When it comes to business, customer is king. The life of a customer transcends the first experience he/she has with a brand. Ironically, a lot of customers will choose an expensive customer care centered brand over a cheaper one with poor customer service.
Experiences created for your customer is one of the greatest determinant of the life value of that customer in your business. It is what will tell if a relationship will continue or take an abrupt halt.
To have a standard brand with highly esteemed profile, customer service must be at the core of the business and human relationship. Customers stay longer and are more comfortable with a brand that has created value to the extent of emotional connectivity.
Here are five ways to stand out from the crowd through the delivery excellent customer service.
Fast Response
In the industry where there are alternatives, speed is required to stay on track or otherwise slide off track. Human patience span is intrinsically low especially when there are options.
It is best for any business that seeks to be ahead in its game to have a fast and responsive channels of connection with its customers. Do not be that business that keeps customers waiting endlessly for response. Deliver as fast as possible, respond to complaint as fast as possible and make speed your friend in the entire business process.
Know your customer
How do you feel when you see someone address you with your name instead of using the cliché generic form of address? I am sure everyone loves that.
Great interactions begin with knowing your customers’ wants and needs. Customers love personalization. Get to know your customers, remember their names and previous conversations. If needed, make a note of what was discussed previously so you can refer to it the next time you meet.
Fix your mistakes
Mistakes are human but failure to admit and fix them is irresponsibility. Good customer service demands that you admit mistakes and rectify accordingly. Trading blames and evading responsibility for mistakes is a red flag to your customers. This will also earn you nothing but a bad reputation.
Transparency is important in business and customer service is no different. Always strive for high quality outputs as it shows you have a high level of standards.
Listen
Except you are explaining something important to your customers, you should do more of empathetic listening than talking. Every human desires to be listened to. Listening will help you to have a vivid understanding of your customers’ pain-point thereby giving you clues on how to serve them better.
Listening to your customers will not only result in happy customers, it can also go a long way in terms of keeping yourself on their radar for future business.
Excellent Culture
Look beyond the present business transaction to the possible future engagement with your customer. Focus on giving an excellent customer service to give a grand and memorable experience to your customer. Good experience starts within your employee or staff and this is as a result of excellent working culture.
Happy employees make for happy customers. When your EX (employee experience) and CX (customer experience) goals align, you can begin to build a culture around customer experience that has employees feeling fully engaged and committed to their work. Good customer experiences should not just be “what we do” but also “who we are”.
