90% of Americans admit that customer service is an important factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company. For both B2C and B2B sectors, the customer support team has a crucial role in delivering an outstanding service. Interacting with customers can be challenging, so it is worth having a set of rules that can help your team to make their interlocutors feel appreciated.
Read on to find out what aspect you should always keep in mind while providing customer support.
Personalise communication
Personalisation should go beyond calling your interlocutors by their names. Nowadays, new technologies give companies a lot of opportunities to learn more about their customers. Make the most of the information that your organization gathers. Integrate your customer service channels & business communication software to have essential data at your fingertips.
Take CloudTalk, as an example. It’s a powerful cloud-based phone system that can be integrated with plenty of tools that your customer support team needs to work effectively. This way, CS agents can take a look at the history of interactions with a given customer, check previous purchases and issues, and provide personalised and relevant service.
Communicate in a clear way
Try to be polite – but at the same time, go straight to the point. Do not confuse customers by using complicated corporate jargon. The point of your conversation is always delivering solutions to customers. You can not help your clients if they don’t understand what do you mean or what exactly they should do in response. Give simple instructions and try to avoid passive voice.
Speak your customers’ language
Brands should always use the language that’s tailored to their customers, whether in marketing messages, live chat and phone conversations. If you want to make a connection with customers, build stronger relationships and simply make them feel good during the interaction – use your customers’ language. Avoid technical jargon, acronyms, and everything that can confuse your clients.
Be friendly
Being professional doesn’t mean not being friendly. Don’t be afraid of being polite and simply more human. Treat customers like your family – show respect and be empathetic. You may have a bad day, but customers can also face some personal issues. Therefore, try to change every conversation about problems into a friendly chat, that will also result in a solution. Pay extra attention to your tone, it can be as significant as the content of a conversation.
Never argue with customers
We know it can sometimes be challenging, but it is one of the most significant rules. Try to put yourself in the customers’ shoes and understand their perspective. Remain calm and don’t raise your voice under any circumstances (yes, even if a caller does!).
It’s also worth having a set of documents prepared for such situations when you have to justify your statements. Sometimes customers may not be aware of some rules. Sending an easy-to-read document can help you make your point. If a customer is still not satisfied and argues with an agent, it’s time to take special care of the caller and maybe even involve the manager in the conversation.
Use positive language
Negative language can be confusing and cause misunderstanding. To avoid that and make the communication more transparent and understandable, you should switch to using positive language. Instead of using a negation, simply create positive statements. Imagine you can not resolve a given issue until next week. Instead of highlighting what you are not able to do, inform that you will deliver a solution next week. Sounds much better already, right?
Use automation when it is helpful
Automated answers can be extremely beneficial for customer service teams. For example, chatbots can answer repetitive questions and save a lot of time and energy of your agents, that can be spent on more challenging tasks. Nevertheless, automation has limitations. Bots can not answer every question and resolve every issue. While automating some processes remember, to give customers an option to contact a human agent.
Try to avoid causing customer frustration
While contacting your team, customers are probably already at least irritated, and maybe even annoyed by the issues they are facing. Do not cumulate the frustration. If you notice that a customer is emotional about the issue, pay extra attention to your tone and words not to cause any harm. Highlight that you are doing everything you can to fix a problem as fast as possible and mean it. Do not put on hold or redirect callers without their consent. Make sure your bots and Interactive Voice Response menu are well designed to help customers and redirect them to the most suitable agent.
It is ok to say that you don’t know
While talking to a customer, you are allowed to say that you do not have the solution yet. The crucial thing is to assure your interlocutor that you will find the best way to fix a problem. Inform that you will contact again to give more details once you figure out how to resolve an issue – and actually hold on to that promise.
Do not stick to the script at all costs
You can’t always predict how customers will react to your advice and how you should always lead the conversation. Sometimes they can ask extraordinary questions or simply not follow your script. In such cases, you are definitely allowed to improvise. Of course, scripts should be as predictive as possible, and provide a customer-facing team with guidelines and helpful information. But there is always room for improvement.
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