How to Improve Customer Service: 6 Quick Tips to Try Today

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Having an excellent customer service team goes beyond having good people skills. It means using the right strategies, tracking the proper metrics, attaining measurable goals, and of course, satisfying the customer. 

If you are in a position where you want to improve upon your customer service, here are a few quick tips you can apply to your team to help them succeed and get more positive feedback from customers. 

Provide Product & Service Training to Employees

How knowledgable your customer service agents are about the product or service the company provides can make or break an interaction with a customer. For online retail or eCommerce businesses, it’s important to have consistent product knowledge training via seminars or online quizzes, especially when a new product launches. 

This is just as important in industries that provide singular services that don’t change often. There is always something more to learn or improve. Have your employees watch webinars with a quiz to follow that tests their knowledge of the business and what services they provide to customers. The more they know, the more they can be of assistance. 

Keep Your Customer Interactions New and Fresh

If you answer every phone call the same, it can get dull and boring for both you and your customers. “Hello, this is so-and-so at blah-blah company, how can I help you?” How quickly will it take for that to get old, and lack any emotion behind it? 

If you make an effort to switch things up every few calls—with different intros that sound more natural, like you’re talking to a close friend—you may find yourself more relaxed. If you feel relaxed, your customers may feel more comfortable and at ease. Plus, it can keep you alert and energetic if you switch it up with new, fresh ideas of how to introduce yourself and your company. Maybe a fun tagline or signature phrase for the business can make the customers laugh and start off on the right foot. 

Add a Personal Touch to Every Phone Call

Conducting customer service over the phone or chat lacks one crucial aspect, which is that face to face interaction. This means customer service agents must put in extra effort to showcase their personality over the phone. It can help to add a personal touch to the phone calls, to make the customer feel heard and appreciated. 

Call them by their first name, bring up their account, and mention prior interactions with them to make them feel like you know or remember them. Refer to them by their first name throughout the call, so they know you are hearing them and care about them. 

Introduce Loyalty Programs or Rewards

For loyal customers, offer them a special reward or discount for being such a dedicated customer. For those customers who are new or second comers, offering a loyalty program early on can help to solidify their loyalty to your business, but also give them an essential role as your customer. 

Offering callers a reward of joining your loyalty program, or getting an exclusive discount may make them happy to call for any issues or feedback again in the future. They know they can rely on you, trust you, and are cared for when they call your customer service. 

Respond to Your Social Media Comments!

One avenue of communication to customers that falls flat is responding to customers via your social media channels. A lot of people feel comfortable leaving comments or sending messages via Facebook or Instagram with issues or thoughts they have about the service they’ve received.

It’s imperative to pay attention to these customers because this is also being viewed by every other person who follows your company’s social channels. If a customer asks a question in the comments that goes unanswered, that can reflect poorly on your business. But if you are actively liking, thanking, and commenting back to those questions and comments, you not only help that customer feel good, but you are helping other customers who see that and may have had the same experience. You’ve now killed multiple birds with one stone, and responding to those social media interactions adds a personal touch to your business and customer service team. 

Make it Easy for Customers to Give Valuable Feedback.

Google reviews, Yelp reviews, and customer effort scores are essential to providing crucial feedback directly from customers to your business, that can help you improve processes and how you handle future customer interactions. As you exit a call, email, or chat with a customer, you have a prime opportunity to ask them politely for feedback. 

The easier you make it to give feedback, the more likely they may take that action. When it comes to leaving Google or Yelp reviews, that may have to be a simple ask, especially if the interaction went really well with them. Kindly say, “If you had a good experience today, we would love it if you were willing to take the time to leave us a review. The link is…” 

Meanwhile, you can always send customer effort scores, with a simple link sent to the customer where they can answer a one to two-word survey where they rate their experience. This data is incredibly helpful when it comes to improving your customer service since you get to hear both the good and the bad, directly from the source. 

Following these six tips, plus having a positive attitude, continuing education for your team, and seamless communication within your business, you can easily take the step to improve your customer service. Just because you don’t receive any poor feedback, or have any upset customers, doesn’t mean you don’t need to improve upon your customer service. There is always something you can do to increase your effort and continue to provide the best, most helpful service to your customers. For more information on customer service support and techniques, give us a call!