Providing great customer service is still one of the best ways to ensure your business turns sales into loyal customers and continues to grow. Despite marketers wanting us to think our marketing budget is the biggest deciding factor in our reach, customers recommending your business to family, friends, and colleagues are still one of the most effective ways to grow. Why? People trust other people. This is why it’s so important that all businesses have ways for customers to get ahold of them. Many businesses have actually been looking into telecommunication solutions recently to ensure their customers have positive experiences when they contact them. Perhaps the Gamma business phone would be useful for businesses that want to get in touch with all of their customers. A good business phone system is often the key to great communication with customers.

Great customer service never begins with a problem

Some companies view customer service as a department that customers contact when they have an issue. However, great customer service pervades every aspect of a customer’s experience of your firm, even if they never actually need to directly engage your customer service department. Everything from ease of website use to security of payment systems can have a huge impact on the level of service a customer experiences. You can find additional info here on how to ensure a high level of customer service in relation to your IT systems, for example.

There are also several other steps you can take to ensure fewer customers ever need to contact customer service.

Customers expect more

We have seen a massive shift towards customer centric design and customer experience in recent years. This has increased the customers’ expectations when dealing with your company. Do you follow up on purchases to ask for feedback? Do you use a CRM to track and analyse all of the relevant data so you can maximise your e-mail campaigns and interactions with customers? Have you ever offered them a freebie or discount?

Simple follow up e-mails can be a great tool that helps you to fine-tune your customers’ experience, and can become the basis to help you service your customers better in the future. Even though some customers won’t open the e-mail, they will still see the notification and know your company cares about the customer’s experience. You can provide a loyalty discount for certain customers, or even offer a freebie to entice them to spend more. Tech freebies tend to be the best received, so a power bank for digital devices or branded USB from USBMakers.com could be a good choice.

Provide ample training

Every employee that could potentially come into contact with customers should not only know and understand all the products you sell, but they should be familiar with the most common problems customers have and questions they may ask. If your employees can provide articulate answers to the customers at the first time of asking, it improves the customers experience by resolving their query immediately. Having to wait for an answer will have the opposite effect.

Product knowledge should be backed up by courtesy at all times. Training your employees how to communicate effectively and with respect will help to leave a lasting and positive impression in the customers mind.

Online reviews are the new boss

Most modern consumers looking for a particular product or service will use the Internet to look it up at some point. When they do, what will they see in relation to your company? Are you on Trustpilot? Are your Google reviews good? Online reviews are crucial tools for potential customers, but they are also invaluable to you. They let you know how your service is being received. They are effectively becoming the customer service track record of your company, neglect them at your peril.

Customer service is now public

Customers who do ask questions or have problems are increasingly likely to contact you through one of your social channels. This means every word of the interaction is in the public domain. Every interaction becomes a positive advertisement for your business, or a warning to stay away. Always try to be as responsive as possible in a respectful manner. Your tone could create the impression a potential customer will base their decision on when deciding where to shop.

Whatever your approach to customer service, aim for consistency across all channels. This will help to build your brand as a trusted and reliable company they know they are happy to use and recommend.