There is a saying that gives an advantage to the customer in every case: ‘’the customer is always right’’. Everyone who has worked with customers knows that this can’t be further from the truth. At times, handling difficult customers is almost impossible. In those cases, you have to cut the cords and very often, defend yourself.
But, whenever you can avoid negative user experience, it is your professional duty to do your best. Companies lose around $62 billion because of poor customer support and issues that could have been resolved peacefully. Customer service is one of the most important things that affect sales and loyalty. Providing it far from easy, but there are certain things you can do to make this simpler.
When you put yourself in your customer’s shoes, you can learn a great deal about what they want and why they require those things from you. Keep reading, and you’ll learn a great deal about how to respond to customer’s queries, complaints, and comments. What follows are five amazing tips for writing as a customer service representative.
1. Copy Your Customer’s Tone and Language
To show the customer that you understand them, you need to create a habit of copying their tone for the conversation. The best customer service responses result from fast adaptation to the language of the customer.
Choosing the right tone in writing is always important, even when you were in school and had to handle academic tasks. At times, I couldn’t find the right way to approach a paper, so I would ask an expert to write my paper instead. But, with practice, you can learn to determine what tone to use in your responses.
Most customers have reported that they find a more friendly approach from a customer service to be more appealing and better for the quality of the communication. According to a Software Advice report, over 65% of all customers enjoy a more friendly tone, though not exaggerated.
However, depending on what you are selling and what type of target audience you are dealing with, you might have to response in a more formal language. At times, slang will become a necessary part of the conversation, even though it is often not recommended to use.
Basically, all this will depend on your audience, your products and services, as well as the target audience you’re providing support too. Once you start working as a customer support service agent, you need to establish what the best approach is.
2. Be Human
Customers often have bad experiences with customer support because of automated or ready responses. Unless you give your service a slightly personalized approach, no customer will feel like you’re willing to resolve their issue.
One of the best tips for writing responses I have ever received was to show some humanity. Surely, you can also use tools to engage the customer. But, in the end, it all comes down to how you communicate with them. Here are some tips to help you with this:
- Emphasize with the customer and their feelings;
- If applicable, mention a similar experience where the problem was resolved or the product you are selling helped a customer;
- Take responsibility for yours and the company’s actions;
- Make it more personal: greet them by name, assure them that you’ll do your best, etc.
- Avoid clichés such as ‘thank you for being our customer’ or ‘we appreciate your patience’.
3. Respond Fast
People nowadays don’t have too much time to waste. If you take too much time to provide customer support, no one will be happy regardless of how you’ve resolved their issue.
Have a habit of responding as soon as possible. Set notifications that will inform you of queries from customers and, if possible, set up a live support chat option for those who need urgent assistance.
4. Learn to Apologize
No one is perfect, so you’re bound to make mistakes at some point. When such a thing happens and your customer has the right to be mad, don’t tiptoe around the issue or avoid the needed apology.
Whether it is a delay in delivery, an item that went out of stock – learn to apologize for your customer’s bad experience. Regardless of how dedicated your company is or how great their reputation has been, you have to always be ready to respond to all kinds of complaints and apologize. A lot of the time, you’ll have to offer more than an apology to resolve an issue. But still, you’d be surprised to learn how often an apology can fix things.
5. Do Your Best
Customers will know when you aren’t trying. Sometimes, customer service agents do the bare minimum, the things that are required by the company – and nothing more. Most of the time, it takes a much bigger effort to help out a customer. If you want your company to have high rating, you have to do your best and provide the best customer support.
Loyalty is a result of excellent customer care. If a person needs something, you should do your best to help them. That’s what customer support is all about. For example, if your customer needs something you no longer have in stock, don’t just inform them of it. Try to find something similar that would help them, or try to get the information of when this product will become available again.
Wrapping Up
Customer support has a single aim – to keep the customer loyal and happy. The first goal of a company is to attract the customers and make them buy. However, retaining those customers and making them happy carries an even bigger importance. This is the only way a business can grow. Because of it, you must make sure to provide the best customer support possible, whenever possible.
About the Author
Connie Elser is a young entrepreneur who built a small e-commerce business from the ground up. She says that she owes most of her success to her research. According to Elser, two things make a business successful – marketing and customer support.
