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7 tips for better customer service (and customer loyalty)
13-May-2010
This growth tip was inspired by an article in Fast Company magazine, written by the author of the book:
Exceptional Service - Exceptional Profit.
First (and last)
impressions matter
Research shows that customers remember the first and last moments of their
interactions with you more vividly than the rest of it. Make sure the
first and last elements of your customer interactions are a well-engineered,
well documented process that all your team follow - because they are going to
stick in the customer's memory.
People want to deal with
people – not machines
Seriously, how many people are you annoying with your automated voice answering
system? Allow your customers to connect with a real person – whether they
are phoning you, or asking for help from your website. A lack of
visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of
personal, human-to-human connection. A real person answering the phone,
or responding with an IM chat message on the help screen of your website
creates a great first impression.
Are you making the most
of your CRM?
Have you effectively captured your communication history with each customer,
their contact details, roles, goals, and preferences? Do you make
this information easy to collect, or do you require people to fill out
laborious forms? Is this information up to date and readily available to
anyone in your company who may be dealing with that customer? It is vital
that you make your customers feel remembered, cared for, and important in all
your interactions with them.
Check your language
Don't leave the language your team uses up to chance. Swearing,
colloquial language, and jokey terms may be fine with your friends – but this
is business. Develop and rehearse phrases that fit your brand perfectly
and ban the ones that don't. The expression "no worries!"
may sound fine coming from the corner store, but would sound seriously
"off" coming from a professional service firm.
Customer service is a
hard job
Finding and keeping the right staff for customer-facing roles is a key to
customer excellence. Not all people are wired to deal with customers
effectively. Hire for behavioral profiles, rather than for specific
skills (which can be taught). You want to fill such roles with people who
are naturally good listeners, empathetic, optimistic, and who genuinely enjoy
helping people.
Real time is all there
is
Modern customers expect companies to respond to their issues fast. In
this age of smartphones and social media you need to make it easy for people to
communicate with you on their platform of choice – be vigilantly monitoring
online conversations about your brand - and be able to respond to them in real
time.
Anticipate their needs
When you proactively meet their unexpressed needs, it conveys the message that
you are paying attention to them and that you care about the customer as an
individual. That cared-for feeling is where you generate brand advocates
who will spread positive word of mouth conversations about your brand.
What are you going to do to pro-actively meet a customer’s unexpressed need
today?
Stephen Lynch
Chief Operating Officer - Global Operations
RESULTS.com
know they're appreciated. It's the BEST way to ensure customer loyalty and guaranteed referrals.
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At your weekly management meeting (you do have one don't you?) - share the latest Growth Tip with your team and ask the question: "How can we apply this information in our business?"
Commit to taking some form of action. You will be glad you did.
I found your post through twitter.
I'm a little biased but I think the last step in any customer transactions should be a customer follow-up. As you stated in your first paragraph, LAST impressions matter.
Ryan Williams
http://www.FrequentFollowups.com