When was the last time you experienced a service so good that you just had to tell your friends about it?
Good Customer service is one of the most important aspects of a strong marketing strategy and a cornerstone of a successful business.
Having lousy and unreliable customer service not only undermines your product but can also create a bad reputation for your brand. After all, you must never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth, specifically now that social media are ruling.
So, you better invest in delivering excellent customer service, and you better do it now. But, how can you ensure your customers’ experience and satisfaction?
Here we’re going to talk about the importance of good customer service and how to keep yours at the top of the game. Read on to find out more.
Why should you offer Good Service to All Customers, All of the Time?
There is no point in developing a great product and spending a lot of money on advertising it if your customer service is poor. Inadequate customer service leads to unhappy customers and inevitably destroys your brand’s image, mission, and values.
Good customer service can retain visitors, add value to your product & brand and turn your customers into advocates.
By providing excellent customer service, you can lower customer acquisition costs (CAC) and cultivate loyal customers who can give positive reviews to others and share testimonials.
According to salesforce, 67% of customers are willing to pay more money for better customer service, and this is a fact you can not ignore.
It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one bad one! Keep in mind that even a single experience could have a massive impact on a customer; a positive experience might spur them to stick with the brand, whereas one negative one could make them look for other options.
In any case, it’s not surprising that when customers are not satisfied with the service rendered by your brand or are treated with disrespect, they tend to find a better alternative. In the same way, you can win them over from other brands by offering excellent customer service and making them want to come back again and again.
Below is a list of reasons why you should always provide excellent customer service:
- Adds value to your product or service
- Increases Customer Retention and Recurring revenue
- Benefits the brand’s reputation
- Enhance your brand’s reputation
- Builds customer trust and loyalty
- Encourages word-of-mouth marketing
What makes Customer Service “Great”?
Five key factors make good customer service great, speed, accuracy, accountability, quality, and Transparency.
1- Speed
Need to know the five essential components of customer service? Here we go. Start by resolving customer issues with a priority approach. Customers don’t like to wait on hold and usually call because they need a quick response, so your first priority should be to solve their problem as soon as possible. If you want great customer service, you better develop a team culture that treats customer issues in a time-sensitive and urgent manner.
2- Accuracy
In order to provide the best customer service, it’s important to understand your customers. Therefore, your agents should have access to data on products, purchases, and past cases in order to answer any questions accurately and keep the conversation going.
The more your support team knows about your product, the better they’ll provide customer support. So make it a priority to train your agents in the development, with refresher training for every new release.
3- Accountability
Remember that it’s not just one employee’s job, but the entire company’s. In fact, every single person in your organization has contact with customers in some way. That includes employees in sales, product, finance, and legal teams. So make sure timelines are realistic and accurate. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver on.
4- Quality
Collecting customer feedback and incorporating their suggestion is vital to improving the customer service quality. To do so in a timely, cost-effective way, you can implement surveys or integrate third-party apps, such as SurveyMonkey to improve your business.
Use reporting and analytics to understand what improves your customer experience. Establish a process for analyzing and acting on customer feedback, including collecting feedback and suggestions throughout the customer’s life cycle how you use data to inform decision making.
5- Transparency
How you communicate with your customers can say almost as much about your brand as the quality of your products does.
Transparency is one of the most important factors in delivering a remarkable customer experience, yet it’s something that many companies struggle with.
It’s in your best interest to let customers know what’s happening behind the scenes, even if you think there might be negative consequences for being so forthright. Don’t be afraid to say sorry and own up to mistakes.
6- Last but not least – A Good Automated User Onboarding Experience –
An automated user onboarding process will take a lot of the burden off of customer service team’s shoulders. Tools like UserGuiding helps customer service teams create perfect user onboarding experiences while providing solutions to recurring problems with the help of UserGuiding’s other elements, such as tooltips, hotspots, and resource centers.
Here is an example of how UserGuiding helped Ideta solve an important problem. The problem was the very thing they were trying to be a solution to: customer confusion.
They were sending tutorials and videos to customers via email and the problem was that the customers would have already checked out the platform before they could see the onboarding documents.
Then they decided to give automated onboarding a shot and adopted UserGuiding to create a complete guide.
Now, thanks to their initiative, their onboarding flow looks like this:
And though indirectly, this little change played a number on their retention rates too. User session durations went up by 50% and this contributed a 6% increase in revenue.
Just a lil’ something automated onboarding can do for your business 😎
Read the rest of the success story here 👈
3 Customer Service Experiences That Are Really Good
Whether you need to pay a bill, order a part for your car, or book a weekend getaway, you don’t expect anything less than an incredible service from the companies you do business with.
Though we see a lot of poor customer service out there, the best companies are going above and beyond for their customers — helping them save money on their bills, offering them personalized shopping experiences, and making things as simple and easy as possible for them. Here are three examples of great customer service from famous companies:
1- JetBlue
JetBlue Airways Corporation is an American low-cost airline headquartered in New York City. The airline was founded in 1999 by David Neeleman.
Breakthrough Service: JetBlue is a beloved airline known for its unique approach to the flying experience. As one of the youngest airlines, they set their sights on creating a quality flight experience that included free snacks, TV, and free beverages.
