Approach Your Customer Service Like a Moon Landing
Happy September! That’s the time when vacations become fading memories and we need to focus to reach our yearly goals. It’s also the best time to make changes in order to improve your customer service.
As a customer, I’m sure you’ve already experienced something similar reading the following three phrases: ‘It was not really bad, but…’ or ‘the agent seemed to be bored…’ or ‘I felt I was treated like a number…’.
How did you feel about that? Would you buy again from there after having such bitter-sweet customer experiences? As most customers won’t, I’m going to help you to prevent self-defeating situations.
Is Your Customer Service Still Up-To-Date?
Customers want to be treated as individuals, with their own specific feeling and needs. That’s why you need to approach customer service like a moon landing.
In fact, nobody likes to be treated as a number, or worse, like a ‘ticket’. We’re all customers and we want to have human interactions. That’s why smiling, welcoming, listening to customers and using a proper tone of voice become crucial when having conversations with our customers. No matter whether it happens face-to-face, over the phone or through digital channels. Failing to do so leads to negative customer experiences and comments just like the ones I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Such issues arise especially in those organizations that have introduced digital or ticketing platforms without updating support agents’ way of handling customer relationships.
In a nutshell, they did not update:
- Their customer service culture & values. Defining how they will behave with customers, before even having a conversation with them!
- Managers and supervisors approach to their teams. Avoid treating your agents like tickets if you don’t want them to do the same with customers.
- Support agents soft skills. Which tone of voice and rules of engagement will be used in every single support channel. They’re like parties with different people (email is not Facebook, Facebook is not Twitter, Twitter is not Live Chat, Live Chat is not WhatsApp).
Related: The Cultural Shift Towards Digital Customer Service
Customer Service Culture Starts From The CEO
Whether you call them agents or assistants, the people who talk with your customers play a strategic role since they represent your brand’s voice. Customers are satisfied or disappointed by the WHOLE company, NOT just by your customer service. It’s not by chance that smart brands have developed and spread a strong customer culture in every area and department of their business, starting from the top management team. Here’s a brilliant example in this video interview to T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere.
Then you can focus on the second step which is hiring and training your customer service team, which means:
- Choosing the right people (those who love helping, are very good listeners, and are excellent communicators)
- Providing them with clear guidelines (tone of voice and do’s & don’ts – especially for digital support channels)
- Training & empowering them (by letting them use omni-channel platforms)
‘Build, train and engage your customer service team’ is more than a motto, it’s also the panel I’ll be participating in at the Customer Service & Experience Summit in London, England, on September 16 & 17. More than 200 customer service managers from across Europe will gather to share their best practices. A limited number of tickets still available with my special discount code ‘CSC: grab yours here.
Over To You
Digital channels have raised customer’s expectations in terms of speed and efficiency. At the same time, empathy remains a crucial element to deliver excellent, consistent experiences. Therefore this is the time to take care of every single conversation and stand out from your competitors. It’s time to approach your customer service like a moon landing.
Have great conversations.
If you’d like some consulting or other help with your customer service, please contact us
Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_nexusplexus‘ / 123RF Stock Photo
Paolo Fabrizio
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