9 Best Practices for Great Customer Service

Customers are getting smarter every day. They’re doing their research before buying any product. Your empty vows won’t work nowadays. Does this change alarm you? 

Because of technological advancements, customers are getting accustomed to constant innovations. Their expectations are changing. That’s why to keep up with customers’ pace, you need to evolve as well. 

And, great customer service according to your customers’ expectations is the only way out. 

In this blog, we present you with the best practices that make your customer service great and help you keep up with customers’ expectations. 

Let’s start!

Customer expectations are rapidly evolving

80% of customers say a company’s experience is as important as its products and services. This has become challenging as the innovation competition is rising. Things like automation, and personalization have become the focus. Hence, companies nowadays are fighting more on futuristic approaches to provide effective customer experience.

Adapting to customer expectations is crucial. It’s not an easy task. Many things have been added to the list that your customers now care about. Priorities and decision-making criteria of customers are also getting new dimensions. As a result, the ways to provide customer service are also a part of the shift.

Customer service is changing

The changes customer service is going through are numerous. The post-covid era as well as the revolution of AI have been the key drivers of the changes. Furthermore, customers getting used to those advancements are also making the competition fierce. 

The combination of humans and technology is the fundamental piece of this new era. Also, customers now care about strong connections, company values, and its goals. As a result, customer service now focuses more on: 

• Personalization
• Defining the company’s value
• Understanding the customer’s POV
• Omnichannel support
• Innovation
• Creativity

Learn how to improve customer service with a proper action plan.

Challenges for small business customer service

Talking about changes is easy but might require a lot of resources. Businesses big or small, both have to go through a process of adaptation. However, small businesses often suffer more when the market goes through a shift. Because of their limited resources, the adaptation isn’t smooth for them. In the case of automation tools, they require a good amount of budget, and it’s a question if small businesses can afford it. 

The limited workforce is also an issue in this case. However, small businesses can overcome the challenges if they know their priorities and spend accordingly. The mindset of adaptation is also important in the process. That’s why small businesses should be ready to follow the best practices to keep their customer service up to the mark.

The 9 best practices for great customer service

Greatness comes from consistency. If you’re ready to stay consistent with your service, eventually you’ll evolve. Coping with sudden changes becomes easier if you’re consistent toward your goal. 

Here are the 9 best practices that make your customer service consistent, great, and future-proof.

1. The first touch matters

Have you observed that things are speeding up faster than ever? People are now eager to get their issues resolved as soon as possible. No one is ready to wait for days. If your service isn’t immediate, then you’re losing your customers for sure.

Quick and efficient resolve is what your customers want. Whenever they come up with an issue, make the first interaction as soon as possible even if you have any prompt solution. The first contact resolution (FCR) is important. It creates a good impression and is needed for the overall customer service procedure.

Things to do to maintain first contact resolution (FCR):

• Find the delayed responses, and analyze the reasons for delay. Search for what went wrong. 
• From the above data, gather a number of solutions you can offer in the future. Keep collecting data to improve your solutions.
• Make sure your team knows your product better than anyone else. Run training programs.
• To improve FCR, necessary equipment and technologies are needed. This investment has great ROI. Provide your team with proper customer support technologies for seamless service.

If your resources are limited, choose the proper equipment with a competitive price, and allocate your budget according to the priorities. With accessible customer data, customer service becomes seamless.

2. Let them help themselves

If your customer needs to reach you even for the simplest issues, then it’d feel overwhelming. You need to educate your customers to solve most of the problems themselves. They also don’t want to keep finding you and spend their time after just one little problem. 

Educating the customer can be very helpful for building a loyal customer base. Also, your loads of customer service get lighter. When they can do it themselves, they won’t have to wait for your responses.

In fact, over 67% of customers prefer using a form of self-service rather than talking to a customer service representative. 

The process of education can be very simple yet you need to put a lot of effort for proper results. Things you need to do that can create a knowledgeable customer base: 

• Outline the instructions in easy words. Keep the tone friendly so that they don’t feel any pressure while learning.
• Break the long processes down into easy steps, and avoid jargon.
• Do proper research about what your customers are really struggling with. If they can potentially do it themselves with proper guidance, be the guide. 
• Create helpful content according to customer preferences. Run surveys and get to know which type of content they want. Understand whether they like blogs or videos, longer blogs or only an answer paragraph, detailed videos, or shorts.

Creating helpful DIY guides can improve customer satisfaction. Because customers don’t want to stay dependent on you for every single issue. They’re happy if they can solve it themselves in a few minutes with a little effort.

