Customer service is very important.
Sadly, many businesses today seem to be afraid of providing good customer service. But, this is an opportunity for you. Stand out in this department and word will get around to your ideal customers.
Avoid these ten mistakes and you’re already ahead of the game when it comes to good customer service.
- Making It Hard to Find Contact Information
Your audience and your customers should be able to contact you easily. However, if you hide contact information from them and don’t give them multiple ways to contact you, they’ll find a way – often in public on social media. To avoid that, offer them simple ways to contact you, such as by replying to your email messages as well as a contact form on your website that you make available on every page.
- Not Training Support Personnel
Anyone that is going to help you with customer care should be trained about your company culture and how you want to deal with complaints. Give them the power to make your customers happy and you’ll be glad you did.
- Arguing with Customers
When they say that “the customer is always right” it’s true in the sense that you should not argue with them. They may indeed be wrong. They may have used your product wrong. They may be too picky. They may be jerks. But, that doesn’t matter. It’s important to always treat the customer as if they’re right and act accordingly. The only exception is if they’re trying to commit fraud. In that case, they’re not a customer; they’re a scammer. However, it’s still best to give them their money back.
- Being Uncompromising
You have rules, that’s true. And it’s good to have some frame of reference of what you hope an outcome to be when there is a problem. However, it’s okay to break rules on an individual basis if it’s going to be for the greater good. For example, if someone signed up for your coaching program and after two sessions their mother gets ill, will it really hurt you to give them back their money?
- Not Listening Closely
The best thing you can do is to listen to your customer more than you talk to them. Most customers will tell you what they want you to do to make it right — if only you’re listening for it.
- Not Standing by Your Word
If you made a promise to someone, you should keep it. If you told them, “love this product or your money back”, give them their money back when they ask for it. It’s much more effective and expedient to stick by what you say than it is to go back on your word when things aren’t going your way.
- Making Them Repeat Themselves
Customers hate having to be transferred to other people to help them in the first place, but to add insult to injury by making them repeat everything that’s wrong is a serious problem. Don’t do this. Use a customer relationship management system and train customer service workers to read that before interacting with the customer.
- Failing to Follow Up
When a customer has a problem, even if it’s been satisfied according to customer service (or even yourself if you were the one dealing with it), give it a little time then follow up to ensure that everything really is better.
- Avoiding Personal Correspondence
A lot of business owners, especially online, often try to avoid any sort of personal connection or correspondence with their customers. This is a huge mistake because they’re going to feel very disconnected with you as a person, which means that they will feel as if they can easily move on to someone else. Be personal. When people feel as if they know, like and trust you, they want to stick with you.
- Not Being Polite
We have courtesy words for a reason, so use them. “Thank you,” “please,” and “my pleasure” are all words that will make the customer happy. Your job is to make your customers happy, and if something so simple will accomplish that practice, do it again and again.
Standing apart from your competition is as simple as providing the best customer service around.
Customer service and going the distance with a customer pays off in many ways. People are more likely to spread bad information than good, but when you go above and beyond they will tell their friends.