer service agent handles a customer’s concern.
Customer service best practices every business should follow
Make sure that your customers have a great customer experience dealing with your company with these customer service best practices:
Build rapport
Establishing a good rapport with your customers is one of the best practices in customer service that will surely improve their customer experience with your company.
This means interacting with your customers and seeing them not only as stats or numbers in the grander scheme of things but also as people who have their own stories to tell.
Ask how their day is going. Ask about their interests. Relate to them by sharing your experiences as well. After all, customers are more likely to interact with you positively if they feel that you are not a typical customer service representative who is only after closing the deal.
Build a connection with your customers to the extent that they will lean more toward doing business with your company. Assure them that their needs will be satisfied and that they are regarded highly and not just some random customer.
Be a good listener
Another customer service best practice you should keep in mind is being a good listener. It is common for customers to have concerns that they want to be addressed as efficiently as possible.
To be able to provide a satisfactory solution, you need to listen carefully to what your customers are saying. Simply listening is not enough, though; it is also necessary make them feel that you are paying attention to everything they are saying.
You can achieve this by letting your customers finish stating their concerns first before responding. Paraphrasing what they said is also a great customer service practice that will reassure them that you did listen to them. Confirming your understanding of the issues they are telling you is also an excellent customer service practice.
Show empathy
Customers feel valued if you show them empathy. This means making them feel that you care about them and you understand what they are going through.
This can be as simple as expressing your sincerest regrets whenever they share a bad experience with one of your products or services.
Or, congratulate them when they share a recent successful endeavor or positive change in their life. Sometimes, even saying a simple phrase like “I understand” when they are talking about an extenuating circumstance is already sufficient.
Read between the lines
There will be times when customers are unable to communicate their main concern, especially if they are frustrated or emotional. For this, you need to rely on another customer service best practice in the industry, which is reading between the lines.
Reading between the lines is about having the ability to fill in for the customer in terms of their concerns. It is interpreting the meaning behind what they tell you.
For instance, after explaining to them how they got a certain charge on their credit card, they may express their disapproval and claim that they did not do the transaction listed on their bill. Rather than justifying to them that the charges are valid, you may assume that their card may have been compromised and investigate further without them asking.
Meanwhile, a customer may be talking about how they have been loyal to your brand and look forward to doing more business with you for a longer period. They might actually be implying that they want to be given special treatment.
Go the extra mile
Nothing beats making your customer feel valued than going the extra mile for them. After all, who does not want to feel important, right? This is perhaps one of, if not the best customer service practices on the list, which your representatives can do for customers.
There are many ways to go above and beyond. For instance, a customer has many charges for a gym membership they are not using and is extremely frustrated about it. Knowing that they are not accessing the gym often, you can probably waive a portion of the charges.
You can even probe the reason for their non-usage and offer free personal training to motivate them to use your brand’s service. As a result, the member might start using their gym membership, which can lead to more revenue for your company.
Be polite
One of the best practices that customer service representatives should keep in mind is being polite. This means refraining from being rude or sounding condescending to customers even if they are already being offensive or profane towards you.
While being polite may sound easy on paper, the truth is that it can be challenging especially when you are dealing with difficult customers. Even more so when you are in the sixth hour of your shift. This is regardless if you are interacting with customers over the phone or face to face.
That said, customer service agents being polite to customers will surely reflect well on the brand they are representing, greatly contributing to a memorable customer experience.
Why customer service best practices are vital to a business
Simply put, a happy customer is more likely to keep doing business with your brand when you take these customer service best practices to heart. After all, why would a customer want to continuously pay for a company’s product or service if they are not satisfied with the kind of support they are receiving. For this, it is crucial to ensure that a customer has a positive experience with your company.
Follow these customer service best practices to gain loyal customers and grow your customer base. Rest assured that your brand will be on top of your customers’ minds for a long time.
