10 Cast Iron Customer Service Tips

Providing great customer service is essential for any business, from the local high street shop all the way up to the largest multinational corporations. Customer service however is not about simply providing countless sales and promotions; it is about building relationships, strengthening your reputation and ultimately achieving a healthy bottom line. But how do you build these relationships? Here are ten practical tips on how you can deliver the service your customers demand.

1. 1. Give your customers a exceptional experience
   Ultimately, your customers want two things. The first is for you to meet a need that they have. The second is to meet this need whilst delivering an exceptional experience.
2. 2. Keep your word and over-deliver
   Only promise what you can deliver and do everything you can to keep that promise. Broken promises breed distrust, so keeping your promises helps to build loyal relationships with your customers.
3. 3. Apologise when a customer complains
   The first step of resolving an issue is to always apologise to your customers if the company has made a mistake. Then try and ask them if they have accepted your apology so that you can go forward and find a solution.
4. 4. Treat customers as individuals
   Every customer wants to feel as if they are being treated like they’re the only customer in the world. Treat your customer as an individual, don’t generalise because of the limitations of your processes, at the front line, personal service is essential.
5. 5. Give them that WOW Factor
   Do something to wow your customers, something out of the ordinary. For example, keeping your contact centre lines open 24/7 so your customers can contact you at the time most convenient to them.
6. 6. Make them feel secure
   If you can prove that you can deal with queries quickly and efficiently, showing that they will always encounter a good helpful member of staff, your customer will feel more secure with keeping their business in your hands.
7. 7. Never ever say No
   Never say No to a customer. Use language wisely, for example you could instead say that the request is outside of your service and that you will try your best to find the right person to fulfil the request.
8. 8. Listen to your customers
   Nobody likes being ignored and customers who do not feel like they are being heard will go elsewhere even if your product or service is best. Subsequently, you can try to take on board their comments and work them into your service, at the very least, make them feel like they are being listened to.
9. 9. Pay attention to the little things
   In the day to day delivery of customer service it is easy to become complacent. For a customer however this is an important interaction meaning they will notice the little things. So pay attention to them and the big things will take care of themselves.
10. 10. Do something extra to create a positive memory
    When you’ve finally resolved your customers complaint, do something extra for them to leave them with a positive impression of you and the brand i.e. give them tips on how they can use the product or service better.

These are just ten of the considerations you can make if you want to deliver great customer service. Ultimately, if you make your customers feel special, deliver on your promises and listen to them when they comment you are setting the foundations of a solid relationship that over time will achieve repeat custom and positive word of mouth.

Excellent Customer Service and the Power of Brand Advocates

It’s a widely held belief that in many industries it costs five-to-ten times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer, which is why looking after your customers with exceptional service is a priority for any business.

Looking at the customer service experience from the customer’s point of view is essential in keeping customers and building relationships with new and existing ones, but it goes deeper than that. It’s long been established that the average satisfied customer will tell two-three people about their experience with a company and a dissatisfied customer will share their lament with eight-ten people to avoid the company responsible for the dissatisfaction (and that was before the days of social media). But what if those customers have a positive customer experience? Is this not just as powerful an emotion to share with their friends, colleagues and social media connections?

The simple answer is, of course customers that have a positive experience will share their thoughts and opinions... enter the brand advocate.

Brand advocates are a hugely valuable tool for businesses, providing a marketing asset and genuine opportunity for engagement with a well defined peer audience, contributing to the growth and profitability of the company. But as a business, how do you create brand advocates? Here are two recent examples I have experienced.

Providing Great Service

I have been using a certain shop for some time and they have offered value as well as reliable delivery. To my surprise, the shop was one of the biggest distributors in the UK, although I had no idea how big they were as each time I called to place an order they would always treat me like I was their only customer. They also seem to listen to their customers, are adept at finding a solution for any complaint and ultimately, make me feel like they know me better than any of their competitors.

This exceptional level of service leaves me satisfied, ensures I recognise their brand and is enough for me to choose them over their competitors. Going further, I will happily recommend this particular retailer to people I know, which is a huge step in trust and loyalty.

