Between Oct. 3 and 7, the U.S. will celebrate Customer Service Week. This is a great time to take a look at your customer service policies, strategies and performances and identify areas in need of improvement. Competition is tough in so many of the markets these days and only companies that have the strongest brand images and best customer experiences will excel. Luckily, there is an ever-expanding universe of tips, tools and technologies that can help businesses bring their customer service frameworks into more optimal positions.
Let's take a look at what constitutes exceptional customer service and how you can bolster your performance in this area.
Get the basics right
Small Business Trends, a website dedicated to news related to the entrepreneurial community, recently offered some tips to companies regarding the essential and core characteristics of strong customer service. First, businesses will need to have a clear understanding of their customers' preferences, demands and expectations before establishing a strategy to offer perfect service. Should firms not have that knowledge, the chances of crafting the right policies will be inherently lower.
Once that knowledge is in play, the next step is to ensure customer service is being handled proactively, with representatives striving to give customers the best possible experiences at all times. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on personalization, ensuring each call or message is tailored in such a way that accounts for that specific customer's behaviors and persona. Small Business Trends argued more advanced technologies, specifically those related to information management and accessibility for representatives, will play a major role in these endeavors as well.
Finally, SBT urged businesses to gather as much feedback as possible from their customers, and then adjust their policies and strategies as more information becomes available. With those basics taken care of, you will want to focus on stepping into the modern era of customer relationship management.
Embrace modern trends
Here are a few of the newer and more exciting movements in customer service that, if you take advantage of them, can help to bolster experiences among your clientele:
Let's take a look at what constitutes exceptional customer service and how you can bolster your performance in this area.
Get the basics right
Small Business Trends, a website dedicated to news related to the entrepreneurial community, recently offered some tips to companies regarding the essential and core characteristics of strong customer service. First, businesses will need to have a clear understanding of their customers' preferences, demands and expectations before establishing a strategy to offer perfect service. Should firms not have that knowledge, the chances of crafting the right policies will be inherently lower.
Once that knowledge is in play, the next step is to ensure customer service is being handled proactively, with representatives striving to give customers the best possible experiences at all times. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on personalization, ensuring each call or message is tailored in such a way that accounts for that specific customer's behaviors and persona. Small Business Trends argued more advanced technologies, specifically those related to information management and accessibility for representatives, will play a major role in these endeavors as well.
Finally, SBT urged businesses to gather as much feedback as possible from their customers, and then adjust their policies and strategies as more information becomes available. With those basics taken care of, you will want to focus on stepping into the modern era of customer relationship management.
Embrace modern trends
Here are a few of the newer and more exciting movements in customer service that, if you take advantage of them, can help to bolster experiences among your clientele:
- Advanced devices: TELUS International, a customer service solution vendor, argued the Internet of Things will play a major role in customer relationship management soon. Make sure your customer service strategies account for the more diverse range of devices consumers leverage to interact with your business. This could include responsive web design for self-service portals, as well as mobile device management software.
- Authenticity: Forbes, a major business publication, asserted genuine interactions are more preferable among today's consumers than scripted ones. As such, teach representatives how to think on the fly and provide exceptional service without heavily structured rules.
- Social media: Many companies use social media for customer service purposes. Make sure you remain up-to-date in these pursuits. For example, Twitter just released new tools to help boost customer service performance among business users, TechCrunch - a technology publication - reported.
