7 ways to enhance your customer service

Offer multichannel support

You want the customer journey to be as seamless and streamlined as possible. One way to do that is by expanding your CS efforts across multiple touchpoints. This means providing support to customers in different categories, like your website, email, phone, and social media.

Setting up these touchpoints makes your customers more likely to communicate with you in case they have an inquiry or if they want to connect to your business for any reason. This multichannel strategy improves your business’s accessibility, helping you cast a wider net and ensuring that no customer inquiry goes unanswered.

Fortunately, there are many centralized digital platforms that allow you to combine all your social media channels into one centralized platform. You can utilize these tools to not just communicate with your customers more efficiently but to also schedule and manage your social media content.

By setting up communication channels across multiple channels, you’re reducing the friction for customers in trying to reach you. In turn, this can ensure business continuity and create ample opportunities for your business to scale and grow.

Utilise a 1300 number

Another way to improve your company’s customer service is by switching from a personal number to a 1300 number.

A 1300 number provides your customers with an easy-to-recall contact point that can be accessed from anywhere in Australia at local call rates. This makes it easier for your customer to pick up the phone to contact your company regardless of where they’re located in the country.

Besides that, a 1300 number comes with a wide range of operational benefits. For one, it can be configured to route to multiple numbers. This means that it can potentially connect to multiple agents, enabling customers to immediately get into contact with an open line without much delay. 

Furthermore, these numbers also come with a comprehensive analytics dashboard that has information on your customer and agent interactions. These data points can be used to identify patterns and trends as well as track agent and team-wide performance, which can be used to improve overall operations.

These numbers are also highly scalable. Most providers like Telcoworks have multiple pricing plans that can be downsized or upgraded relatively quickly, adapting seamlessly to your business’s budget and needs. For growing customer service teams, this tool can help keep operations flowing smoothly.

Collect and listen to feedback

The good thing about having multiple contact points is the fact that you can scale your feedback-acquisition operations.

Feedback offers valuable insights into your customers’ experiences, helping you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your operations.

Typically, you can acquire feedback by asking your customers about the quality of their interaction with their respective agents. This can come in the form of surveys, reviews, and simple and direct communication.

This information can be collected and analysed, and once enough data has been received, you can use it to spot trends. You can then act upon this information and make operational adjustments to help support the business’s continued operations.

Standardise the customer service experience

If you want to consistently excel in delivering a high level of customer service, then you have to smooth the variance by standardising the process across your team. You can do this in a number of ways. 

The first is by enforcing your team to read training materials on how to interact with the customers. Set clear guidelines on the communication approach and tone. Moreover, provide templated responses for your team to use on frequently asked questions and inquiries.

Besides the communication method itself, also covers other key areas like answering calls promptly, resolving them quickly, and upholding the brand values consistently. You can set company-wide benchmarks to track individual performance and allow your employees to know the expectations set out for them. 

By creating this culture, you can more assuredly deliver consistent service, as well as make it easier for you to develop a consistent and positive brand image regardless of who picks up the phone.

Invest in hiring and training

As important as it is to create standardised company guidelines, it’s even more important that you hire and train the best people for the job. 

Bring in candidates who have excellent people skills and are perseverant by nature. People with empathy and problem-solving skills are also excellent hires. 

Besides finding people who possess soft and technical skills, find people who align with your company’s values as well. That can guarantee that they’ll stick with your company for the long haul.

Once you’ve brought candidates into your company, be sure to invest in them over the long term. Train them with the right resources to give them the tools to help them succeed in their jobs.

Providing professional development opportunities not only helps them improve their productivity and business contributions but it can also keep them motivated and engaged. This can translate to better customer service for your customers.

Set up a recognition and reward scheme

At the core of customer service is the ability of your agent to effectively communicate and help your customer resolve the conversation on a happy note. 

To give your agents the motivation to succeed in that aspect, you can reward them with formal and informal recognition methods to make them feel appreciated in their role.

Formal recognition can come in the form of monthly or quarterly awards for reaching company-set key performance indicators (KPI). Financial bonuses, gift cards, and paid time off would also be well appreciated by the team. 

Informal recognition can also be a big mental boost that can motivate your staff members to do better. This can come in the form of simple thank-you notes or a shout-out.

By offering this to deserving staff members, you’ll play a role in fostering a positive work culture, which can translate to a better staff and customer experience overall.

Personalise the customer service experience

Finally, another way to make your customers happy is by personalising the experience. No one wants to talk with a chatbot, especially if their inquiry is nuanced and needs a human response. 

As important as it is to standardize the customer service process, you should also uphold the humanity of the customer speaking with your business. 

Get to know the customer’s history, preferences, and specific needs. This information can easily be retrieved by using SaaS tools to track your customer’s behavior.

Furthermore, when chatting with the customer, keep them happy by using their name during the interaction and doing little but significant things like referencing past interactions.

By getting personal, you’ll make your customer more at ease with dealing with your business. You’ll also be able to develop better and more meaningful relationships with them, which can translate to more sales, better marketability, and continued patronage in the long run.

Conclusion

Prioritizing customer satisfaction, empowering employees, leveraging technology, and continuously seeking feedback are essential components of delivering exceptional service. Remember, every interaction is an opportunity to create a positive and lasting impression. We hope these tips will help your business improve its customer service!