By Shaina Lucas, PPS Editor – Now that we’re into the new year, business is picking up. This may be crunch time to add new accounts, follow-up with ones from the year prior, or start new reports and projects, possibly even finishing up some older ones. Sometimes, more work can be hard to handle and can cause employee burnout. When employees get burned out, that could also affect your customer service. But what do people look for in customer service? And what are the top priorities for businesses when responding to bad customer service feedback? Here are five things that customers look for in good customer service and what you can do to implement a better customer service experience for them.
CUSTOMERS’ FIVE TOP PRIORITIES
When entering or dealing with a business or vendor, customers always check for certain things, and good customer service is one of them. But what do customers focus on the most?
- Active Listening: Do you get frustrated when you call a business, only to get an automated service instead of a real human to talk to? Customers feel the same way. People naturally have a need to feel understood and be heard. According to Qualtrics, the best approach for active listening is:
- Approach listening with a goal to learn something and focus on the speaker, in this case, the customer.
- Ask any clarifying questions so there is open communication.
- Finish with a quick summary to make sure all information is understood.
- Empathy: A lack of empathy is one of the worst things customers say they experience from a business or customer service representative. According to Zendesk, roughly half of all customers say they would switch to a competitor after only one bad experience with a company. So how can you be empathetic with your customers?
- The first thing to do is try to see any issues or problems through the customer’s eyes. How would you feel in this situation? How would you want your problem resolved?
- In doing this, the customer will feel more relaxed and understood. It also helps prevent escalating conflicts, and the customer will, hopefully, become more receptive to your solutions.
- Always use positive language and a positive tone. Any negativity can be off-putting to a customer.
- Know You Products and Services: Have you ever been on the phone, or in a store, and ask questions no one can answer? This can be frustrating in an emergency, such as replacing a special fish in the fish tank before your child gets home and notices the fish is gone. Having a deep and vast knowledge of your products and services will save time and effort once the customer starts asking questions. Customers also love when you give them cool tips and tricks such as features in an app or a different way to use a product that isn’t listed in the instructions!
- Take Their Feedback Into Account: Customers enjoy implementation of feedback from a company. After all, without customers there is no business. Feedback from a customer is vital to bettering your business. Create a survey asking specific questions or add a Contact Us button on your webpage. If you see a trend in what customers are saying or asking for, it might be time to implement that feedback to provide better service and eventually gain more customers.
- Don’t Keep Them Waiting: In today’s fast-paced world, we can get just about anything with a trip to the store, a phone call, or a few quick taps on a computer or phone. When needing a product or service, customers expect them as quickly as possible, especially if the situation is time sensitive. STELLAService conducted a study a few years ago on the average email response time, which was 17 hours. Today, it’s not much better at 12 hours. What can you do to cut down your response time?
- Set a time to check emails, or use a notification system to alert you when an email comes in. Sometimes you can’t spend all day checking emails. For time management, create time in your schedule and answer emails during that time.
- Answer phone calls in a reasonable amount of time. Most people see a reasonable time as a little over one minute. If you are not able to answer the phone right away, try getting back to the customer within the hour.
- Make social media, calls, and emails easy, reliable, and personalized. Automation tools for emails and social media like MailChimp, Hootsuite, and Buffer, along with having a dedicated social media guru on your staff, can help create easier and quicker access to information for customers, and having their needs met.
BUSINESS’ TOP FIVE PRIORITIES
We’ve listed what customers look for from a business regarding customer service. Here is a review of what a business needs to focus on in order to implement a better customer service experience in their company?
- Fix and Own Up to Your Mistakes: Everyone makes mistakes, it’s part of being human. Sometimes there can be miscommunication, missing or damaged packages, or maybe a mess-up in the customer’s file. If something happens, do your best to remedy the situation. What can be done to fix the problem? Be open and honest, and let the customer know what happened and what steps are being taken to fix the problem.
- Think About the Long Term: Typically, when providing a service or product to a customer, you want them to keep coming back, right? By keeping customers happy, they remain loyal to your brand. Regardless, a customer will spread the word to their friends and family, but bad news travels much faster than good. Brainstorm with your colleagues on how you can retain customers for the long-term!
- Collaborate with Your Team on Customer Needs: This piggybacks off of thinking about the long term and implementing customer feedback. A plethora of things can come from collaboration. If a customer is interested in an upcoming product, the agent or representative who spoke to the customer can send a message to their sales department to let them know of an upcoming sale and to follow up with the customer. What if the person the customer is talking to doesn’t have knowledge of the situation? The employee can then send the customer to the correct department who can help them. Working together creates an overall better customer experience.
- Make Meeting Your Customers an Easy Process: When someone has to dig deep or search for something, whether it be an answer on using a product or contacting a company representative, customers become disinterested and frustrated when their goal is taking too much time. Take a moment to consider your audience. Are they all-encompassing? Younger generations? Older generations? More women than men or vice versa? Take the demographic data and find ways that your customers can easily access your content/product/service. For social media, consider adding Snapchat or TikTok. You could also open a virtual chat button on your webpage or set up a text messaging service. Always put as much contact information as you can out there on all platforms so customers can easily see where you are and reach out.
- Be Willing to Continue Learning: We saved the best one for last. The biggest key to any successful company is the willingness to learn and continue learning. The world is changing at a fast pace and staying on top of trends helps a company continue to grow and thrive. Perfecting customer service does take time, but constantly learning and using these tips will be a great foundation to set you up for success for many years to come.