Good customer service goes far beyond being polite. As well as being honest, treating customers well is not a differentiator, but an obligation of anyone who wants to make your company a success. And make no mistake: attracting new customers is all about the good service your company provides today.
Often, we understand everything about the product or the service that we offer, about its advantages and benefits, but we feel stuck when it comes to solving a problem, facing objections or even structuring a process for incredible service.
Surely you’ve already had an incredible experience with a brand, right? Generally, when a company impacts us in a very positive way, not only do we become loyal to it, but we also begin to speak well of this experience to everyone around us, indicating with closed eyes the service and the product.
In this article, we will address the importance of the customer service and how to do it efficiently.
Customer service importance
You have certainly gone through the situation of having bought a certain product and quickly being disappointed with it, either because it was not as you expected or because it was defective. In any of these cases you had to go to Customer Support .
Many people think that giving support to the customer means being kind and changing the product when there is a defect coming from the factory.
However, customer support is no longer just that for some time. Today’s consumer does not want to return and/or exchange the product, he expects more.
Credits: customerthermometer
Nowadays, customer support is a whole customer service operation, in which it is possible to answer questions, both in the pre-sale and post-sale, make complaints and make suggestions for improvement.
The big brands have already realized that the consumer has changed, and because of that, the service had to change as well, adapting to the new needs of consumers.
Did you know that a customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem encountered is related to service rather than price or product?
Even if the product and the price are better, due to a bad experience with customer service, your consumer can look up the product at another competitor.
To further confirm this information, 47% of consumers have already switched brands due to poor service according to customerthermometer.
How to do it efficiently?
A good customer service has an effect in the short term and can even impact the increase in revenues of your business. Having happy customers is one of the best advertisements that your company can have.
It is important for the customer to feel that on the other side there are people committed to solving the real problem, transmitting the right information in order to make everything easier and more effective.
We have gathered below some tips to help companies provide efficient customer service.
1. Understand your customer
There is no way to serve a customer if we don’t know what he is looking for. Therefore, it is important that, in each service, your team is aware of the motivations that led the customer to contact. Ask questions, investigate, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. This will help you solve problems more quickly and efficiently. Conduct periodic surveys that help reveal what drives your customer to search for your company.
2. Take pleasure in serving
To answer is to serve. That is why it is important for your company to hire people who are happy to serve and who are motivated by the constant challenge of solving customer problems. The customer service team must be a transforming unit within the company, where problems and doubts are transformed into satisfaction and loyalty. No customer buys a product to have problems or to spend hours with the customer service! There is nothing more frustrating than investing money in a product or a service that creates problems. When a customer feels served, he is naturally motivated to speak well of the brand. The support team must be qualified for the task. Professionals are not easy to find and oftentimes, large and even intermediate firms will resort to outsourcing.
Customer service outsourcing from SupportYourApp for instance has been used by many corporations. It increases the productivity, minimizes the costs and helps to provide a quality service.
Credits: mvpexec
3. Don’t rhyme your service with dislike
Your service needs to have sympathy and empathy, but never dislike. Conceptualizing the different types of involvement that can happen between the attendant and the client can help your team better understand what kind of assistance they have offered:
- Friendliness: being affected by what the other person is feeling.
- Empathy: putting yourself in the other’s shoes to better serve them, get to know them or serve them.
- Dislike: having an aversion to the other, ignoring or repelling them.
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4. Maintain SCOT communication
SCOT stands for Security, Clarity, Objectivity and Transparency. At the time of service, it is essential to expose information clearly and directly. Notice if your speech was well understood. It is important that the information is transmitted in a way that does not confuse the customer. The client does not expect to seek help from someone full of doubts and uncertainties. We don’t always have the answer, but curling up or inventing a solution is not the way. If you need to, take the time to come back with the answer later. The service is the reflection of your company, and if there is no security in the past message, the image of your team ends up being harmed.
5. Don’t abandon your customer
Follow up with the customer until the problem is resolved. The word customer had its origin in ancient Rome, and represented a commoner who was under the protection of a patrician (noble). Just like then, your company must protect the customer from having even more problems. It may be that your company loses the customers not because of competitors, but because of the poor service provided to them.
6. Speak the language of good service
Good service is guided by the professional treatment given to the client. However, do not confuse professionalism with “robotism”. Escape the standard responses and plastered processes, so common in this area. The language used must be suitable for the client, with a simple and clear vocabulary. Do not use difficult words or technical terms for people with lesser knowledge of the subject in question. In pronunciation, do not mutilate words, as this can create doubts regarding understanding. Avoid expressions that convey uncertainty, intimate treatment, diminutives, regional expressions and slang. Be sober in your tone of voice and remember the previous principles.
7. Invest in relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is nothing more than putting strategies in place to maintain a positive relationship with the customer in the long term. And we are not talking about just offering good customer service, it is thinking about “something more”, about advantages that can turn him into a fan of your brand.
By understanding a little more about consumer behavior on the internet, you can take advantage of digital marketing strategies to be even closer to your audience, whether to win a new customer or retain old ones.
Understand that the keyword of the whole relationship is: know your consumer. Only then will you be able to attend in a personalized way and go far beyond just one sale.
8. Use a CRM
CRM is a system that will help you to relate to your contacts. It is an ideal tool for the sales team because you will have at your disposal all the list of calls, conversation history and information about the customer that help optimize the process.
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