For many people, it’s a simple thing to distinguish between poor and good customer service. However, when it comes to defining the difference, it’s a whole nother ball game.
This is because when it comes to fantastic customer service, it’s actually subjective. It all depends on how each customer happens to be feeling right at the moment and what it is specifically that they’re asking a business to do. If their needs aren’t met, then they’ll feel as if the customer service was poor.
So, how do you know if your customer service team is offering superior service? There are a few key elements. Let’s take a look at them.
Training
Training is the first step. You need to ensure that your customer service agents are well trained. This means making sure any programs have the right technical documentation and that it covers all the bases. It also means that any live instructors have been properly trained themselves. If your team members can’t retain the information or use it practically, it’ll never work, so they shouldn’t pass the course.
Quality vs. Quantity
During product launches or holidays, you might experience a surge in customer service. The volume of support cases can significantly increase. In times like these, it might be tempting for you to focus on solving all the cases you possibly can as opposed to working thoroughly through every single issue.
Instead of focusing on quantity, your reps should focus on quality and ensure that each customer they deal with is delighted by the end of the interaction. It’s management’s responsibility to find a solution that will increase productivity and a customer service rep’s (CSR) responsibility to make the customer happy.
Customers Come First
A strategy to put the customer first means that your team will be committed to locating solutions even when they’re hard to find or require the team to think outside of the box. When clear solutions aren’t available, the team will go above and beyond in order to create workarounds that will allow the clients to meet their goals. Also, if there’s definitely no way for you to solve whatever the customer’s issue is, the team will relay any feedback to management so that the company can work on a long-term solution. In this way, you can always ensure that the customer comes first.
Clarify Roadblocks and Goals
Before you start working on a particular case, it’s critical that you clarify any roadblocks and/or goals the customer has. This makes the entire purpose of any interactions clear while also demonstrating a better understanding of any issues. The thing is, you can’t begin to solve any problems if you aren’t aware of what the customer is attempting to do or what might be keeping them from doing it.
Support Options
Smartphones have brought the internet right into the palms of our hands, and because of this, customers tend to expect immediate responses when they need to ask a question. This means you need to provide support through a variety of modes of communication as well as having extensive self-service options. In other words, your business needs to make it simple to gain access to your CSR team.
Finally, some cases might mean that you need to choose a short-term solution due to it being the best option you have available at a particular point in time. That said, it’s also critical for you to make sure that these short-term solutions never become the main option or the long-term norm while CSRs work on other cases. When long-term options become available, the CSRs need to circle back to notify your customers regarding the update.
