How to improve customer service in your business
If you’ve read our post on how to deal with difficult customers, then you’d know how important great customer service is. Having exceptional customers not only helps you avoid negative customer feedback and deal with issues quickly and professionally, but it can also elevate your business above your competitors.
Remember, customer experience is just as important as the quality of the products and services you offer. Research has shown that 84% of organisations that improve customer experience report an uplift in revenue, with 94% reporting increased customer loyalty.
Providing excellent customer service isn’t just about being nice – it’s a crucial aspect of what drives revenue for your business. Keep reading to learn how to improve customer service in your business.
Ask for customer feedback
What do your customers think about how you provide customer service? One way to find out is by asking for feedback.
There are several ways you can collect customer feedback, such as an online survey via your website or on social media or by providing a call to action to encourage people to submit their thoughts with an email. You could even send an email survey to your past and current customers on how they felt about their experience with your business.
If you don’t feel like designing questions yourself, some great sites can help you create surveys for free. Try using SurveyMonkey (which is free up to 100 responses per month).
Once you’ve collected some feedback, make sure to take action based on the results. Use the information to improve how your business deals with current customers and provide better customer service in the future.
Reward excellent customer service
The best way to encourage great customer service is by rewarding it when you see it. Here are some ways you can provide recognition for good customer service outcomes amongst your team:
- Give them an award, such as a certificate or trophy. Make sure you keep this somewhere visible, so your team sees the rewards of great customer service.
- Acknowledge excellent customer service skills at meetings to show that prioritising customer satisfaction is important for their job.
- Provide praise to a team member in front of others and point out how their efforts contributed to improving customer service.
Invest in your customer service team
To improve how your business delivers great customer service, you must invest in your customer service team. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a huge investment – here are some simple ways you can do it without spending too much money.
Provide training sessions for all employees on how to provide the best possible customer service. This could include handling difficult customers, writing professional emails, and remaining positive in situations where customers are causing stress.
Give your team the training they need so they can help your customers in a range of situations, such as how to use products and services, how to troubleshoot common issues, and how to provide general assistance.
A well-trained and experienced customer service rep knows exactly what to do in a range of customer interactions. If your business has complex customer interactions, it’s worth hiring top-quality customer service agents to join your team.
If you need extra funding to support hiring and investing in your customer service teams, consider taking out a small business loan with OnDeck. You could get between $10,000 and $250,000 with a fast application process and low loan origination fees of only 3%.
Use technology to enhance your team’s customer service skills
Your team can use chatbots and automated email responses to help with common customer problems and questions. If you have a high flow of incoming messages from customers, these automated systems can help you filter each question or complaint to prioritise the most urgent matters.
Make sure your employees have the tools and technology needed to provide exceptional customer service. If your team replies to a lot of emails, a tool like Grammarly can help quickly clean up common grammar and spelling mistakes and provide suggestions to make writing more concise and compelling.
Develop a customer service strategy
To deliver outstanding customer service, you need a solid strategy.
Have a plan for providing ongoing training for all of your team members so they know how to deal with various customer service issues that may arise. If you’re launching a new product or service, make sure you consider what questions or complaints may arise from a customer and instruct your team on how they should respond.
It’s important to remember that time is a critical factor when you want to boost customer satisfaction. Customers expect to be responded to quickly when they have a problem. If someone is left waiting too long for a response, they’ll feel like they’ve been ignored, and their dissatisfaction will only deepen.
Nurture customer relationships
Your customer service team isn’t just there to deal with customer concerns as they arise – they should be nurturing customer relationships to avoid issues arising in the first place.
Make sure your employees know how to use customer relationship management (CRM) tools so they can track how customers feel about your business and how satisfied they are with the products or services you provide. This data will allow them to see what customers like, dislike or need more of, helping your team improve customer satisfaction with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is considered exceptional customer service?
Excellent customer service means going above and beyond how a business typically assists customers. A business that goes the extra mile to provide exceptional service will be remembered by its customers for how they made them feel.
Prepared by OnDeck Capital Australia Pty Ltd ABN 28 603 753 215 (“OnDeck”) for general information purposes only. Content may belong to or have originated from third parties and OnDeck takes no responsibility for the accuracy, validity, reliability or completeness of any information. Information current as at October 2021. You should not rely upon the material or information as a basis for making any business, financial or any other decisions. Loans issued in Australia are subject to the terms of a loan agreement issued by OnDeck. Loans are subject to lender approval. OnDeck® is a Registered Trademark. All rights reserved.