What, would you say, is the department of your business that you may need to place the most investment in, past periphery investments such as hiring an accountant for tax purposes? We’d suggest that customer service ranks among the top of the listing, if not the very top. It’s easy to sell a product, but ensuring the customer stays happy and satisfied with your firm for the foreseeable future requires patience, diligence, attentiveness and an ability to express the value of said customer. All of this may have an effect on how customers return to your business time and time again, helping you generate reliable cash flow.
But how should you set up your customer service department so there are little errors in its operation? Consider these tips:
Staff
Hiring Specialist Staff – What You Should Look For
Support staff are a special bunch. They need the mental stamina and the conversational fortitude to potentially make their way through hundreds of support requests a day. However, just like most of your staff, it might surprise you how well these specialists can help stem the tides of bad customer experiences and resolve issues that are plaguing your firm. These staff are truly the frontline against your business incompetence, so it’s essential to treat them right and hire them well. Ensure that you give them many breaks, reward them for great work, and to never expect too much of them. It’s best that four support calls are expertly handled than forty completed yet lacking in overall resolution and quality of outcome. Your staff make this department, so ensure that you hire them well and treat them better.
Operator Freedom vs Scripts
How Does Technology Continue to Drive Business Evolution?
It’s all very well to suggest you ‘treat your staff well.’ It’s unlikely you were going to do anything else. One of the tangible methods in which this can be shown however is in how much freedom you give your operations to find a solution. While scripts are viable, and they can help your staff read terms or perhaps find a code of practice for when an issue occurs they are unfamiliar with, you should also encourage your staff to offer their best foot forward, using the best when it comes to finding a creative solutions, and for that they may have to go off-script, build a rapport with a client, and get to the heart of the issue. When staff are encouraged to do this, they will give the best support to your client, and your customer satisfaction ratings will skyrocket as a result.
How Far You’re Willing To Go
Running Your Company Effectively: How To Create A Team Atmosphere
How far are you willing to go to retain customers, or to settle a difficulty that may have been your fault? You might decide to offer customer credit as a ‘get out of jail free’ card for some of the most difficult scenarios, or perhaps offer the creation of an entirely new account or renewing a service in order to rectify an issue that might have occurred due to past architecture. Considering this will help you develop the last stand in rectifying an issue, and that can sometimes be more helpful than finding the solution itself.
With these simple tips, benefiting from excellent client service setups are sure to be your bread and butter.
