Do you know the one thing that lets you captivate customers’ attention, and also retain them for a considerable amount of time?
Well, it’s a complete no-brainer. Effective and targeted customer support is the answer.
A comprehensive list of the best customer support tips is the gateway to your company’s success in ensuring exceptional customer service. The presence of a customer-centric work culture will not only help your company deliver quick responses and valuable interactions but also stay ahead of the competitors.
So, to ensure that your customer service works for the benefit of your business, follow these best customer support tips with examples.
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1. Make your customer feel valuable
Every experienced customer service rep knows that customers are not always looking for an instant resolution. According to the typical customer behavior, they get impressed when:
- The representative is patient, understanding, and kind.
- The rep tries everything to ensure personalized service to them.
- Reps are clear and precise about the resolution and offer relevant solutions.
What’s Wrong: Taking Their Actions Personally
Sometimes, customers can get unhappy with the service and give you poor remarks. They complain about you as they consider you a part of the company. In such cases, they don’t mean anything personal. It’s just a response to their experience.
What’s Right: Smiling and Helping Rather Than Arguing
You must give your 100% to understand the customer’s issue and positively respond to it. Instead of defending your opinions, you have to establish a positive interaction.
However, these tips for customer service won’t work unless you hire the right people for your customer support department.
2. Lead the conversation with a positive reaction
Customer support is all about the way you interact and say things. For instance, if you are bound to give some bad news to the customer, find a way to sugar-coat those words. This way customers will be made to see the brighter side of things and become calm and relaxed.
Let’s consider the situations when the customer finds an out-of-stock product or when they become annoyed with a store that doesn’t provide what they claim. In such a scenario, it’s best to avoid saying something like, “sorry, we don’t have the product/service right now.”
Instead, you should say something like, “This product/service will be available next week. How may I get in touch with you once it comes back?”
There is a big difference between the conversational approach in these two lines. The first one was quite negative without any ideal solution. However, the second one is way more helpful, approachable, and positive. So, consider this customer support advice to ensure positivity in your customer interactions.
3. Work with simple feedback templates
Most individuals hate to visit any online portal to complete a survey. Although customers may show interest in rating your product or service, they won’t appreciate any excess work. However, their feedback remains crucial for your company. Without feedback, your company won’t be able to enhance its customer insights.
So, how to get it? One of the best ways is sending emails to customers with a survey link. Most customers share the exact behavior of clicking on a link that’s right in front of them. However, it’s crucial to know that you’re asking appropriate questions with proper tonality. Another method of gaining feedback is through forms and surveys. Integrate surveys after interacting with a customer to allow them to provide constructive feedback to improve their experience and your reps’ experiences. Remember that customer service is never perfect, and you can always find ways to improve how you interact and engage with your customers.
4. Give power to your customer cervice reps
One of the best customer support tips is to let your reps go above and beyond with their overall responsibilities. Nowadays, one of the most prominent complaints of customer service reps is their incapability to resolve any issue due to company policies and restrictions.
Customer support reps know that handling complaints is their main job. However, to do the job efficiently, they will need some flexibility from your end.
What’s Wrong: Holding Power in the Name of Regulations
Negative experiences on a regular basis often lead to increased turnover rates. Then, it significantly increases the cost of customer service training, reduces the productivity level, and lowers the revenue. However, if your customer reps can make offers, which are cost-effective for the company, then why not provide that power to them?
What’s Right: Letting Your Rep Have Some Control
Let’s take the example of Ritz-Carlton. Here, every customer rep is allowed to spend up to $2000 for each guest in a day to resolve their issues and meet their customer requirements. It means the representative would have control over the action on the spot.
So, one of the best tips for customer service is to let your customer reps go above and beyond their limits to do something beneficial for the company.
5. Address the customer’s issues right away
It may be overwhelming to address many complaints and negative comments. However, there’s no need for it to be this way. There’s always a way to deal with hold-up situations, even if you’re unaware of the answer.
What’s Wrong: Presuming the Customer Will Come Up with Only Bad Queries
Say the customer indicates a flaw in your product or your company’s manufacturing and distribution process. In such a case, no matter how redundant or straightforward the question may be, you should offer a solution for it. It’s crucial to know that your customers lack the training and knowledge you have. So, keeping the mindset that there are no bad questions should be the first thing your customer support team should consider before work.
What’s Right: Think by Putting Yourself in the Customer’s Position
No matter if the mistake is on the customer’s side, it’s best to acknowledge the customer’s problems right away. It makes them feel valued and important.
Addressing your customer’s concern right away is one of the best tips for great customer service. If you know the solution, tell it. If not, tell them when you can help solve the problem.
