Since 96% of customers would leave you for your competitor if you fail to provide them with high-quality customer service, you’d better make sure that when they contact you, they get a fantastic experience. Here’s how to improve customer support.
Yes, you’ve read that right! Forbes’s 2020 Achieving Customer Amazement Study found that 96% of customers would leave a business for bad service. That’s pretty much everyone! Only 4% of customers are willing to stick around with your brand even if you don’t provide them with the service they expect.
Now, the real question is: can your business afford to lose 96% of its customers? We’re guessing not! Especially since investing in new customers between 5 and 25 times more expensive than retaining the ones you already have. So, we have a few tips on how to improve customers service and make sure that your customers stick around for a long time.
Keep reading below to find out how to improve customer support!
Train your customer service employees to be nice
It may sound basic, and it takes a lot more to offer outstanding customer service. But, being nice is a perfect place to start.
In fact, if you’re not sure how much of an impact being nice to customers who need your support is, find out that 73% of customers fall in love with a brand and remain loyal to it because of friendly customer service representatives. So, yes, being nice and friendly can mean so much to your customer retention.
Make sure that your customer service employees know how to be nice and friendly with everybody who contacts your business (no matter how difficult the customer is).
Always use positive language
It may not be that obvious, but positive language can contribute to great customer support experience.
You may be thinking “since I’m unable to help the customer anyway, why does it matter if I use negative or positive language, the result is the same”. Well, technically, yes, the result is the same, you can’t help the client in that exact moment. Yet, how your customer perceives your inability to help them highly depends on how you tell them this.
For example, suppose one of your products is backordered for a month, and you have a customer calling for this information. You could tell the customer “We can’t give you this product until next month” or you could use positive language and say “The product you are asking for will be available next month. I can order it for you right now to make sure that you get it as soon as it becomes available in our stock”. Notice the difference?
When you use positive language instead of negative language, it doesn’t matter if the result is the same, that the customer won’t get the product right away, because you manage to redirect the conversation from negative to positive results.
Do everything to make the customer feel important
It may seem like a lot to do, but it takes just a few small details to make the customer feel important for your business when they reach out to you, from being nice to reminding them that you’re doing your best to satisfy their needs and solve their problems.
For example, one good way to make the customers feel like you really get them is to adapt your language to theirs. In other words, don’t be overly formal if your customer isn’t. remain professional, but also be personal at the same time so that the customer feels understood and important.
Also, it would be best if you were clear with everything that you say to the customer so that they don’t feel there’s a communication problem. Don’t use passive-aggressive language and don’t confuse customers with technical jargon they don’t understand.
What’s more, make sure that when you put customers on hold, there’s some royalty free hold music playing so that they are aware they are on hold, and you didn’t hang up on them. Hold music will keep customers engaged and entertained while they are waiting for you to solve their problem.
Give your customer service team the right tools
Teaching your customer service team how to be polite and friendly is essential, but it’s not enough to have outstanding customer support. You also need to equip the team with the right tools to solve your customer’s problems.
Invest in high-quality customer service software solutions that allow your customer service employees to quickly and easily access customer profiles and see all their personal information, purchase history, and previous interactions with customer service.
Give credence to customer complaints
You know what they say “the customer is always right”. Well, customers might not always be right, but you sure have to make them feel like you believe they are so that they don’t feel your company doesn’t understand their problem.
Complaining customers are not 100% of the time a sign that your business is doing something wrong because all businesses deal with difficult customers that you can’t satisfy no matter how hard you try. Yet, it is quite often a sign that there’s something you can improve about your business, be it a product, a service, or employee training.
So, when a customer calls in with a complaint related to your business, make sure you listen to them carefully and acknowledge the problem. Solve it for the person who has reached out to you, and, if necessary, improve that thing about your business to avoid having more customers calling with similar complaints. In other words, treat customer complaints like valuable feedback.