Top 10 Customer Service tips

Struggling to meet your customers’ needs? In this post, we take a look at the top 10 customer service tips you need to deploy in your organisation.

What makes for world-class customer service? You’re about to find out. In this post, we quickly run through our top ten customer service tips so that you can win more referrals and earn better reviews.

1. Always Close Conversations Professionally

Never abruptly end a customer call, even if you think you’ve solved the problem. Instead, always use the line, “is there anything else I can help you with today?”

Why is this line important? Simple: it gives the customer a chance to confirm that you’ve resolved their issues and also shows that you care about meeting their needs. It puts them in the driving seat, not you.

2. Use Customer Service Templates

Don’t waste employee time having them respond to generic queries. Instead, use templates that they can just cut and paste into chat.

3. Avoid Negative Language

When customers need help, keep the conversation positive. Don’t fall into the trap of using negative language. If there is going to be a delay, for instance, avoid saying “you’ll need to wait a month”. Instead say, “it’ll be ready for you in just four weeks.”

4. Adopt The Same Language As Your Customers

While you might use industry jargon internally, you should avoid it when communicating with your customers. Speak as they do to build rapport while remaining professional.

5. Empathise With Customer Complaints

If customers complain about something repeatedly, it is a sign that you need to take action. Always acknowledge the dilemma that the customer faces and then focus the conversation on problem-solving. Avoid blame games. 

6. Slow Down

Just because you have several dozen customer calls queued on your system, don’t rush. Take your time and make sure that you deal with customer queries adequately. If you need to take on more reps to process communications, do so.

7. Implement Web Chat Feedback

Not all customers want to call you. Some just want to pop a quick question by text.

Web chat software lets you create chat facilities on your website. These forward any queries directly to your team, providing an alternative to conventional phone conversations.

Building in user feedback options allows you to improve your web chat over time. Customers can tell you directly what they think about your customer service approach.

8. Lower Response Times

Customers don’t want to have to wait for hours to get through to your reps. They expect to be able to talk to you immediately. Reduce response times by saving standard replies, using scalable templates, and keeping communications basic.

9. Help Customers Solve Their Own Problems

Customers who return time after time to report the same problems can clog up your customer service team. If the same issues arise, offer them training. Give them the tools they need to troubleshoot for themselves in the future. If you have an educational platform, forward them to relevant articles.

10. Use Reporting

Don’t rely on feelings to inform you on how you allocate your time: use reporting tools instead. While these don’t guarantee better decision-making, they can help you identify time sinks and make meaningful improvements in how you respond to customers.