Investing in Customers

Another example is a close friend that is a passionate follower of a particular technology brand. Because of his support for their products on social media, he has picked up a wealth of free products and tickets to showbiz events. This is a “win win” for everybody involved; the technology company is able to turn someone who already follows their brand into a vocal advocate across the social media landscape, whilst the customer who receives free gifts, is made to feel valued and part of something bigger.

Understandably this won’t work for every business, but both examples have a common feature – the delivery of an outstanding customer experience. All businesses can learn that giving a WOW experience to customers is key to building loyalty, trust and advocacy. Whether it’s providing fast, convenient and reliable service, or being responsive to your customers’ needs and investing in them, customer experiences are now the key differentiator and can provide a competitive edge.

The Value of CRM to the Customer Life Cycle

Whatever your business, whatever its size and whatever its proposition, your customers are fundamental to its success. This is why it is so essential to provide great customer service, to ensure that customers are happy with each interaction and are more likely to return in the future. Part of delivering exceptional service is building relationships with customers and managing them effectively.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an approach to managing these interactions, either with existing or potential customers. Typically this is achieved with software that tracks, monitors and analyses each step in the relationship, enabling you to understand and nurture your customers’ life cycle.

The Five Stages of Customer Life Cycle

Speaking broadly, the customer life cycle is the different stages of a customer’s relationship with your business. The stages are:

• Reach
• Acquisition
• Conversion
• Retention
• Loyalty

On a simplistic level, the value of CRM to a business is being able to manage each stage, so that you can first grab their attention, teach them what you have to offer, convert them into a paying customer and finally keep them as a loyal (and profitable) customer.

Customer life cycles depend heavily on the type of service or products you offer and as such the way you approach CRM needs to take this into account. For example, you may have a long customer life cycle, like a child who sets up a bank account, grows up with the same bank, uses them for their mortgage and pension right up until the end of their life. In contrast not all customer life cycles are that long, if you are a book retailer it may simply be a case of advertising a new release, converting the sale and then following up with marketing around similar books over the space of three months.

It’s important to realise that CRM systems can be relevant to any customer life cycle, helping you to track the progress of sales deals, record particular customers and track the action in relation to the deal, using this data to then build on customer relationships. Customer insight of previous customer data can also help you map out exactly the next steps your customer will take, such as the products they are more likely to choose over other products and how long their relationship with you might last. By having such an understanding of your customers’ life cycle, CRM systems can also allow you to plan ahead, using data gained to forecast the number of new customers required if your business is to remain sustainable.

Ultimately, CRM solutions are crucial in managing each step of the customer lifestyle cycle but are also fundamental in ensuring customer relationships progress smoothly as part of your wider customer service objectives. Blended with effective marketing messages CRM has the potential to nurture customers throughout their life cycle, maximising the profitability of each and every relationship.

Contact Centres Metrics – Are You Measuring What Matters Most?

In the past the success of a contact centre operation has been measured with metrics based on efficiency, call duration being just one example. Today however, there has been a significant change in approach, contact centres are now measured by how effectively they serve customers, not just the speed at which they can do so.

In an age where customers expect a level of service that is personal, professional and delivers on what it promises, it is now about measuring ‘what matters most’ – the metrics that can give insight into customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has always been a primary focus, but the explosion of social media has added a new dimension to word of mouth, making it more important than ever to ensure customers leave any interaction satisfied with the service.

That is not to say that metrics such as average call handling time should be discounted, they still have a place in optimising contact centres at an operational level, but their value in understanding how customers are being served is limited. With customer experiences being paramount to running a successful contact centre, metrics, like the four below, provide a far more qualitative view.

1. Service Level

The accessibility of your contact centre sets the tone of every customer interaction. Poor response times leads to an increase in bad conversations with customers, negatively affecting morale and ultimately the service provided. As such service level is the ideal accessibility metric for understanding the percentage of calls answered within the appropriate amount of time.

2. Contact Quality and Customer Satisfaction

To truly understand the quality of service being provided it’s vital that the customer’s point of view is utilised. C-Sat surveys following interactions are a frequently used method of gaining this understanding, and can be utilised to calculate on an individual level, a particular agent’s quality score and more widely, an appreciation of the overall service being delivered.

