If a company wants to be among the first, then simply creating a good product or investing in advertising is no longer enough. Lowering prices is a losing strategy. For businesses today, high-quality customer service is one of the main tools for differentiating from competitors. A low level of customer service can destroy a company’s reputation.
What is customer service?
Customer service is customer support at all stages of work. But customer service is not limited to communication with the manager and sales. It covers any interaction between the client and the company. The goal of customer service is to make this interaction as convenient as possible for the person, and to make him satisfied with the product and service.
Customer Service FunctionsLet’s look at why customer service is needed and what benefits it brings to business.
Service as a competitive advantageCustomer service helps to differentiate yourself from competitors. There are many offers on the market, and sometimes care and attention can distinguish a company from others and inspire customer trust.
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Customer RetentionService helps retain customers. When people are satisfied with the service, they are more likely to return. Thus, quality customer service can make new customers permanent.
Attracting loyal customersThe main task of customer service is to ensure that service processes are smooth and comfortable for the buyer. If all cases of interaction between the client and the company are in this format, then the person will not just stay with you. He can tell his friends and acquaintances about you and, thus, attract new clients.
Improving the company’s reputation
Customer service affects the brand’s reputation. The more customers have a positive experience, the better your reputation. For example, the reputation of a responsible and reliable supplier.
Increase in profits
Service is important for business as a tool for increasing the company’s income:
- Customers are willing to pay more for the service. It can be charged as a separate service. Normal practice is to charge for the delivery of furniture to the apartment or its assembly and installation. People are willing to pay for the service if it makes their life easier.
- A high level of customer service allows you to increase the average bill. If the quality of customer service pleases customers, then over time they will order more and use other services.
For example, an online farm produce store sold sausages and milk. The company earned customer loyalty thanks to the freshness of its products, fast delivery, and user-friendly website. Later, the company expanded its product range and offered customers honey, eco-sweets, and other healthy food products. Customers liked the level of service, and they were ready to buy other products, thereby increasing their average bill.
- The service helps reduce the percentage of customer churn. This point is more about the proper distribution of funds. To improve customer service, you need to spend time and money, but attracting customers and, especially, returning those who left, costs more.
Customer Service Rules and Standards
Let’s list the points that reflect the quality of customer service in the company.
Note that online and offline service may differ slightly. Some items from this list are less relevant for work in the restaurant customer service sector – HoReCa.
In general, any business focused on a high level of customer service should adhere to these rules.
Friendly attitudeCustomer service standards start with communication first. The most basic communication norms are to greet people in a friendly manner and address them by name.
Individual offers
The goal of customer service is to make sure that the buyer is satisfied with the interaction with your company. Therefore, communication should be aimed at identifying the needs of customers. In order to create personalized offers, it is necessary to show interest, ask questions and listen to wishes.
High speed of service
The task of customer service is to promptly respond to customer requests. This concerns the speed of response, for example, in technical support service standards, every second counts. This also includes the promptness of problem solving, fast delivery, as well as the speed of the site or application.
Multichannel
The main goal of customer service is convenient interaction with the product and the company. For example, a client chooses telegram for communication – the company adapts.
You need to answer customer questions in messenger, by phone, on social networks, by email, in the app chat. The website should have a feedback form. A few years ago, this was just a trend, now multichannel is becoming a standard for customer service.
Getting Feedback
Regularly asking for feedback from customers not only helps improve customer service, but also allows you to avoid complaints and take action in a timely manner. By the way, honestly admitting your mistakes is also an indicator of high-quality customer service. But it is important not only to admit a mistake. For high-quality service, it is necessary to offer options on how to correct or mitigate the consequences.
Customer reviews allow you to notice nuances that are not obvious to the company. For this buyer, the appearance of the bouquet was not particularly critical, but the next customer may be dissatisfied and react negatively to the situation. To prevent this and improve the service, you can, for example, send a photo of the bouquet before delivery. The service should not leave an unpleasant aftertaste; on the contrary, it is intended to leave a positive impression.
Strict adherence to the terms of the contract and even more
Fulfilment of the terms of the contract, strict observance do i need Salesforce? the pros and cons of salesforce of all deadlines affects the level of customer satisfaction. You show that you are a reliable partner. But to provide quality service, the company does not just comply with the agreement, it tries to make the customer’s experience memorable, that is, to do a little more for him.
For example, when the agreed delivery time is 3-4 days, and the order is delivered the next day.
