How to Master Good Customer Service
Your customer service agents are your brand ambassadors. As they interact with your customers, your customers’ loyalty to your company’s brand either rises or falls based on how they are treated. No matter how exceptional your products or services are, what will resonate most with your customers is their impression of your customer service operation.
That is why customer service is the second most important aspect of your business. Only growth/increasing profits should top customer service when it comes to prioritizing business objectives. In fact, good customer service has a direct correlation to growing your business and increasing your profit margin. Happy customers will be more likely to buy what you are selling, and they will have a positive impression of your brand. Good customer service will boost brand image like nothing else can.
If you are not always evaluating your customer service operation and looking for ways to improve, then customer relationships are likely to eventually deteriorate.
Here are some business tips designed to help you master good customer service.
8 Tips for Achieving Good Customer Service
Tip #1 — Master Active Listening
It is imperative that your customer service representatives understand that behind every caller is a human in need of having their issue resolved. The inquiring customer wants to be heard and served. That is why active listening is an integral method for achieving good customer service.
Once the customer is done speaking, pose clarifying questions to confirm you fully understand what they need. You can also manage to do this if you finish the conversation by ensuring that both of you are on the same page.
Tip #2 — Be Able to Empathize with Your Customers
In order to empathize with someone, you have to grasp what the other person is feeling and appreciate their perspective. This is a skill that you can acquire, and it will serve you well as a customer service representative.
You want to see the problem through the customer’s eyes, and relate to how this issue makes them feel. You will find that the customer will be more receptive and cooperative if they believe they were truly listened to and understood.
Being able to empathize with the customer will enable you to de-escalate a conflict and produce a more pleasant interaction with your customer. Customers will leave the phone call with a positive feeling, which influences how they will view your brand.
Tip #3 — Know the Company’s Products and Services
One of the best ways you can both understand a customer’s problem and quickly find a way to resolve it, is by knowing your company’s products and services extensively. Every customer service agent should spend time with product specialists with the goal of understanding the operation of the products being offered to customers.
By having a complete grasp of how the products work, you can, as a customer service representative, effectively troubleshoot issues. You can also inform the customer about how they can make the product easier to use.
Tip #4 — Be Focused on Identifying Solutions
There is no doubt that working in customer service can be stressful when you are contending with people who are angry and frustrated. Emotions can run high. In order to do your job well, it is helpful to adopt an objective approach as you search for a solution to the customer’s problem.
You should be dedicated to reaching a favorable outcome with the customer, and you can do that by actively finding a satisfying solution. This will enable you to help the aggrieved customer segue way from a problem-focused mindset to a positive one. You want the customer to feel that their time with you was well spent.
Tip #5 — Open and Close the Conversation
Interactions with customers are all about that important first impression. You can create a positive initial impression by having a fluid, friendly, and warm greeting to start things off. You want to introduce yourself to the customer and then ask for their name. This makes the customer service exchange feel more human. It can also lead to good customer service.
Also, you want to adeptly be able to close the conversation. Make sure the customer has finished airing their comments and requests. Then, close the conversation by asking the customer if they have any more questions or unresolved issues. This also keeps calls moving along briskly so you can resolve as many customer problems as possible during your shift.
Tip #6 — Provide Clear and Concise Responses
Answers to customers’ questions have the potential to be long-winded and complicated, especially when delving into the various aspects of your company’s products. As you help the customer troubleshoot, you might be inclined to describe in detail a product’s inter-workings.
Keep in mind that your customers will not be as well-versed with your products as your representatives are. That is why it is important to articulate just a basic explanation for your troubleshooting efforts. You can elaborate as needed later in the conversation after receiving prompts from the customer.
Being concise with your response makes for good customer service because you are sparing your customer from hearing explanations of complex information that will likely just frustrate them and turn them off.
Tip #7 — Use Tools That Increase Speed and Efficiency
Despite having talented customer service representatives, you won’t achieve good customer service if you have sub-standard systems. If your customers cannot obtain information they need because you don’t have the right customer service tools, your customer satisfaction will plummet.
It is essential that you select customer relationship management and contact center tools that facilitate speedy solutions and offer stress-free experiences for your customers and employees.
You will want platforms that provide complete integration with your other business systems, as well as gives you real-time data from across your business. This equips your customer service representatives with the product and service details they need to do their jobs well.
Tip #8 — Measure and Analyze Customer Feedback
The best path toward achieving good customer service is asking for your customers’ feedback. You can simply utilize surveys to track primary customer service metrics for individual performance. Ask service agent-specific survey questions, such as, “How effective or ineffective do you feel your service agent’s communication was?” and “How knowledgeable or unknowledgeable was your service representative?”
You will now be able to target specific job skills once you know the areas your customer service team excels at and which areas need improvement.
Use These Tips to Improve Your Customer Service & Win Over More Customers
If you put these suggestions into practice, your business, should experience a rise in customer satisfaction, and you will inspire more customers to become repeat buyers. Adopting these tips will help to ensure that your customer service operation is working at optimal effectiveness and that you are cultivating happy customers.
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