Effective customer service communication
Communication methods vary from business to business. It is important to learn the right way to connect with customers so that it has a positive impact on business growth and we can provide value added services to clients/customers.
Below are a few ways on how to improve customer service communication -
1. Use live engagement tools for real time assistance
The customer service communication strategy of your business depends upon the support tools you implement to connect with your customers. Real time support with live assistance tools is advanced level support you can offer your customers.
With the help of live engagement tools, you can identify the error in the first touchpoint and offer the right solution, thus reducing the number of interactions. Live tools, video chat help to collaborate in real time and guide them directly through personalized conversations. And, I guess we already use various communication channels.
How to improve customer communication management with customer engagement tools?
Faster solutions – Video chat helps to offer faster resolutions through face to face personalized conversations. It helps to identify the main cause of the error and deliver effective solutions in the first touchpoint.
Technical assistance – You can collaborate with the customer’s browser in real time with co-browsing and guide to complete a complex application process. It allows us to acquire first-hand details of the issue and reduces the number of touchpoints made by the customers.
- Build omni channel customer communication strategy Businesses that adopt an omni channel communication strategy retain an average of 89% of customers compared with 33% for those with weak omnichannel strategies. It is very important to connect with customers where they are and deliver consistent support across all channels.
Having an omni channel platform helps you to redefine how you communicate with customers both online and offline channels. You can gain insights on your customer journey that can help to enhance communication across all touchpoints.
So, what is the starting point to design your omni channel communication strategy?
You have to focus on three core parameters to enhance customer experience:
Identify the communication channels preferred by your customers
Create an effective customer engagement strategy across the identified channels
Deliver a consistent experience throughout the customer journey
Improve the first customer experience
The first positive experience not only results in making your customers satisfied, but it also accelerates revenue.
Here are some tips to enhance communication skills to build a strong first customer experience:
Reduce wait time: Longer queue time is a key reason why customers might leave use. You can automate server/application health checks and support.
Avoid scripted conversations: Overuse of canned responses can lead to a bad client/customer experience So, you need to balance to make conversations meaningful and impactful.
Focus on real time support: Try to at-least acknowledge the issues beyond the working hours.
What is customer service etiquette? Customer service etiquette refers to educating your support representatives | team for ensuring customers to receive the level of service they deserve. By following the proper support customer etiquette tips, the team can establish a professional tone with the customer that is favorable to the company as well as the customer.
Top 12 customer service etiquette to deliver a better experience
It is crucial to understand the importance of customer service etiquette for interacting with customers. In order to gain that understanding, we should be well educated and trained to deliver the best customer/client experience -
Here are the key customer service manners and rules that will help you to deliver excellent customer support.
- Be transparent about your products and services
- Offer proactive support assistance
- Ask the customer for feedback after a resolution
- Use the right vocabulary
- Personalize your conversation
- Listen to your customers
- Offer gratitude to your customers
- Maintain a professional attitude
- Drill customer service etiquettes in your team
- Use interpersonal skills
- Keep your customers updated
- Be confident
Let us discuss the principles of customer service etiquette that can help the team to understand customers and handle them efficiently.
Based on above areas here are some customer service etiquette tips to be followed:
Be truthful and accurate – Impart authentic information related to products and services to avoid future confusion among customers.
Keep your promises – Don’t make fake commitments and set customer expectations that will break their trust and loyalty.
# Offer proactive support assistance Being proactive means understanding customers’ issues and offering support before the customer reaches out to the team for any production issues. Customers are always satisfied and positive with proactive customer service. Convey the issues, root cause, analysis done prior to service interruption.
You can collaborate with the customer’s use case to identify issues faster and offer effective solutions. You improve customer satisfaction by reducing the number of touchpoints.
Proactive customer service etiquette manners accelerate customer satisfaction as well as business productivity by:
- Improving customer loyalty – says, the businesses that follow proactive customer service etiquette noticed growth in the customer retention rates by 3-5%.
- Reduce customer support tickets | Recurring issues – Identifying the issues and assisting customers with customer engaging tools before they become complex problems reduces the number of request tickets.
- Multi channel conversational engagement – Customers share their good and bad experiences with brands over social media. You can proactively handle such conversations to improve your brand image.
