Things haven’t been the same ever since Harvard Business Review published an article, “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” in 2010. This led to a never-ending debate about whether companies should delight their customers or simply meet their expectations. Seven years later, Chip and Dan Heath stated in their book, “The Power of Moments” that the key to a positive customer experience is surprising them with delightful moments that they would remember forever.
While that may be true, not many businesses meet their customers’ expectations, let alone exceed them. Customer service is one of the most important pillars of a business, and it has to provide a level of support that’s both dependable and pleasant. The entire service industry runs on customer service, and that’s why it has to be dependable and effective. You can find notable examples in all verticals of life.
With that being said, companies could take notes from businesses like Lumen Technologies, which is raising the standard of customer service in the services industry. For example, if you were to buy a good and affordable fiber internet connection, where would you go? Naturally, it has to be Cox internet because Cox customer service is the one you can count on when you need assistance. Read on to know more about what makes customer service stand out and what you can learn from them.
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Train Your Team Well
It only makes sense to train your customer support well so they can, in turn, satisfy the customers. The way to do that is to let them experience the service or product that your business is offering to the public. For example, if your company sells online courses that let the users prepare for some certifications, they won’t be able to help the customers if they haven’t seen the course content.
This will reduce the chances of your customer support representative coming up empty-handed when a customer puts forth their query. Also, this will result in increased customer satisfaction and retention.
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The Human Element
Since the advent of AI, many businesses have implemented chatbot customer support as a preliminary help interface. While that may be effective, their scope is limited compared to a human. This limits their ability to fully understand the customer queries and consequently help them. What if the customer keeps getting redirected to the wrong pages or help sections? It’s safe to assume that their likelihood to stay with the business will reduce.
This is where the human element comes in. Ideally, a customer should have access to a human customer support representative that can listen and empathize with their problem. A survey noted that 75% of the participants preferred talking to a human customer support representative to an automated system.
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Effective Troubleshooting
Have you ever had an experience where the customer support representative kept deflecting your query and put you in the wrong discourse? Well, that can be avoided with effective troubleshooting, and it’s not only about solving the problem. It also includes being polite, succinct, and staying with them patiently until their problem is resolved.
When a customer contacts customer support, they’re not looking for apologies or a complimentary gift hamper. They want a solution to the problem they’re facing, and customer service has to do only that. The first step is acknowledging the problem, and then customer service has to offer meaningful and effective solutions while acknowledging their patience. This is all it takes.
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Track Your Performance
Performance tracking is the only way to assess if your current customer service strategy is working effectively. There are several ways to do that. You could incorporate different tracking and analytics software into your system to do this.
This will let you redirect your resources to high-priority areas where the customers are facing problems. You can also use this data to detect patterns and implement proactive measures to help your customers. For example, if you’re getting a lot of calls where customers ask for help in using this new feature, you could introduce an in-app guide on how to use it effectively.
Moreover, you can make better data-informed decisions which, in turn, saves resources. For example, if your customers mostly need help with general queries that could just as easily be answered by an automated system, consider introducing a chatbot.
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Change What Doesn’t Work
Data analysis will provide you with the foundation to make decisions. After you implement certain measures, you can then track the performance and keep tweaking your campaign until it yields satisfactory results.
Conclusion
That’s a wrap on some of the best customer service tips in the industry that you can implement in your business to accelerate the business growth. Regardless of whether you try to delight your customers or simply meet their expectations, remember that customer service is about creating pleasant and effortless customer experiences.
