“Customer service is a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate type of activity.” – Leon Gorman, Founder of L.L. Bean
A recent article discussed six of the most impactful ways to establish a culture of customer satisfaction at your company. While we believe the recommendations to be some of the most effective ways to enhance customer service, they aren’t the only ways to achieve this goal. For those business leaders looking to strengthen their brand and increase revenues, here are five additional strategies to improve the customer experience.
1. Consistency is vital: In a fiercely competitive market, customers expect an excellent – and consistent – experience from start to finish. This requires companies to create a structure of well-defined and integrated policies, procedures, processes, and technologies to guarantee every interaction delivers a positive experience.
2. Don’t forget to be human: No matter how advanced technology has become, most customers still prefer human interaction to resolve an issue or conflict. Companies should never lose their humanity, especially since emotional connections with clients have more potential to build loyalty and reduce attrition. Personalizing the customer experience is a best practice designed to treat each customer as an individual. Transactions with a personal touch let the customer know they are important, but they don’t need to be elaborate. Simply using the customer’s name during in person-interactions or sending a personalized card on their birthday can do the trick.
3. Listen before taking action: No one likes to feel ignored or misunderstood, especially customers. Understanding and interpreting customer needs are critical components of an exceptional service experience. Therefore, employees should be educated and trained on the importance and art of listening. A commonly accepted practice for ensuring your employee understands what is being communicated is paraphrasing and repeating the issue to them. Employees should also learn to ask relevant follow-up questions to better identify the true nature of the issue and reach the proper resolution.
4. Work towards exceeding expectations: Customers today have significantly higher expectations. In an age of data dissemination, they assume you will provide rapid, targeted, and personalized service based on their unique needs. Companies can disappoint, satisfy or delight their clients with every touch point – and the best companies will establish protocols to ensure a quality experience every time. As customer service expert Shep Hyken once said, “Make every interaction count. Even the small ones. They are all relevant.”
5. Utilize technology tools to drive positive experiences: Many companies utilize software to improve the quality and expediency of every client interaction. Knowledge portals that aggregate and disseminate shared information throughout the organization can be invaluable in training employees, expediting solutions, and driving customer satisfaction.
In Conclusion
An excellent customer experience doesn’t materialize by making one incremental change. Best-practice customer service is a culmination of many initiatives, developed and tweaked until they provide an accurate representation of your company’s culture and values.
To optimize the customer experience, companies should:
● develop a trustworthy culture with customer-centric core values
● humanize and personalize customer touchpoints
● strive to exceed expectations and incorporate robust information technologies throughout the client experience.
These customer service processes can differentiate you from the competition and drive increased revenue and reputation.
KLONE provides a cutting-edge, industry-leading platform for distributing information throughout the organization. Our interactive portal aggregates your business’s tacit knowledge, SOPs, and best practices into one easily searchable tool, allowing employees to locate the information they need for any successful customer interaction