Is your business’s customer service starting to become more of a challenge than you expected it to be? You may be surprised to discover that the problem might be hidden in your organizational strategies. In this day and age, proper organization is key to managing any business, regardless of its scale. And yes, your customer service team comes under this, too. The major requirements for delivering excellent customer service are promptness, communication, and planning.
While you might have the first two nailed, however, planning is something that a lot of customer service management teams struggle with for obvious reasons. Keeping everything in one place, especially when you’re operating on a fairly large scale, can be arduous. Nonetheless, this one’s a trade where there’s no room for mistakes. Therefore, here are a few tips to rid you of some major organizational struggles and help you improve your company’s customer satisfaction (or CSAT).
Organize Your Customer’s Information
If you have any important data related to your customers, such as Reference IDs or similar data, be sure to keep these bits of information stored securely with the help of built-in customer profile features. This helps you in two ways. For starters, this allows you to gain all important information regarding your customer in one click so that you can get the required assistance to them without any delays.
Secondly, having this information at hand helps you look more professional and collected, as it allows you to ask fewer questions. The goal is to make the experience as smooth as possible for the customer, as technical and personal questions only do the job of irritating an already distressed person. In avoiding antagonizing them, you can dramatically improve their experience (and their opinion) of you.
Let AI Become Your Assistant
Customer service is rapidly transforming in this digital era, and probably the best thing to come out of this new revolution is the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently look into common customer gripes. Not only is AI impervious to any words said in anger by an unhappy customer, but it also won’t resort to hostility when the upset customer tries to provoke them. That alone makes it a clear advantage over human agents.
However, another key advantage of AI is how efficient it is. Quick and effective communication is important to relieve a customer’s distress, as most of them simply want to vent their frustrations. While a human can’t send a helpful reply seconds after a complaint, a bot definitely can. Moreover, AI can filter out minor issues for you by solving them on their own. That way, you can direct your focus on more advanced concerns and save time.
Turn Customer Service Into A Marketing Strategy
Of course, you wouldn’t want to try an upselling technique on a customer who’s unhappy with a faulty toaster he bought yesterday, but angry customers aren’t the only ones who are going to reach out to you. Some customers are genuinely curious and may have basic questions for you, while others may be feeling be facing issues that could be solved with a specific product that your company offers.
That’s where having better organization comes in. Keep your customer service team trained and informed on your services, products, and schemes to drive sales through customer feedback. You could also use some handy marketing plan templates to help your team accomplish this. Equip them with the necessary tools to make the process of upselling as natural, helpful, and genuine as possible.
Keep Track of Chatbot Queries
While chatbots generally have quicker response times than human agents, customers aren’t always thrilled to have their concerns addressed by a machine, especially when they have more emotionally complex queries. To avoid upsetting them, you should focus on refining your chatbot strategy. In doing so, you can help to ensure that your chatbots don’t end up doing more harm than good.
It’s also wise to keep your team on standby to look into any chatbot queries that might have come through, as well. That way, whenever you do eventually have more time on hand, you can correct any errors you encounter or find ways to answer these more pressing and urgent questions faster.
Automate Your Record-Keeping
Having an automated record-keeping system, and training your staff to use it effectively, can be a solid means of improving your customer service. Not only can the data that a customer service team collects be used as a source for the development of future products and services, but it can also allow the team to assist a customer better if they were to have another issue in the future.
Maintaining records can feel like a hassle, so automating this part of the process will help make it more efficient. You don’t have to record every detail of your exchange with the customer, either. Just be sure to retain some basic information on the service they’re using, as well as their questions or complaints, and that should be enough. Organizing customer service techniques will allow your company to function much more smoothly, and also enrich your customer experience.
Helping your team train their attention on more important tasks, while the minor issues get handled by machines, can be one of the most advantageous ways to strengthen your business’s customer service. And by using these technological advancements — and streamlining the customer service management for your large or growing company — you’ll ultimately ensure both success and customer satisfaction in the long run.
