What is the most important thing you can do to reduce churn and increase word-of-mouth referrals?
The answer is obvious, but it's often overlooked: improve your customer service.
No matter how awesome you think your product is, or how talented you think your team is, what your customers are most likely to remember is the direct contact they have with your company.
After years of working at UniTel Voice, in an industry saturated with competitors selling similar products, time and time again we’ve learned that customer service is our most powerful competitive differentiator.
And if you’re not constantly looking for opportunities to improve your customer service, then your customer relationships will deteriorate and your growth will slow.
One of the methods we use to keep our support team on their toes and our company culture on track is a customer service tip-of-the-day.
In this post we’d like to share our best tips with you, so you can use them to give your own support team a crash course in amazing customer service.
1. Practice Empathy, Patience, and Consistency
Some of your customers will be full of questions, some just chatty, and others plain mad.
You must be prepared to handle all of them and provide the same level of service every time.
2. Understand that Good Customer Service is a Continuous Learning Process
Every customer is unique and every support situation is different.
In order to handle surprises, sense a customer’s mood, address new challenges accordingly, you have to be willing to keep learning.
Strive to have a deep understanding of your customer’s challenges and continue to search for better ways to address them.
3. Ask Customers if They Understand.
Make sure your customers know exactly what you mean. You don’t want your customers to think they’re getting 25% off when they’re actually getting 25% more product.
Ask customers if they understand what you’re saying.
Use positive language, stay cheerful no matter what, and never end a conversation without confirming the customer understands and is satisfied.