6. Focus on tonality
One customer service tip includes focusing on the rep’s tone. Your tone and your behavior during face-to-face interactions, calls, live chat, emails, etc., are highly important.
The most suitable way to do it is by writing a well-crafted and well-thought message, re-reading it and focusing on the tonality, and proofreading your message more than twice.
What’s Wrong: Banishing Customers
If your customer support rep speaks dismissively or in a disregarding manner, it can give a wrong impression of your company.
What’s Right: Asking Yourself Whether You Would Talk to Your Grandma Like This?
Work with your tone and ask yourself, “would I talk to my grandma like this?” This way, you can maintain a good tone in emails, chats, phone calls, or any mode of customer interaction.
7. Personalized customer service
A highly personalized interaction is an ideal way to let your customers know that their presence and problem are the top priority of the company. It’s one of the most effective and successful customer support tips to date.
It’s good to remember the customer’s name and call them by the name in the entire conversation. To make them feel heard, mention one of the previously mentioned points or issues. Your customer will most likely appreciate the approach and tell good things about the company.
8. Let customers find solutions
If you’re selling a tangible product, ensure that the customer easily finds out what the product does. However, you may give a demo to the customer for more contextual products and take pauses for queries.
You can help customers with additional onboarding material like recording a demo, videos, or FAQs. A well-updated and SEO-friendly knowledge base is a great way to support your customers and help them resolve issues across other channels. Your company should avoid the mistake of neglecting in-product onboarding and instead establish a solid knowledge base.
9. Give a quick response and reply early
Giving quick replies or “showing up early” to customers is the pillar of a robust and well-established customer service team. Although the customer may come up with a vague and unimportant query, your reps must make them feel their issues are the company’s number one priority.
What’s Wrong: Waiting for the issue to get Resolved Before Making Any Response
If you give a customer response by saying that you got the message and are looking forward to the issue, things can become problematic. For the best customer-centric work culture, your reps should respond to queries within business hours.
What’s Right: Get Rid of the KPIs
Make sure your customer support KPIs are measurable and to the point. The no-go factor includes “We will answer as soon as possible” and more. It’s best to set KPIs like “Emails to be processed within 2-hours” or “We will answer your call within 20 seconds.”
10. Pick the best customer service software
When it comes to choosing the best customer service software, you need to pick a trusted one. A reliable customer service software will help your team track, close, and manage tickets quickly. Your agents can use internal notes to collaborate across the organization and ensure customer service is a company-wide effort. Monitoring customer satisfaction and agent performance are several other things, that this tool can do.
Whether customers want to share their concerns through email or reach out to a business over the live chat option, you can track and organize all conversations. With this software, all agents can delight customers, automate tasks, and prioritize problems. You can expect the following benefits:
- Centralize all communication channels
- Increase support efficiency
- Monitor the customer experience
- Manage all the high priority problems
- Enhance customer loyalty
- Boost team collaboration
3 Examples of brands known for excellent support
1. Apple
Everyone is well-aware of Apple’s support. Apple will only hire the best in the industry. This ensures that their team knows what exactly they are talking about when it comes to troubleshooting with an item or product. Due to their expert knowledge and engagement with customers, the company is able to offer a fantastic customer experience to all their customers.
2. Amazon
Price guarantees, free shipping above a specific limit, and automatic refunds – Amazon is one of the leading companies that offer the best customer service. The staff members will listen and fix all issues for the customer whether or not the purchase was made by a third party or through them. The company has created an intuitive and brilliant user interface, which everyone can utilize at ease. Amazon’s vast knowledge base is the essential component of their amazing customer experiences.
3. MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing software firm that engages with customers without any delay. This means the company will offer immediate assistance once your account is activated. By offering this level of assistance, the company ensures that all the customers make the most out of the company’s software.
Ready to deliver customer delight?
Determining the best customer service strategy for your business and your team can be a daunting task. However, with the right combination of customer service tips, you can easily enjoy seamless operations for your organization. These cost-effective yet impactful tips will ensure your team covers your customer’s future needs while also meeting their immediate issues.
This comprehensive guide of good customer service tips and examples is all you need to make and keep your customers satisfied. No matter what the size of your company or which software you use, focus on delivering optimal customer service and delighting your audience.
Guest author: Jared Cornell is a customer-support specialist, a marketing evangelist, and a book lover, associated with ProProfs Chat. Jared is passionate about customer support and loves to solve customers’ queries. He is always keen to develop new strategies to help customers seeking live chat assistance for a delightful experience. Connect with Jared on Twitter.