People really only want a few things from any business. 1. A quality product 2. Good service 3. Everything easy and fast.
Not too much to ask right?
It’s easy enough to say, the doing is another problem.
As hard a pill as that is to swallow at times we have to face the facts —-> It’s our problem. Not theirs.
Why Bother With Customer Service? The one change in mindset that will bring it all together.
Short and simple, because we want them to stay our customers. ***We need them MORE than they need us.***
The reigning cry of all customers everywhere :
What do we want? Service!
When do we want it? Right Now!
And we should be giving it to them. Owning or running a business is hard stuff. It doesn’t matter what kind of business it is or how small or large it is. Customers are rewarding us with their money for our services.
That’s it! That’s the whole thing, they are rewarding us with their time, money, word of mouth and future business.
7 Customer Service Skills You Need To Successfully Engage With Your Customers
- Acknowledge the issue: Let the customer know that you hear them and are working on fixing it for them. This is a good way to give yourself a little bit of time to accomplish whatever task you need do to help them. Many times a quick and dirty I see your issue and we are working on it email works well.
- DO NOT make excuses: I cannot stress this enough. If you’ve ever gotten a response from an organization with an excuse you know what I mean. “We’re a small volunteer group”, “I’m a busy mom of 3” etc… These are things that may be true, but they are our problems, not the customers. There is a time and place for an origin story. Maybe a newsletter or even as a tag line at the bottom of each email response, but the summary of the service message should be solely on their issue and how you are going about fixing it.
- Find a way/ Be resourceful: That’s our whole job in a nutshell. To find a way to fix their issue. Sometimes that means doing things that are not in our job description. Other times that means finding someone with the qualifying job description and being the in-between person to get the customer where they need to be. *Pro Tip- YouTube is an amazing resource. I have found most of the answers to my customer service issues through YouTube video tutorials. Odds are, someone out there on the planet has already fixed the issue and has made a video for it. I swear it’s better than Google for getting useful info on problem solving.
- Be polite/ professional: OR at least as professional as you can be. You’d think this would be a DUH line item, but it’s not. The smaller the company, the more you can get away with letting your personality shine through, but large corporations really frown upon it. Either way, being polite will get you really far in the customer service game. Many times the first line of business is to de-escalate a situation. This will not happen if the customer thinks you’re getting on them for having the issue in the first place. Even if it is something that is their fault, don’t tell them that!! Take it back to skill #1 and acknowledge their issue and then follow it up with something helpful like, “Let’s work together on this…” or something similar that lets them know you’re on their team. That brings me to the next one…
- Be on their side: Nothing turns off a customer more than feeling like you are looking out for company before them. Basically we are in the business of being on both sides but they need to feel like we are on theirs more. Of course you can’t do something that screws over your own business, but the customer is the be-all-end-all of the service game so we have to be there for them. Make it obvious you have their interest in the forefront.
- Ask if you can help with anything else: Many times the customer gets so focused on the one issue you are working on that they forget about the other issues they may have. This leads to frustration with the company because of having to come back again to finish correcting their problems. This one question is a proactive technique to prevent that from happening. Which leads to a happier client, a happier experience for both, and hopefully a better long term business relationship. ***This one is going to be really hard sometimes. Especially on those service calls that are with a tough nut client. Just trust me that it is worth it in the end.***
- Keep a talk sheet ready/prompts: This right here can be a HUGE time saver. Keep a list of common responses, helpful numbers, links and pics at the ready. If you use gmail you can save canned responses right on your email that will auto-populate the response forms. On any PC/laptop/phone/tablet you can set up shortcuts, which are super helpful for long responses on multiple platforms. For example, the canned response only works for Gmail, but a shortcut is set on your main computer so it will fill in anything as long as you type in the correct sequence,, saving you lots of time and effort in the long run. Another trick is to save things to a Word document to copy and paste from. ***This is the most used skill in my repertoire. I use it every single day! Just try it.***
What Happens If You Cannot Help The Client?
As much as this stinks, sometimes it’s the reality. Not all problems can be fixed.
When you run into this issue, typically the best you can hope for is that a refund or credit will keep them happy. Because again, happy customers are repeat customers.
Sometimes you CAN fix the problem but they don’t want it anymore because of the hassle. Even when this happens, as CS reps we have to make sure they feel good about this decision. This keeps the door open that they’ll be back in the future.
The customer service game is no fun sometimes but it’s necessary to keep any business open which makes you one of the most important people for a brand. So go out there and CS the crap out of it.
North Carolina, USA