Providing excellent customer service is the most important thing you can do for your business. Every interaction your customers have with your company is an experience, and customer satisfaction should be looked at as a key part of your company. If you do it right, you'll not only score a lifelong customer, but also an advocate for your brand. Here are four methods every business should use to provide excellent customer service:
Become a Customer-Obsessed Business
It's important to think about customer service as a key part of your company. All businesses, whether big or small, should go to the trouble of learning those little things that customers value above and beyond the basic product or service. If you don't already, you should find out what's important to your customers, what's influencing their decisions, and how do they make their choices when they buy. No business is going to fail by engaging with its customers and talking to them in a personal, caring way that makes them feel valued. Providing customer support and delivering the kind of service they expect will make your company more successful.
Provide Whole Company Support
Turn your entire company into a powerful support team. When your embrace the "Whole Company Support" philosophy, you improve the speed and quality of responses to the customer. You raise productivity and lower the cost of service. More team collaboration means more awesomely responsive support for your customers, so you can be confident that every customer support case is fully resolved and no one ends up in "customer support purgatory."
Support Customers With Helpdesk Software
Many customer-centric businesses are using web-based helpdesk software to elevate the quality of customer service Today's social help desk is designed to help companies address their customer's needs in the most effective way possible - in both traditional and social environments including Facebook, Twitter, email, chat and phone. That way you can respond efficiently in real-time whenever a customer reaches out. When you promote Agent-customer relationships in your tools and business methods, you can provide the service your customers expect without installing or updating your software or retraining your staff.
Employees Are Customers, Too
Companies known for their excellent customer service treat their employees as they would have their employees treat their customers. Employees who don't feel like they're part of the bigger picture, are not willing to go the extra mile. But when employees are valued, they're empowered to provide the best service and are much happier in their jobs. Transparency, kindness, and being personable work in businesses at all times. Employees take on more responsibility because they know they are appreciated and an important part of the team.
The best companies today understand that excellent customer service is not just about being nice to your customers, it's about understanding how strong customer relationships is pivotal to a company's success. The better you understand your customers, the easier it is to build something that makes them happy. If you can hook a customer early on with great customer service and a great product, the better chances they'll become a lifetime customer, improve customer retention metrics and create significant value for your business.
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Alex Hisaka works in marketing at Desk.com. You can find her on Twitter at twitter.com/alexhisaka