3. First Call Resolution (FCR)

FCR is a critical metric for contact centres because it has a significant impact upon customer satisfaction and costs. It should be a priority for all contact centres to equip agents with techniques and tools necessary to resolve calls in the first instance in the most appropriate way possible. Rapid, effective resolution leaves customers satisfied, which is why increasing FCR is a target for all good contact centres.

4. Employee Satisfaction

Probably the most overlooked metric in measuring customer satisfaction as it requires contact centres to look inwardly, but valuable nonetheless. The happiness of your employees correlates strongly with the service being delivered as unmotivated, unhappy agents will soon pass this negativity on through each interaction. The best way to grasp this metric is to undertake independent, anonymous satisfaction surveys, the findings of which can be used to shape future initiatives to improve employee satisfaction.

These four metrics are just a snapshot of how it is possible to measure ‘what matters most’ and ultimately provide the insight required to enable consistent improvement of customer satisfaction and experiences.

Forget Fearing Change; Embrace it!

It’s a fairly common assumption that people do not like change but as a rather simplistic view, it fails to recognise that people will typically respond well to positive change. People make changes every day, new jobs, children, marriages, travelling and on the whole these are made voluntarily. It shows that even massive changes aren’t resisted by people – as long as it’s positive and will improve their lives.

Negative change on the other hand is naturally resisted, for instance, having to reduce the size of the workforce without changing the workload is a negative change, one that could well be caused by a crisis.

Change, regardless of whether it is positive or negative requires careful consideration for businesses, not only for the reasons such change is being initiated but also in the way it is presented and managed.

What causes change?

Market forces

Marketplaces are in a constant state of flux, and as such it is vital that businesses commit to changes to innovate, to maintain a competitive edge or to continue providing the right level of service to their customers.

Technology

In similar vein businesses must also react to technological developments, to ensure that they stay ahead of the curve and do not miss out on a potential advancement that could improve productivity and enhance services they deliver.

Customer needs

As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow, creating demand for new types of products and services. Reacting to these changes can open up opportunities for companies to meet these evolving needs.

The economy

The economy plays a huge role in organisational change. A strong economy increases demand for products and services meaning companies must expand operations to cope with this demand. A weak economy will result in a business making difficult decisions that will have an impact on employees and stakeholders.
Managing the business through good and bad times is important to maintain a strong brand and strong relationships, although this should be achieved without jeopardising the business’ ability to react to change in the future.

Why agility is essential

In order to respond to these causes in a successful and timely way, it’s important to be agile. Agility can be gained in a number of ways, including the utilisation of outsourcing where possible, which limits the financial and logistical restraints of enacting rapid change, particularly as they take the financial and operational weight of staffing and technological investment. The right outsourcer can actually be an instigator of change, and in a successful outsourcing partnership you would expect to see a two way discourse of ideas on ways to change operations, identify new markets and maximise the service delivered to customers.

Why it’s important to change

Change is important for growth within a business; it can enable the exploration of opportunities, facilitate creativity and increase security. Businesses benefit especially from change that results in new ways of looking at customer needs, new ways of delivering customer service and new ways of strengthening customer interactions.

In today’s world of disruptive, 24/7 change, responding well is critical to success. Being unprepared for change could quickly lead to becoming a victim to shifting socioeconomic conditions. Change is always a risk, but in many instances it is a necessary risk to develop new avenues for revenue generation. Outsourcing this risk is sensible, as it minimises the implications to your business whilst allowing you to diversify revenue streams and become more robust in the future.

Avoiding the Dangers of Social Media to Your Customer Relationships

The ways in which customers engage with brands has changed. No longer is it a one-way relationship interspersed with the occasional interactions, today it is two-way discourse, carried out through multiple channels. Of these channels, one that has had a growing effect on engagement is social media.

