In every business, the customer should always be the number one focus. You must pay attention to the level of service your organization provides if you want to succeed long term. Here are six tips to help improve the level of customer service you offer.
Multi-channel support
Do not rely on one channel to answer your customers’ needs. For instance; you can provide telephone, email and social media support, creating multiple channels of communication between you and the customer. Handle queries professionally, regardless the support channel and keep response delays to a minimum.
Knowledge
Your support staff must have good communication skills to maintain high-quality service, but knowledge of your company’s products and services are just as important. Keep your staff informed and enable them with solutions to the most common inquiries without needing to delay for research or require additional guidance.
CRM systems
Installing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can improve your level of customer service significantly. CRM systems help you track queries and complaints, but also open up data mining — analyzing customer information such as their buying patterns, type of products or services they commonly use and demographics. Data mining can help you better understand your customers’ needs, thus providing them with better service.
Non-specific support staff
Encourage all your employees to participate in the support process. Although most companies have dedicated support teams, training everyone in customer communication gives the whole team insight into what your company does, how it works and the challenges their colleagues face. Make sure your non-support staff are supervised by specialists to ensure customer satisfaction in every aspect of your business.
Customer feedback
Get feedback from your customers about their experience. You can do this by creating simple surveys on your website or by sending your customers a questionnaire. Feedback helps you gain insight into what your customers like and dislike about your business, gaps in your support and ways to improve both support and your product offering.
Competitor analysis
Learn from your competitors, especially the ones that have excellent customer support. You could send some of your staff as mystery shoppers or hire a professional to do the job. By analyzing the differences between their process and yours, you can often spot ways to improve your support offering.