How to organize customer service
Once it is clear why customer service is important for a business, steps can be taken to create and organize it within the company.
1. Set a goal
To build customer service, you need to set several goals. This is important in order to track the improvement indicators of customer service later.
Let’s say it would be important for a provider’s customer support service to reduce call times in order to resolve problems quickly and process the maximum number of requests.
3. Prepare the team
When organizing customer service, the entire team needs to undergo training to improve their hard and soft skills:
- Understanding customer needs is important. Knowing your audience allows you to turn potential customers into active ones and offer them individual solutions.
- To provide quality service, you need to know the product well, as well as understand your niche in general. For clients who contact the company, its representative must be an expert in their field.
How to check the quality of customer service
After organizing customer service, after some time it is worth checking how it works and whether it increases business efficiency. There are the following methods for this.
Statistics
To understand how the service affects the business, start with sales statistics: whether the plan was fulfilled, how many sales were made. For example, a good indicator for your service would be an increase in the percentage of repeat sales. This means that there are more regular customers.
Feedback from customers
Customer experience is an important factor in quality control. Ask customers themselves how they rate the customer service in the company.
If you are collecting customer contacts, you can create a short survey of 3-5 questions and then use mailings. Offer to take the survey for some bonus or gift from the company, for example, a promo code for a discount.
Mystery shopper
This method of controlling the service is especially suitable for the retail and restaurant and hotel business. The idea is that the company hires a person who must come to the store as a buyer or call the company with some problem.
There are several techniques to get truly useful and objective data:
- To evaluate the service in a company, you can ask your clients to become mystery shoppers.
- Ask to provide audio or video recording.
- Find out not the client’s impressions, but, for example, ask questions about how quickly his problem was solved. Then look in the system to see how long the call lasted.
Call recordings
Periodically listening to customer conversations or reading chat messages will also help you identify potential errors or weaknesses.
Employee surveys
To maintain customer service, it is important to check the skills of employees. This can be periodic testing or certification.
Special metrics
There are special metrics that allow you to calculate and measure customer service. You can conduct research and track indicators using CRM systems and other data collection programs. Here are some popular metrics:
CSI (Overall Customer Satisfaction Index)
The metric shows how satisfied the buyer is with the interaction with the company, how he evaluates his communication experience in general.
CSAT (customer satisfaction score for a specific interaction)
Here you can evaluate specific parameters. For example, the quality of the specialist’s work after the conversation, whether the operator solved the problem and how the new product or service works.
CES (Customer Effort Index)
The metric shows how convenient it is for a person to interact with the company: evaluate the work of the site, place an order, search for the necessary information. That is, the index allows you to understand how easy it was for the user to solve their issue.
LTV (customer lifetime value)
How much money the client brought to the company during the entire period of your cooperation. The indicator allows you to identify the most loyal clients who bring the maximum profit.
Customer Service Errors
Here are some examples of why customer service may not work well:
Excessive formality in communication
The main task of customer service from the employee’s point of view is to help the client. Sometimes this means stepping away from the usual rules and being flexible.
Let’s imagine a situation: according to the service rules, a company must communicate with a client only during working hours. But on Friday evening, an employee finds out that the delivery is delayed, and the client will not receive his order on Monday.
Lack of a system for improving customer service
Today, the service may work well, but the customer service system needs to be constantly developed. The success of a business is linked to customer satisfaction.
Saving on automation programs
Communication between companies and customers plays an important role in quality service. But today, this is not enough to improve customer experience. An employee may simply miss an incoming message or not have time to answer a call.
How to develop customer service
To improve customer service, we recommend using the following tips:
- Give employees more freedom in communicating with the client. The task of customer service is to make interaction comfortable. Scripts and regulations cannot reflect all situations.
Customer Service Trends
Let’s note the phenomena that we are already observing. In the future, they will continue to develop and affect customer service processes.
Expanding business opportunities
When a business can solve one client’s problem, it is good, but not enough. To develop customer service, companies expand their capabilities.
Digitalization of service
In the article, we have already mentioned various technologies ph numbers for processing and collecting data, namely chatbots and CRM systems. Also, to improve customer service, it is important to implement programs that are aimed at automating routine actions – calling customers, informing about the order status, voice assistant. Voice assistants increasingly use artificial intelligence.
Results
Customer service is important for any business that works with people. Its goal is to make interaction with the company as convenient as possible. The service helps retain customers, attract loyal customers and increase profits.
