All businesses strive to offer superior customer service – but not all of them are successful. There are many mistakes businesses make when trying to provide quality customer service, and in this article we’ve rounded up the top factors that negatively affect the quality of customer service!
Customer service is already the differentiating factor for companies – with so much competition in the marketplace, upping your company’s customer service game will go a long way in increasing sales and revenue! One study even found that 73% of customers become more loyal after receiving great service and friendly staff members.
So, quality customer service is what you should be aiming for. Here’s what not to do in terms of customer service, and how to improve!
Not being available 24/7
There is nothing more frustrating than being a customer with an issue or query and having to wait for what seems like hours for a representative to be available to chat. Whether responses are in live chat, by phone, or email support, they should be fast!.
When customers only receive automated responses or none at all, they think your business simply doesn’t care about them. Irritating customers will also lead them to change to another company – you can’t afford bad customer experiences!
This is easily rectified. In terms of 24/7 support, live chat software is a great option, and also keeps those customers who aren’t able or willing to call happy. 73% of respondents to one survey were satisfied with their live chat experience, in comparison to 51% of email and 44% by phone. When using live chat, never miss an opportunity to talk to customers and never decline their chat requests. If for some reason your business is offline, leave the option to leave a message. For phone support, always indicate the hours your respondents are available to talk to customers, and keep waiting times low. Use automated email responses only to let customers know how long it will be until a person responds to their query!
Lacking in Humanity
This ties right back in with phone calls and the lack of satisfaction customers tend to have with them as points of contact, compared with live chat and email responses. As a company, you have to train your agents to treat customers as real people, to try to understand their problems, and to respond with empathy. We are human because we feel, after all!
Whether it’s over the phone or in the shop, good customer service is empathetic. It responds to what the customer is experiencing with patience and a smile. Workers of the company should try to view things from the customer’s point of view, feel their pain, and try their best to work things out for the customer.
It’s also worth noting that being able to speak your customers’ languages is essential – there is nothing worse than feeling like the customer service agent you are speaking to doesn’t really know what you’re saying!
Unhelpful Staff
If your staff are incompetent, how will they ever resolve your customer’s problems? One bad support staff member can ruin the image of your whole team, and ergo, your whole company. Ensure every person who represents your company is responsible and keen to interact with customers. Moreover, they should be well-trained. If your customer service team replies quickly but doesn’t know how to solve problems, your customers will be irritated. Make sure all staff members have had the correct training to be able to at least hand over the query to someone who can!
Make sure all your staff members know the old mantra – the customer is always right! That means even if they are being rude or abusive, the customer service agent should always be polite, focus on solving problems and never, ever lose their temper.
Don’t hamper customer satisfaction by having subpar customer service agents – ensure all agents know exactly how the company works, how to provide an insightful and helpful response, and how to be empathic!
Molly Crockett is a blogger on careers and marketing with Academized and Top Canadian Writers. She enjoys researching marketing trends, working with businesses to implement them and analyzing results.
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