Customer Service – Don’t Become Part of Poor Statistics
Customer service is oftentimes not taken seriously. It is the department that handles a lot of complaints when things aren’t working, and often people lose patience when working in such departments.
I know, because I have been working in a Technical Department where we handled questions relating to satelite receivers. This department was often the last step before customers might have cancelled their subscriptions. People were frustrated, and many called in expecting to be treated badly. They were very surprised when a new team of workers treated them with respect and helped them on their way to being happy customers.
You should treat your customers just as respectfully. They pay your salary – and you must understand this before you can ever grow into a business people will trust.
How Can You Improve Your Customer Service?
There are some key points you can use to improve your customer service. Implementing these points will be instrumental in lifting your customer statistics from maybe 65-70% up to close to 100% satisfied customers.
Beginning action you must take:
- Pay attention to dissatisfaction
- Find mutual ground
- Solve misunderstandings and explain your decision
Phases to remember while trying to solve misunderstandings:
- When customers complain there might be something wrong with your website or payment system. Paying close attention to possible problems can help REDUCE complaints – and will save lots of time for your company when you pay attention.
- Finding mutual ground is the realization that you understand the customer. He/she will appreciate your understanding of their complaint – even when you might have to make a decision that doesn’t fully meet their request (for a refund, reduction or whatever)
- Solving misunderstandings deals with explaining the process more thoroughly. You may want to change things on your website also. A thorough explanation of your decision can help others see why you make the ruling you do.
After you solved the problem:
After the problem was solved, there are two types of problems: recurring problems or single event problems. Single events don’t need fixing under normal circumstances – they may be technical glitches, and most likely won’t happen all that often, but recurring problems need to be taken care of after the customer has gotten a reply.
In Conclusion
There are many companies that don’t take their customers seriously, but you can trust one thing: companies that don’t get this won’t survive. Now that we have the internet people can communicate across time zones, and warnings about not being taken seriously can run across the internet in a matter of seconds.
What are you experiences with customer service? What have you seen as good, and what has been bad?
Thanks beforehand for your comments, and have a nice weekend. 🙂