How to Improve Your Customer Service: Here's How
Nearly every business dreams of finding the key to success. Experts in the field tell us the answer may be right in front of us.
The vast majority of businesses—if not all of them—dream of finding the key, but for experts in the field the answer may lie in the palm of their hand and in what comes out of their mouths. After all, many leaders agree that bad service is the killer of many companies and businesses.
In earlier articles we talked about how it’s like a movie: if the movie is bad and you haven’t seen it, you can be swayed by other people’s comments; and if the movie is good, you’ll do everything you can to go see it and buy yourself a combo of popcorn.
Read: How do I measure my employees’ performance
So there’s no exact rule to guarantee success, but you can measure the improvement and evolution of your service and how customers respond. Remember that first impressions are what count; customers usually don’t give a second chance after a bad experience at your business.
For many young entrepreneurs it’s hard to stay on this path, since they tend to get lost along the way, but here are some tips you can keep in mind in case you’re one of them or simply need this kind of information.
Read: How to measure your service
You should start by hiring people who are willing to deliver excellent customer service. Make sure you know and clearly communicate exactly what you mean by good customer service.
Listen to your customers and your employees—they’re a key part of improving your weak spots. This means listening to them personally, understanding them, and responding to their changing needs and expectations.
Read: What to do with a dissatisfied customer
As a rule, highly successful companies invest in their people, because they’re your calling card. By putting part of your revenue into training them, you’ll be building an army of great service providers, and your customers will love it.
It’s very important that they have access to technology, competitive tools, and an understanding of customer demands, so you don’t give them any reason to leave for the competition next door.
Read: What continuous improvement is for
The reality of service is pretty tough.
- Train them to listen carefully and with genuine interest to what the customer has to say. Put yourself in their shoes.
- Train them to apologize without blaming anyone.
- Train them to ask questions in a caring way and actively listen to the customer’s answers.
- Train them to solve the problem or find someone who can.
- Train them to suggest one or more alternatives to address the customer’s concerns.
And as we’ve already mentioned, by human nature people like to do things almost to perfection, so you need to find a way to motivate them to give their best—that way they’ll deliver good results for you. Carrying out constant evaluations and/or service perception studies helps too. Take care of your employees so they take care of your customers.
For any employee, the best incentive is recognizing their work and giving them something good in return. As a leader, you’ll know the right way to recognize it. That recognition should come with good constructive feedback, while also showing the other employees that they too can improve and earn recognition.