Strengthening your company’s customer service is essential for building and maintaining a reliable customer base. Even if you believe your customer service skills are already strong, there’s always an opportunity for enhancement. Here, we offer five tips to elevate your skills to the next level. These tips include: hiring/training the right people, empowering your employees, reflective listening, establishing customer service policies, and feedback/continuous improvement.
Hiring and Training the Right People
To start things on the right track, you should be hiring employees that have a positive outlook and are eager to learn. Studies show that employees who have a positive attitude are more likely to have long term success. Not only will that employee have personal success, but their attitude will motivate others in the workplace.
Now that you have hired the right people, you need to set a comprehensive training program. This program should include product knowledge, how to communicate with customers, and conflict resolution. An employee needs a deep understanding of what your company is either selling or providing in order to communicate effectively. They also need to know how you would like them to communicate, ie should they be emailing or picking up the phone? An employee also needs to be trained on how to resolve certain issues that may arise in the workplace.
Empowering Your Employees
Let your customer service representatives have the opportunity to make decisions on their own. They should be able to resolve issues without any unnecessary escalation. This will lead to a faster response to the customer and then a quicker resolution. Also, make sure to keep motivating your customer service team and let them know when they are doing a good job. This will boost motivation and spread positivity.
Reflective Listening
Teach your team to be actively listening to your customers. They should be hearing their problems/concerns and finding resolutions, even before an issue may arise. Not only that, but encourage your representatives to clarify questions they may not have understood the first time, or repeat back what the customer had said. This will ensure that they have correctly understood the question, and it also eases the customer emotions since they know they have been heard.
Establish Customer Service Policies
Setting up customer service policies will encourage employees to hit their goals and ensure they are meeting your criteria. Make sure that your employees have a clear understanding of what your policies are. Regularly meet and chat with your employees to make sure their goals are being met.
Feedback and Continuous Improvement
Allow your customers to share feedback on how it is interacting with your customer service team. Take this feedback and use it to make improvements in your service. When customers are encouraged to input their thoughts, this leads to positive change and they also feel more connected to your company.
Strong customer service can set you apart from your competitors, so no matter what, always strive to improve and grow this skill. By following these five tips, your company can strengthen relationships, motivate employees, and drive business results. Make customer service a priority, it will lead to positive results.
This blog was written by Aimee Dappas. Aimee is a Client Success Advisor at Sleek Technolgies and has focused her professional career on customer service and success.
