The customer service experience is the biggest benchmark of the success you will experience, however, customer support, when it is not done right, can turn customers away. So what does it really take to ensure that you are improving the customer service experience from the inside-out?
Provide Contemporary Equipment
This is a very simple thing but you need to have a combination of contemporary equipment that does the job including your support desk software, as well as your phone systems. This is where a reliable telecommunications company can make a massive difference to the quality of your equipment. Contemporary equipment means that your workers can streamline their efforts, but your employees will not struggle during the communication process. For example, there could be issues with communication due to incompatible headphones, and having great equipment will make a massive difference. When customer service agents are able to use their technology this is going to ensure they do a better job. Many customers feel that they are already prepared for a battle when there are problems with equipment or communication barriers. The right technology is going to bring down those barriers and make it better for everybody.
Bring Your Services Closer to the Customer
If a customer has to travel or phone to get the support they need it is going to be a bigger challenge when you engage with the customer. It is important to recognize that when you move your service closer to the customer so they don't have to make as much of an effort as they would have, this is going to have a positive impact on the company, for example, one of the best ways to decrease missed appointments is to increase the ways customers can get in contact with the company. When you start to bring your service closer to the customers, you are in one respect making life easier for them, but you also can make things easier to help them take care of their own needs. For example, you could incorporate more FAQs and other means of support so they can become more self-sufficient.
Incorporate More Methods of Communication
While it is a crass address to mention that customers only use telephones to get in contact with the business, there are so many different ways that you need to incorporate to ensure that your customers can reach you in the way that they are comfortable with. These days more customers are comfortable with using live chat rather than using telephones and this is pivotal to ensuring that your business can get a more effective outcome for the customer. But it is crucial to remember that you can't just focus on one aspect of communication, but you've got to make sure that every single component is easily usable and accessible. Live chat is one of those great examples because of the accessibility, but it can also get a solution very quickly. When you incorporate a wide variety of communication methods, it benefits the customer, but it also proves invaluable for the people within your business. For example, customer service agents that spend more time on the telephone can find themselves on the receiving end of a lot of verbal complaints which can lead to workplace burnout and anxiety. When a customer service agent is using live chat or text message, there is a barrier of sorts between them and the customer which means that they can have a bit more breathing space, which can result in them having less workplace anxiety.
Locate Your “Super Users”
This can be invaluable to any business. A super user is the type of customer who can understand the systems and services you are offering but is also key to how you develop great customer service. When you start to create super users within your business, they will be invaluable as an asset on your side, but it is important to recognize and then incorporate them into the business so they can participate in a wide variety of practices. These are hard to locate, but the super user is the type of customer that you need to keep, no matter what. However, it is important to remember that super users need to be recognized for what they have brought to the company. This is where a solid reward system is great for them and can encourage more engagement.
Provide More Skills Training
If you need to improve productivity you need to improve skill sets across the board. Many customer service agents feel that they have to embody a battle-ready mindset in order to get through the day. When customer service agents are speaking over the telephone, they will endeavor to find themselves on the receiving end of verbal abuse. And this shouldn't be par for the course in terms of a call center or any customer service environment. And this means that many customer service agents have to learn how to deal with conflict. While there are some people who are able to deal with the rigors of workplace and customer conflicts, we shouldn't fire the people exclusively because everybody is human and are prone to burning out. And this is why we need to give our employees a variety of skills so they can deal with conflict in a customer service setting. Many employees feel that they are not giving their dues because of the nature of working in customer service. The cliches are abundant, they are underpaid, they don't have enough training, and this means that they will feel they are not able to deal with the job and this will result in higher turnover.
Improving the customer service experience is an inside-out process. In order to do it effectively, you've got to make sure that you have people ready to deal with the environment, but this also means that you need to have everything in place to make sure that your customers have the satisfactory outcome they need. It is not an easy thing, however, it is achievable.