# Ask the customer for feedback after a resolution Customer feedback is a vital ingredient for the success of any business. Through feedback, you can improve the effectiveness of your products and services. The best time to ask for customer/client feedback is after the successful resolution of the problem.
By analyzing customer feedback, you can measure customer satisfaction levels to improve customer service etiquette to deliver a better experience that further improves retention.
The key reasons why customer feedback is important for your business.
- Feedback from customers helps you to know what customers feel about the services that we offer.
- Identify the gaps between the customers and the business and end up with a product that is sheer perfection.
- You can instill the feedback into customer service etiquette training to improve communication.
- It opens up a conversation with customers and develops a long lasting relationship.
- Customers feel appreciated for their opinion regarding the product.
# Use the right vocabulary It is very important to choose the right words before you speak to your customers. The customers can get a bad impression with certain words or phrases used.
Phrases to be strictly avoided:
- Sorry about that
- I don’t know
- Unfortunately no
- No problem
# Personalize your conversation Personalization adds a spark to the customer service. Irrespective of your business sector and size, connect with customers at a personal level and deliver personalized customer experience.
.
Here are customer service etiquette rules to follow:
- Make the conversations one-on-one basis, that will give a special feeling to the customer.
- Identify the nature of the problem and understand customer needs.
- Send personalized greetings to set a personal tone to your conversation.
Never waste time on general questions – jumping directly to the right solution for the customer makes the process personal as well as efficient.
# Listen to your customers Never fail to make your customers feel comfortable, valued, and appreciated. Be knowledgeable of and understand the relevant policy and procedures.
Always listen to what they say. A significant number of customer complaints are just about the fact that no one “listens” to them. It is a big relief for a customer to know that someone is listening to them and trying their best to resolve issues for them.
Without listening to your customers you will never know the problem or the complexity of the issue.
Follow the below customer service etiquette manners:
- Listening actively is one of the best ways to serve your customers. You should not interrupt them in between. It helps you to identify the problems and provide relevant solutions.
- Attentively listening to customers helps to figure out what exactly your customers want, their opinions, feedback, etc. All the customer information collected can be passed to the teams across respective business platforms to implement it.
# Offer gratitude to your customers An important principle of customer service etiquette is to demonstrate good manners. Team should be well trained to offer gratitude at the end of the conversion. One way to create a positive experience for customers is always to say “thank you.” Kindness and gratitude to customers are a sure way to further engage them for the long term.
Believe it or not, a sincere thank you goes a long way. We should always provide high quality customer service and commit to delivering superior service whether over the phone or face-to-face.
# Drill customer service etiquette in your team Training should not be restricted only to top-level employees. You can make customer support etiquette a core part of your team training. And it should be consistent across all the departments and teams.
Few customer service etiquette training tips to follow are:
- Have regular team calls – You can share all the important information across the whole team so that they understand the customer issues.
- Conduct product service training – You can educate your team with all the existing and new features and problem-solving techniques for dealing with customers. If needed you also arrange interpersonal and team building activities
# Use interpersonal skills Lend your ears as well as undivided attention to your customers. It never goes waste. Your voice should be such that your customers feel happy after talking to you. If you sound dour it will leave a bad impression as words and inflection over a phone are much more important than in a face-to-face encounter.
Here are some basic customer service etiquette for different channels:
Proper phone etiquette
- Always have a purpose for your call.
- Keep conversations brief and to the point.
- Speak slowly and politely.
Email etiquette
- Don’t use email in place of a phone call or personal meeting.
- Reference attachments in the body of the message.
- Select a subject line that is targeted and relevant to your overall message.
Live chat etiquette
- Always set a positive tone by using the right scripts and phrases.
- Make the right use of canned responses to deliver faster replies to customers.
- Keep your commitments to your customers.
- Show empathy when required.
# Keep your customers updated Your customer service etiquette should not miss out the golden rule of keeping your customers updated about your new products, plans, policies, releases, features, updates in any technologies etc.
It is very important to train your team to update customers because they have to provide a time frame to your customers. Why?
Because when you resolve their issues within the time frame you gain a loyal customer at that point.
# Be confident Sometimes well-trained people also get fumbled, while dealing with a tricky request specially or when there is a new product launch. One of the key customer support etiquette techniques is to remain positive, calm, and poised while answering to customers.
Being confident not only creates a positive image but also builds trust and customers start believing in your in your service, support and value.