Running a business that’s competitive on price and delivery times is a fantastic way to make an online business a success. However, while it’s important to make money from running a business and staying competitive in a variety of aspects, it’s just as important to stay competitive by providing a good all-round customer experience to consumers, otherwise you’ll not have a business to profit from. If you are running a growing business and you’re looking for ways to improve your customer services department, have a look at some of the following tips that will help you do just that.
1. Give Your Customers More Support Options
Some customers don’t like picking up the phone to ask for support so it’s important you offer more methods for them to get in contact with you. While you should offer phone and email support as standard, you should also look towards a good knowledgebase so they can find what they’re looking for there, and you’ll also have a more efficient staff that doesn’t have to keep answering the same requests. Keep in mind that there are many other support methods you can offer consumers, and you could even go as far as offering desktop and live chat solutions.
2. Improve Response Times
When you provide email support, you’ll find it’s very time consuming going through email after email, but it’s something that needs to be done to keep customers happy. To improve email response times, set up different email addresses so you can determine which emails are a priority. If you have an online email form for consumers to email you from, always ask them what priority the response needed is so you can prioritize who to respond to first. You don’t want to spend your time responding to a partnership request when you should be helping a customer in dire need of support.
3. Hire a Company to Improve Customer Engagement
Hiring a company to improve customer engagement may not be viable for small businesses, but as your business grows and you’re looking for the best way to engage with your customers, you’ll find it a cost-effective solution. Any business that provides customer service solutions will help you map the ideal customer journey so they’ll get more from their overall experience.
4. Ask Your Customers for Feedback
If you’ve helped customers in the past and you’re looking for their overall feedback, implement ways so you can send out automatic emails asking for it. If a customer doesn’t like your customer services for whatever reasons, you’ll know what to do to improve it so it doesn’t happen to others.
5. Listen, Be Polite, and Show Respect
If you’re dealing with a friendly customer or someone that moans a lot and isn’t taking no for an answer, always be polite and show them the respect they deserve. Sometimes it’s hard to bite your tongue when you’ve got someone shouting down your ear for a small issue that can be resolved quickly, but it’s something that needs to be done to remain professional.
Providing an all-round great customer service department isn’t easy, and as your business grows you’ll learn how you can better the experience for your customer’s benefit. Always ask for feedback when it comes to customer service so you’ll be able to keep improving it a little bit at a time.