How to achieve Excellence in Customer Service
Customers are the primary stakeholders of a company and provide the foundation for its success. If a company wants the wheel of its profitability and growth to keep rolling, then it needs to focus on Customer Service, which is one of the most important cogs in the wheel.
To achieve excellence in customer service an enterprise first need to understand that each of its customers is an individual who likes to be valued, treated fairly, and appreciated for the loyalty towards the company. Apparently, it needs to be conveyed during every interaction between a company and its customers. Due to constant innovation in the mode and type of communication channels, the ways customers interact with a company has undergone a discernible change. Traditionally, the focus was on engagement and most communication was based on the marketing strategy. This has transformed, and the focus is now on service. Businesses are looking out for innovative ways to address the needs of the customers and respond to their queries. Discussed below are some of the ways a company can boost the quality of its customer service and exceed the expectations of the customers.
Direct Communication
The growth of social media applications, which allow consumers to interact with the brands directly, has led the brands to think in terms of Point of Service. When brands are able to communicate directly with their target audience, they understand their specific needs in a much better way. Brands can more efficiently manage the wait times and cater to the specific demands of their potential customers while keeping the communication much more personalized.
Real-time Service
Most of the modern brands have already started to use the live video features offered by various Social media channels to provide live content to their customers. This is one of the inventive ways through which customers can reach out to the brands and post comments or questions. This has prompted the companies to have customer service represented in their live events. Through this, companies can make sure the consumers are receiving the answers to their questions instantly.
Omni-Channel Interaction
Most companies are motivated by the idea of being proactive, which is to be able to predict the different types of issues a customer could face and be ready with solutions.
Using advanced technology currently, it is now possible for brands to tackle each customer’s issue individually and provide a personalized solution. By blending the data from various online channels like social media with and offline modes like the point of sale interactions, brands can develop a more in-depth perspective of their customer behavior. This data can then be utilized by traditional CRM systems to derive useful insights on preferences.
Continual Support
Most customers believe that companies must be open to addressing their issues whenever they approach them. Even if very few of the customers would end up calling for support at odd times of the day, the mere notion that the company is always there to help them gives the customers a sense of reassurance. Brands that do not have 24/7 support are assumed as ‘not so customer-friendly’ by the consumers, and their creditability is always lesser when compared to their competitors who offer round the clock support.
Inbound Marketing
Most consumers are influenced by the products or services about which they have heard positively from their friends. They are also biased if they have read something positive about them online, and here is where Content marketing can make a significant difference when it comes delivering better customer service and also increasing the retentions.
Brands can reach out to a broader audience and can remain on top of their minds, which can play a vital role in building emotional value for the brand. When consumers are regularly updated with the facts on how a product can add value to them, they will begin to have an emotional-connect with it. The exercise can also improve the engagement, and brands must focus on responding to the queries initiated by the audience.
Also, creating an efficient system for customers to give feedback will make the brands more accessible. These opinions and responses can then be integrated into the CRM to be accessed by customer service personnel deliver a more holistic consumer experience.
By utilizing the technology to empower customer with more choices and focusing on interactive methods of communication, brands are now geared up to deliver the core customer services like never before. By letting the customer know them better and trading their knowledge with the customers, modern brands are using these innovative methods to deliver proactive customer service to next-generation customers.