Statistics show that customer service is incredibly important for businesses. Consumers expect a great customer experience when dealing with businesses, and they are more likely to spend larger amounts of money with a business that they feel values them. One of the best ways to be proactive in retaining customers and bringing in new ones is to have fantastic customer service. However, when you’re just starting out, it can be hard to know where to start, so it helps to know some basic customer care tips to set yourself up for success. But what are the ten tips of customer care? We’ve compiled a list of customer service phone tips to help get you started on the path to success.
1. Be Available
This is a very important one, but it’s tricky. Customers expect rapid responses to inquiries. And if they take the time to place a call to a business, they expect the call to be answered. If you have a high call volume, it can be nearly impossible to meet these expectations on your own, which is why many businesses trust their phones to a live answering service. Doing so also allows your business to answer calls all day, all night, and on the weekends, so you’ll always be available for your customers.
2. Actively Listen
Show your customers you care by paying attention to their feedback, listening in real-time, and looking back over the data to make changes for the future. Listening can go a long way toward increasing the chances of getting to the root of their problems to effectively solve them and create happier customers. This also includes taking every unique personality into account so you can tailor your language to fit the situation. Remember, customer service doesn’t look the same for every customer!
3. Personalize It
Customers also want to be treated as individuals, not just a number in a queue of customers waiting to be assisted. They want to feel like they are speaking with someone associated with the business and not to an outsourced call center. If you hire a live answering service, you want to make sure their virtual receptionists are able to use scripts custom-created by you!
4. Offer Omnichannel Service
What does this mean? It means customers are able to reach you in many different ways. Phone calls and email aren’t enough anymore. Customers are becoming more reliant on live chats on businesses’ websites and on social media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you use an answering service, you’ll at least be able to cross one method of communication off your list, and then you’ll be free to respond to other customer inquiries.
5. Encourage Self-Help
Build out your website with tons of helpful hints and you may see a reduction in calls with questions. If you have an FAQ page on your website, take a good look at it. Think about the calls you regularly get, and answer these questions on your site. If you don’t have an FAQ page, create one! Consumers are savvy and often will try to help themselves before calling the business for assistance.
6. Maintain a Positive Attitude
A positive attitude goes a long way when it comes to providing excellent customer service. Since most customer service interactions aren’t face-to-face, you have to convey your attitude with language and tone of voice. If you’re doing written communication, such as an email or live chat, feel free to find ways to convey warmth and good humor, like an emoji. A good attitude can change a negative customer experience into a positive one.
7. Keep Your Word
If you promise something to your customer, it’s important to deliver on that promise, or else you run the risk of letting that customer down and losing their trust and respect. That could end up making the business look bad and may dissuade the customer from working with or buying from the business again. Customers will never forget companies that break a promise and will encourage others to bring their business elsewhere. But they will always speak positively of businesses that went the extra mile for them.
8. Be Proactive
Try to anticipate your customers’ needs and deliver great service before they can even think to ask for it. This can mean offering a solution to a problem, providing for those needs, giving them promotional codes or small gifts “just because,” or even offering to give them a refund and send them a new product free of charge. Sometimes, when you’re being proactive in customer service, the business may lose some money in the short term, but it will likely lead to more sales down the line.
9. Get Creative
Problem-solving is a large part of customer service: You have to make it a large part of your support role, and as long as calls come in, there will always be problems to solve. But not every question will be one you’ve answered many times before or one with a clear-cut answer. Find ways to creatively meet their needs and fix their problems and you’ll create customers for life.
10. Bring in Virtual Receptionists
If you don’t have the bandwidth with your current staff to handle these customer service tips, a call center or virtual receptionist could be a great option for your business! VoiceNation’s operators are trained to answer your calls using scripts written by you. Your greetings will be consistent across the board and be modeled on the words you use when you answer your calls. In addition to answering your calls, virtual receptionists are able to forward calls, take messages and send them to you instantly, process orders, schedule appointments, and more. Nobody understands these customer service tips like call center staff and virtual receptionists do because they’re trained in helping you give customers positive experiences every time.
Get Help From the Best Call Answering Service
At VoiceNation, our 24/7 remote operators understand these customer service phone tips thoroughly so they can provide the best call answering service through our comprehensive operator training, our award-winning software, and our simple, transparent pricing plans. You’ll never have to worry about your customers’ calls going to voicemail again! Learn more about how you can get professional support for your business by giving us a call today.