Delivering excellent customer service is essential to your organization’s survival. In fact, it’s estimated that nearly 70% of lost customers don’t return because of poor service. These six tips outline skills everyone in your organization needs to keep your customers coming back — again and again.
Tip 1: Re-energize your staff.
Excellent service starts with the attitude of the individual service provider. Share your organization’s vision and then get everyone thinking about how they can contribute to making that vision a reality. Ask each individual service provider “What can you do everyday to bring our organization’s vision to life?”
Tip 2: Listen carefully and ask questions that address customer needs.
Identifying customer needs is a skill that requires listening and probing. To build skills that lead a clear understanding of customer need, encourage your service providers to ask probing questions and then to listen to the answers. When encountering unusual situations, look for new ways to respond to customer needs. Ask, “How can I do this better? How can I do this differently?” and deliver for the customer.
Tip 3: Practice empathy, always.
When it comes to customer service, it’s important to pay attention to both the words we choose and the way we deliver them. Body language and tone have significant impact of the message we share. Empathy in service excellence is key and non-verbal communication – especially facial expressions – are key in conveying empathy.
Tip 4: Cultivate Contact Points.
Each contact point with a customer is an opportunity to delight or disappoint. Contact points and moments of truth are opportunities for the customer to make a judgment. Every single experience is critically important. Identify the customer contact points, detail all the ways interaction can go wrong, and develop strategies to deliver excellent service at each one.
Tip 5: Resolve conflict.
Customers are going to get angry. It’s inevitable. That’s why it’s imperative your staff has the skills to professionally handle difficult situations — without taking customers’ anger personally. Oftentimes, an angry customer just wants to be heard, so allow them to vent before we interject. Use problem-solving skills to resolve issues before they escalate.
Tip 6: Exceed expectations.
When it comes to customer service, is the little things that make a big difference. Focus on opportunities to exceed expectation in a way that customers speak highly of your business to others.
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