They also set new standards in customer service with their Customer Bill of Rights. In a time of crisis, where other airlines may be cutting back on service and amenities, Jetblue continues to innovate and provide quality service.
2- Tesla
Tesla rolled out a service in 2015 that met customers literally where they were: at home. It’s not just the delivery of food and merchandise.
Now, it’s delivery of customer service. Customers would simply schedule an appointment for maintenance or repairs on their Tesla car—a car that is received through the mail! The service provides convenience to customers, who are used to waiting awhile at dealerships, and feels personal because they receive the service at home.
3- Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s has come a long way since it was founded in 1967. The privately-owned grocery chain is now one of the most successful American companies is known for its employee benefits and customer service.
In fact, Trader Joe’s has such an incredible reputation that one day in 2013, a customer called the store to see if they delivered — which they don’t. But instead of telling the man no, an employee offered to deliver his groceries for free. The 89-year-old man was snowed in at his Pennsylvania home around the holidays, so his daughter was concerned about getting him food.
She called several stores to ask if anyone delivered, but Trader Joe’s broke their own policy to bring him low-sodium items that fit his diet — all free of charge. In fewer than 30 minutes, a Trader Joe’s team member was knocking on his door with a full delivery.
How to Be Consistent at Good Customer Service – 6 Ways
There are several ways to delight your customers and have them rave about your support to their friends, but here are our top 6 best ways to consistently deliver excellent customer service.
Know Your Product/Service
Product knowledge is an essential skill for customer service representatives. It’s your job to help customers get the most out of their purchase and feel like they have gotten true value for their money. To do this well, you’ll need to learn everything there is to know about your product so you can amaze them with timely recommendations for using new features and services.
If you’re trying to find out specific details about a product, talk to your support team or your manager. If there’s a feature you don’t understand, you should ask questions until you understand it completely. Once you’re done learning about the product, you should write down the most important information in order to help yourself remember it later.
Remember that not all customers are going to be interested in every product feature, so it’s okay if not everyone needs to know everything you do! Just make sure that when a customer asks how something works, you have a thorough answer ready.
Know Your Audience/Customers
When it comes to marketing, you have to know your target audience in order to address relevant content to them. This helps increase the chance of the client taking a certain action or experiencing a positive outcome. But how do you get your clients to use your services again?
Customer support representatives are essential for businesses, mainly because they’re the people who interact with clients firsthand—and also because it’s often not enough for a single representative to help a client out. In addition, clients get frustrated quickly and consider changing the service if they need to repeat their issues to several CSRs.
Hiring employees who can provide accurate and efficient customer service and using customer service automation systems and CRM to store all relevant information about client interactions-can help you avoid this. This way, any representative will access detailed information and consistently provide high-quality service.
Respond & Solve Issues Quickly
All customers want is a speedy resolution to their problems. But as a support representative, you have to be careful about how you provide service.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the pressure of ticket volumes and the desire to move on to the next task. But if you think about it, customers don’t care how quickly you responded, they just want the issue resolved and they want to be able to move on with their day—just like you do.
Get back to your customers as quickly as possible, but don’t be in a rush to get them off the phone or close the ticket without resolving the issue completely. When an issue requires more time and technical support, let the customer know about the process, make sure they understand their problem is being reviewed and will be handled timely.
Let Customers Solve Their Issues
Today’s customers are tech-savvy and want to do as much as possible on their own. This means that companies need to provide support in ways that provide a seamless experience for customers.
For these customers, self-service is an effective way to provide them with the help they need without having to contact a real person.
Using a self-service system, users can find answers quickly, resolve the basic issues as quickly as possible without any human intervention.
Be Proactive Anticipating Customers’ Needs
At times, being helpful means proactively anticipating your customers’ needs before they even have to articulate them. In fact, sometimes customers may ask for one thing without realizing that they really need another.
You need to know your customers and anticipate their needs based on your product knowledge, and deliver the services they need even before they ask for it— and when you do, your customer service is carved into their minds. This may be linked with the phenomenon of reciprocity in social psychology: If you do something nice for your customers, they will want to do something in return — like buy your products!
Constantly Ask For Feedback
It’s not enough to invest in customer service—you need to make sure your efforts are paying off. Constantly asking for feedback helps you engage your customers and improve relationships.
The key is to not only listen to what customers say but also watch how they act. By capturing and taking action on the feedback you receive, you make your customers feel valued and improve your brand’s reputation. Additionally, it will impact your customer service and help you create a better experience for your customers.
Conclusion
It is hard, but not impossible, to provide good customer service all the time. The key to retaining your customers is to provide them with good customer service – and that will earn you a reputation for being helpful and pleasant to work with.
What is your best customer service experience so far? Would love to hear about it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 3 important qualities of customer service?
Speed, Accuracy, and Accountability. Regardless of each client’s specific customer service requirements, as long as you follow these guidelines, you’re on the right track.
How do you have good customer service?
Here are some tips for delivering good customer service and consistently delivering the best service:
- Know Your Product/Service
- Know Your Audience/Customers
- Respond & Solve Issues Quickly
- Let Customers Solve Their Issues
- Be Proactive Anticipating Customers’ Needs
- Constantly Ask For Feedback
What words describe good customer service?
Customer service is best described by honest, patient, knowledgeable, proactive, and responsive words.