In most business sectors and in both B2B and B2C contexts, social media has permeated marketing and communications. But whilst the importance of social media has been widely acknowledged, there is still a large number of businesses out there that don’t understand social media, do not know how it should be measured, or aren’t fully equipped to utilise social media for marketing to, or communicating with, customers.
This lack of understanding can have detrimental consequences, resulting in misleading expectations as to what social media should be achieving.  In the wake of failing unrealistic goals, it can also lead to the abandonment of social media as a channel in favour of more pressing, instantly rewarding marketing such as PPC or advertising.

The issue here is that running social media poorly, or half-heartedly following a failed attempt can have a disastrous impact on a business, its customer relationships and its reputation. Equally damaging can be a willingness to use social media, but a reluctance to dedicate sufficient budget to running a campaign, or investing in the time to integrate social media within the existing mix of channels and communication strategy – both are key in building customer relationships and enhancing retention.

These issues are prevalent across business, with companies jumping head first into social media without understanding how to leverage the best results, or deliver a level of customer care commensurate with other communications channels. In one recent study conducted by Forrester Research, a survey of 7,000 consumers found that majority of brands were only achieving an “okay” or “very poor” ranking for their social media management. Ratings demonstrating that whilst brands are happy to jump on the bandwagon, few are delivering an outstanding customer experience through the channel.

So what can businesses do if they want to realise the opportunity that social media offers whilst avoiding these pitfalls? 

One option is to recruit an internal resource to conduct social media activities, but with a wealth of experts, evangelists and gurus out there, it can be difficult to realise precisely what skills you are looking for. Proficiency with the various social media platforms is essential, but you may also want to consider looking for a more rounded marketing skill set; one that includes strategy, analytics, reporting, customer services and communications.

Another option is to outsource social media to a customer relationship agency. This provides access to experts in the field that know how to deliver exceptional customer service across multiple channels. It also ensures that customers are receiving a consistent level of care and offers the assurance that your brand reputation is in safe and capable hands.

Clearly social media is becoming an increasingly important part of the marketing mix and vital to the way that customer relationships are managed and maintained. Ignore it and your business risks being left behind. Fail to invest in and implement it effectively however and you could be risking much more.

Why Integrating Your Data Systems is Key to Positive Customer Experiences

Working within the customer contact industry does make me particularly critical of the experiences and communications I receive in my everyday life and whilst I try to leave my professional hat in the office, I frequently find myself critiquing the service and communications I receive from companies.

Recently I used the Odeon website to book my tickets for the latest film in the Bond franchise, Skyfall. As a regular cinema-goer I have a profile on their website which lists Chelmsford as my local cinema; using this profile I booked my tickets, before anybody has the chance of ruining Skyfall for me.

The Odeon online booking system is straightforward and easy to use and as you would expect, I received a confirmation email from them after completing my purchase. However, two days later I received a marketing email from Odeon saying “we can see you haven’t booked tickets for Skyfall yet at your local cinema. It’s not too late as there are still tickets available ... just click here.” 

Receiving this email brought two thoughts to mind. My initial reaction was whether my ticket booking has been successfully completed. The second thought was why their two systems (booking and marketing) aren’t integrated, preventing me from receiving emails that are misleading and misinformed. Fortunately my booking was successful so I will be able to see Skyfall unimpeded. I did however email Odeon to question the marketing message and as of yet, have not received a response.

There are important lessons to be learnt from this experience for customer contact and service professionals.

1. The data that you collect should be used to shape your customer communications; ensuring that if you are going to use marketing emails, that the messaging is accurate and relevant to the recipient.
2.  If you are going to request information from your customers it is important that you use it effectively to deliver personalised marketing and communications.
3. There is significant value in linking up your data systems, not only does this allow you to avoid such mistakes, but creates additional opportunities to cross and up-sell.
4. Companies need to be prepared for responses from customers, particularly if they get it wrong, answering their queries quickly and efficiently can minimise the negative impact.
5.  Ignoring the value of integrating data systems and communications can be detrimental to brand image.

Whilst this may only be a relatively minor mistake in delivering an integrated marketing experience to customers, it does highlight to companies the confusion and negative impact a mistimed or misinformed communication can have. It will not however limit my enjoyment of the film, even if the booking experience was compromised.