Quality customer service is any successful company’s goal. Reliable customer service is essential in keeping your old customers and gaining new ones. As such, excellent customer service can be the driving force to put your business in the spotlight.
Technology has introduced an era where customer services are delivered and outsourced virtually. Research that was conducted by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics found the remote workforce in the US has grown by 44% in the last five years.
Say, what?!
However, it is essential to look into your business needs to ensure that you find a virtual assistance service committed to building your business. Having conscientious customer service conversant with your clients’ languages and in a similar time zone is advantageous.
We will discuss the five tenets of competent small business customer services and their advantages to your business.
Consistency
Even with lots of resources to handle FAQS on what your business offers, customers need to talk to someone on different unique issues at some point. As such, it is important to keep consistent customer interactions to avoid wrong impressions with your clients. It is also vital to maintain the quality of virtual services delivered to your clients across all platforms.
According to Kate Leggett, customers expect a similar experience with each interaction with your company, from when they are researching a product to completing a sale. It is one thing to deliver good services to your clients, but another in terms of maintaining consistency.
Therefore, business owners need to consider this to ensure the growth of their brand.
Transparency
Sustaining long and strong relationships with your clients is based on the trust built through honesty and transparency. It makes your clients uneasy when they do not know what or why something is happening. As such, honesty with your clients on products, services offered, delivery times for goods, and other essential aspects of your business ensures that your customers have a pleasant experience.
Avoiding the following ensures transparent interactions with your clients:
1. Over-eager troubleshooting
Most customer service professionals jump into providing solutions for customers as soon as they think they understand the issue at hand. However, before doing this, it is vital to consider and update your customers on the timelines expected to deliver solutions, even if the process will take some time.
2. Client feedback methods
To ensure that you provide quality services to your clients, a business should ask for their feedback. By asking your customer to give their honest feedback, you make them feel valued and know that your focus is on improving your services’ quality.
Responsiveness
The response time significantly affects customer satisfaction rates. In today’s society, people are too quick to respond. Even if the solution is not readily available, it is essential to engage clients when they make inquiries.
Initial contact from your customer support team will impact the overall customer experience and is a key factor in what turns good service into great customer service.
In a study conducted by Warwick University, responsiveness greatly impacts customer satisfaction. Quick and detailed responses ensure that your client knows their issue has been registered and handled. This detail should be outlined in your internal customer service process.
Patience
Customer service is not a walk in the park. There are instances where clients might get angry with the service representative or need extra attention. However, despite this, a service representative must stay calm. You should also expect clients to be unfamiliar with different terminologies that are unique to various fields.
Take time to explain such terminologies to them to help them understand how you are assisting them.
Courtesy
Courtesy towards your clients can boost customer loyalty and build brand awareness through your customers’ promotion by word of mouth. If you are interested in prioritizing customers as your business’s heart, courtesy and respect are essential.
Regardless of your business’s activities, etiquette towards customers gives your brand an edge over your competitors.
According to a study by American Express, 68% of customers link good customer service to polite client service representatives. The proper use of vocabulary when interacting with your clients is, therefore, advantageous. Research shows that about 70% of a client’s journey is based on how customers feel when being served.
Thus, the chances are that a customer will change their brand when served by rude support professionals.
Why are customer service tenets important?
Following principles when relating to customers is beneficial to the progress of any business. One key benefit is that it prevents the failure of your business. Research shows that 96% of companies fall within ten years, which can be associated with poor customer service delivery.
Therefore, it is crucial for small, medium, and extensive business to focus their energy on building a robust customer base.
As seen, excellent customer service is arguably a driving force in determining any business’s success or failure. Customer-centric companies are more likely to succeed since customer service should be more about the customer and not the company.
Having customer service that follows the principles ensures that your business stands out, your clients are happy, and your business stands out from your competition.
Conclusion
By now you understand that the customer service process could be even more important to nail down before say, those oh so sought after marketing campaigns. If you don’t have the support team to handle legit response times, live chats, and customer conversations in general, be cautious about bringing customers in before that is in place.
There are many benefits to having employees on your customer service team. They are there to facilitate information and fix things. They have a clear understanding of your company’s mission and create a positive experience for customers behind the scenes. Which, in turn grows into repeat clients, and don’t forget about the power of word-of-mouth referrals — it’s a powerful tool that every small business depends on throughout the growth of the company.
Customer service is one of those details that should never be left to artificial intelligence alone. If hiring full-time employees isn’t in your budget, consider outsourcing.