Many organisations talk about providing good or even great customer service, yet for many this is often just pure rhetoric or ‘marketing speak’ to lure the customer into a false sense of security. We’ve all experienced those types of businesses and seen the copy on their website that reads: “100% Customer Delight Guaranteed!” But as many customer service managers will know it takes more than a few slick words to truly deliver outstanding customer service.

1. Be Ready
It’s important that your customer services team is ready answer and deal with every possible enquiry, ranging from the simple: “How do I return a faulty product” to “You’ve double billed me for my purchase, I’m not happy!” In order for that to happen they need to be equipped with right skills and knowledge. It’s a bit of ‘no-brainer’ but many companies under estimate the importance of running regular training sessions for their customer service professionals. It’s also a good idea to run through common challenging scenarios using role playing techniques. Good quality training manuals and e-learning material can also make a big difference in helping your team stay on top of their game.

2. Be Reliable
Reliability is key to providing outstanding customer service. It’s no good if a customer makes contact with you one week and receives a warm welcome and great customer care, but then phones up again a week later to experience the complete opposite. You need to be consistent and delivering high levels of consistently good customer service will lead to more happy customers and high customer retention levels.

3. Be Responsible
Companies that deliver outstanding customer care have a common theme running through them. Individuals within their customer services team take responsibility for their actions. They take ownership of a particular problem they may be faced with and look to solve that problem for the customer. Too many companies are content with letting the customer be ‘passed from pillar to post’ - i.e. no one individual takes responsibility for ensuring the customer is handled with care and treated with respect. However, if your call centre is set-up so that the customer does not get to deal with the same individual each time they call, then make sure that up-to-date customer records are stored on your system so that the next person to handle the call can ‘get up to speed’ quickly. There is nothing more frustrating for the customer than having to repeat their story over and over again.

4. Be Reassuring
Customers need to feel confident that you are going to put their interests at the centre of everything you do. If a customer has had a bad experience with your company, then you will need to restore their confidence and relieve anxiety. If you don’t then they’ll probably walk away, and will often do so without providing you with any feedback. But you need physically to demonstrate that you are going to do what you are promising - so doing simple things like following up a phone conversation with an email summarising your conversation and what your next steps will be can make a big difference in building back up the customer’s confidence in your company.

5. Be Rewarding
Don’t take your customers for granted. Reward your customers for their loyalty, that way they’ll feel like you do actually care about them and value their business. The reward can be something simple like a 15% discount voucher sent with a ‘thank-you’ letter. The thing is if you’re customer sees that you’re thinking and caring about them then they’re more likely to think positively about your business and refer you to friends and colleagues. It’s also important that you ‘reward’ your customers for any mistakes that might have made. If their order got damaged during shipping, apologise and offer to send out a new one straight away using ‘express delivery’ before you get the damaged one back. If you show that you trust your customers then they’ll respect that and they’ll feel more valued. I know it’s a cliche but in the customer service game, it really does help if ‘you go the extra mile!’

Paul Jordan is Relationship Marketing
Manager for Jobs in Customer Service - a niche job
board for customer service
jobs, contact and call centre vacancies.
http://www.jobsincustomerservice.co.uk

[tags]customer service[/tags]