5 Best Practices for Delivering Unparalleled Customer Service

No matter what kind of product or service you are selling, you need to provide customer support. It might be calls for repair or replacement, a complaint email, questions on Facebook messenger, or just praise or requests via your website’s comment form.

How do you manage customer service? Do you have established procedures in place, and a plan for any eventuality? Are your employees prepared to manage – to the customer’s satisfaction and yours – any and all customer issues they may face?

A recent study indicated that as many as 90 percent of people decide whether to remain loyal to a company based on their customer service experience, and almost 70 percent said they would jump ship without much thought if they did not get the service they felt they deserved – that’s why customer service has always been so important.

But now, because we are all so plugged in and connected these days, customer satisfaction and relationships have never meant quite so much or had such far-reaching effects. In this viral era, the impact of a positive mention on Tik Tok or someone posting on Facebook about a bad experience can be absolutely enormous.

At Strategic HR Consultants, we are experts in helping our clients offer high-quality customer support. Here are our top five best practices for delivering unparalleled customer service:

Don’t just listen – actually hear what your customer is saying

Nothing cools the fire under an angry customer faster than a customer service representative who says, “I am sorry you had a subpar experience. Tell me all about it so we can make it right.” This lets them know you genuinely care about underdelivering on their initial expectations and will work with them on a mutually agreeable resolution.

Get it right the first time

Your customer’s time is valuable, and they do not want to wait on hold, be passed around from department to department, must call back another time, or wait for a resolution. Try to manage their concern during first contact, and it will go a long way toward keeping them happy.

Streamline your customer service process to reduce wait times, leverage technology to make it easier for customers and service agents to connect quickly and easily, and provide self-service options if possible. Authorize representatives to make simple decisions without having to put customers on hold and check with a supervisor.

Give employees the tools and training they need

Another thing that is vital to delivering prompt, yet top-notch customer service is having prepared personnel.

Empower your customer service staff to be helpful, respectful, and calm. Train them on the products or services, and set and enforce standards and protocols so they can offer consistently high-quality customer service to every customer, every time. Teach them to manage any situation and reward them for a job well done. Happy customer service representatives provide the best customer service!

Related: 5 Lessons From Lockdown: The Future of Customer Care

Understand and manage your customer’s expectations

Because your employees are really listening to the customer, they can develop an idea of the customer’s concern and how it can be resolved. When a company does everything within its power to make something right, when they go above and beyond to exceed a customer’s expectations, the customer is more likely to remain a customer, and tell others about their experience.

That said, you may not always be able to meet all a customer’s demands. What can you do then?

A follow-up to ensure the customer is satisfied

Reach out afterward to thank your customer for giving you the opportunity to resolve the issue and ask about their experience. Ask if there is anything that could have been managed another way, or if they were expecting a different outcome. This gives them an additional opportunity to be heard and provides you with useful information for your customer service procedures.

Studies show that following up is a great way to continue fostering customer loyalty and set your business apart from others.

The companies with the best customer service not only retain customers but also give their customers a delightful story to share with others. Free advertising!

You probably realize this is not a comprehensive list. Even if you do everything we talked about here, and do it great, it still may not be enough to satisfy customers and deliver the best service. That’s okay! This is a good place to start.

Beverly Hathorn, PHR, PMP, has over 25 years of combined HR/Labor Relations and Customer Service Management experience in unionized organizations. She is a DiSC® Certified Practitioner, Facilitator, and Authorized Partner. For more information, visit Strategic HR Consultants. Beverly can be reached at linkedin.com/in/beverlyhathorn.