How to Effectively Use Your Customer Service Solutions: A blog around how to make use of customer service solutions.

A business with good quality products captures the market but fails to please customers with good service can never be successful. Customers are the most important aspect of a successful business, and delivering a consistent customer experience is imperative. 

When customers use any digitized method to fulfill their needs, be it buying anything online, doing some official work, etc., they demand a smooth and consistent experience that many organizations struggle to provide. Online customer service is an integral part of a customer experience. It includes the specific touchpoints across the journey when a customer requests and receives assistance. 

Finding out customer grievances and catering to those needs is the main key to solving this problem. Sounds doable, right? But the real challenge occurs when those issues are spread over more than one or two platforms and devices.

To make sure your company does not lose any customers, providing top-notch customer service is a must. In the following part, we will discuss how to make proper use of customer service solutions.

1. Collecting Regular Feedbacks and Maintaining Customer Relationships

  Engaging with customers and collecting feedback goes a long way. Everyone loves sharing their experiences, right? And by this, a customer feels that he or she is important for the company. This helps in maintaining as well as building stronger customer relationships. Also, these days' customers use an average of six touchpoints, with almost 50% using at least four all the time. Thus, collecting feedback on all touchpoints will help a company keep in check the customer experience and find out any problem a customer faces at any point.  

1. Personalize Experience

Providing a personalized experience to the customer by the company is beneficial for both parties. Confused? Let us see how you can do that.

Before attempting to solve a customer grievance, we should know the entire problem the customer is facing, which could include more than one touchpoint. We should deal with customers individually and not put forward generalized customer service. Using names and cordial tone of speech and sympathizing with the customer's frustration also makes a great impression on them. Introducing a loyalty program will not only benefit the customer, but they may promote the company among their friends or relatives, as a result benefiting the company.

2. Learn to empathize with your customers

Empathy is the ability to understand how another person feels and where they're coming from. While some people are born with this trait, it's a skill that can be acquired with determination. When listening to the customer, try to see the problem through their eyes and imagine how it makes them feel. This is an important customer service skill because the customers will be more open and receptive if they feel you understand them. It can also de-escalate a conflict, solve a problem easily and create a more enjoyable relationship with your company.

3. Introduce and Improve Texting Service

Most of us are more comfortable with texting which is why interacting with customers over chats and email can be more fruitful for a company. At the same time, keeping customers updated with any kind of information over SMS is also healthy. In your busy schedules, even if you don't get time to talk on the phone, you still manage to check your messages and revert. Besides being comfortable with texting or emailing about their grievances, it is also a proven fact that customers are delighted when they get a quick response to their emails and texts.

4. Introduce self-service options to improve online support for website

Self-service was at a time a "nice to have," but not anymore. It's a necessity to provide a to-the-mark customer experience. It has become so vital that 70% of customers now expect a company’s website to include a self-service application.

Having self-service options is a great way of customer service that allows customers to improve online services without requiring any interaction with a service representative. 

5. Clear Communication

The ability to communicate clearly and have an easily understandable writing style is essential in excellent customer service, especially if you are speaking to someone who has a different native language. While answering the questions, you should be clear, concise, and in your natural tone of voice.

Customers want an explanation or solution to their problem, but they don't need to know all the details. You can share if they ask for more details, but most people want their issues resolved quickly. Always, in the end, give one more opportunity to ask another question, and you know that all their issues have been addressed.

Also, always communicate hold times if you put them on hold while you pull up their account or talk to your manager. Keeping the customer on hold without letting them know about it is not acceptable. 

6. Respond Fast on Social Media

Social media has always been easy and convenient. This is why customers contact your brand on social media – either to ask for support, leave a complaint, or ask a question. They also do it because they expect a fast response.

If you don’t respond fast and on time, customers will most likely complain about that to their known ones and social media followers. And now platforms like Facebook make it easier for users to see what your average response time is.

Overall, it is for your own benefit if you have an employee or an entire department, if possible, focused only on tracking and responding to social media comments. 

To make proper use of customer service solutions, companies need to make the program customer-centric. The Voice of Customer or VoC program is the best method to maintain the standardized customer experience. The voice of customer program works with collecting customer feedback and understanding them, analyzing and prioritizing the feedback, taking action accordingly, and then following up with the customer for further feedback. Engaging with customers, taking note of their issues, and prioritizing them can improve and take care of a customer’s experience on all platforms. 

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