3. Be creative

Don’t make your customer service team script-dependent. By saying this we don’t mean that you can’t provide them scripts or prompt solutions. What we mean is to avoid generic approaches for every single problem. There will be issues that aren’t on the scripts. Give freedom to your customer service agents to handle those in their own way. 

Being creative isn’t something that you train. Necessary encouragement can help a lot. You can:

• Keep track of issues or customer questions that aren’t generic. Try to find different approaches to answers.
• Provide unique compensation that can surprise your customers.
• Motivate your agents to think outside the box.
• Train them to adapt to unexpected scenarios. 

A creative approach to a problem can be very useful for the brand image. Indeed, it won’t always work. But it’s a worthwhile gamble to go outside the box and serve your customers. It creates a chance to exceed your customers’ expectations.

4. The proper hiring

Hiring perfect service agents is a tough task. Finding the people with the proper mentality of service can be a hassle. But you have to invest in it to build a responsible customer service team. For proper hiring, focus on: 

• Empathetic people, who are eager to serve even the angriest customers.
• People who can stay calm in any situation.
• People who can collaborate with the team easily.
• People who are eager to learn new things.
• Flexibility holds a huge place in customer service, hire agents who are flexible in any situation.

With proper hiring, you can build a team that can connect deeply with your customers.

5. Keep employees happy

Your employees are also your assets. They are the engine of your business. Every successful business consists of happy employees. To keep your employees content is simple. You need to:

• Provide proper wages, bonuses, and facilities.
• Avoid any form of discrimination.
• Don’t show biases towards any employee,
• Be empathetic to your employees as well. 
• Appreciate them for their service.

Happy employees are the most productive ones. Keeping your employees happy should be one of your priorities.

6. Preach learning new things

Learning should be an ongoing process in your company. If anything new comes up i.e. new trends, your teams should stay up to date. The culture of learning should be preached and appreciated. Meanwhile, you need to: 

• Encourage learning new things. Let them invest their office time in learning when needed.
• Research is a part of learning. Spend on researching on what are the new things they can learn.
• The process of learning might be boring, make it enjoyable for employees if possible.
• Appreciate the efforts and reward the employees.

A good learning culture can boost your company’s earnings in the long run. It also ensures that you stay relevant in the competition.

7. Review your representatives

Unless you get feedback about your customer service representatives you can’t improve. Customers’ feedback about your representatives can help you in the process. With a feedback loop, you can understand the arising issues of your services. You should be aware of: 

• Don’t be too biased to any customer’s review. Analyze the situation yourself. 
• Being harsh against a representative because of a bad review won’t help. Try to understand their lackings and help them grow.
• Reward the representative with good reviews to encourage. 

By analyzing and working on the reviews, you can strengthen your customer service team. It also creates greater opportunities for the team to grow. 

8. Gather data, and personalize 

Data is your best friend. With proper data, you can do wonders. But you need to utilize the data properly. Customers’ data can be used to personalize their experience. 

Every interaction needs to be personalized, even though later aspects of the customer journey.

Dany Tomsett, CEO and founder, UneeQ Digital Humans

When handling a large amount of personal data, you also need to ensure data security. In the process, any data breach can destroy your image. 

The suggestions for personalization can be: 

• Run surveys to gather customer data.
• Use the necessary tools and relevant people to analyze the data. 
• Effectively tailor the personalized experience according to the customer’s needs.

Personalization can be a key to small businesses’ success. As they can create stronger connections and personalizations.

9. Foster a customer-centric culture

Your customer service needs to preach and prove that they care about the customers. Your business should follow a customer-centric culture. If not fully but partially it needs to show they prioritize their customers. Within the business, you can: 

• Train your teams to serve their customers with everything they have. 
• Actively listen to customers’ needs. 
• Take prompt action towards customers’ issues.
• Make necessary changes according to your customers’ demand in case of customer service. 
• Value your customers’ feedback. 
• Be proactive towards your customers.

Fostering a customer-centric culture in your business or customer service shows your customers that you care. This helps you to create brand advocates for your business. 

Wrap up

Customer service is a daily task and needs to be consistent. Over time customers expect great things from you and it’s your liability to do so. With improving customer service your business acquires a good image as well as profit. 

Spending for the betterment of customer service has great ROI. The way of service is changing. To keep up provide necessary tools, train your team, and see the results. 

Share the blog if you find it helpful. Let us know what best practices of customer service you have been following in your business in the comments below.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• WordPress
• Twitter
• YouTube