Effective & Efficient Customer Service

Great Customer Service

Create an environment where great customer service is automatic and even the most contentious customer problems are solved easily with a smile. For customer service to be effective and efficient, it needs to be automatic. Manage the resources required to produce the environment needed to promote this. Train the support team with methods which are proven to be successful.

Significance

The Competition of Customer Service

A company without customers is no company. Getting customers is hard; keeping these customers is harder, and losing customers is something a company cannot afford. This makes customer service a very exacting numbers game where there is no room for a single failure. Reach this level of excellence by applying tried and tested systems, rules and procedures, and having plenty of back up. Customers will always look for positive experiences when they make contact with a company for any reason.

Perfecting Customer Service

Perfect Customer Service

Improve customer service in several ways that will facilitate and automate the handling of customers for whatever reason they contact the company. Use automation to increase efficiency and reduce the workload. This is the number one reason for adopting automated call queues. However, there is still plenty of room for planning when creating a system that runs on automation. Guarantee better efficiency with a system that records every call from a customer to the company. Instigate a system where the customer service representative does not need to record any details about the customer since they are already recorded and displayed on the computer screen and pass directly from the server to the call representative as the call is coming through.

Personalized Customer Service

Personal Customer Service

Customers who can personalize their experience and configure their own settings will feel connected to a company and give the customer representative the ability to target the services most needed by that customer. Customers will delight in repeating business if they are quickly able to click to a solution on a Web site with little wasted time, or reach the exact department quickly on the phone. Customer profiling not only assists the company in providing the customer with superlative service, but also helps the customer get quickly to what they are seeking.

Familiarity Breeds Good Business

Familiarity With Your People

Become very familiar with all customers by making access to information about them very easily available and their profiles turned into useful information rather than meaningless data. This requires good CRM software that will interpret customer information and make it useful to a sales person or technical support. Important facts are how often the customer has done business with the company and to what dollar amount over what period. Even a customer who has not contacted the company for a period of years needs to be identified if he or she has ever made a purchase.

Dig For Feedback, Mine The Results

Customer Information - A Gold Mine

A great company will be constantly looking for ways to get a reaction from its customers, whatever kind of response this may be. Actively seek responses from all customers, however small their participation is. Invite them to provide feedback. Reward them for their information and provide incentives for them becoming more familiar with the company. Use this feedback to build successful customer metrics which will eventually drive the customer service engine. Take note of anything they ask for and plan to implement any suggestions for improvement before they have forgotten that they asked for them.

References

• More Business: Effective Customer Service
• MSNBC: 7 Tips for Great Customer Service