How to Achieve Excellent Customer Service
If you own or manage a business, achieving excellent customer service is probably high on your list of priorities. Excellent customer service will entice patrons to return to your place of business often or even recommend your business to friends or family members. In theory, achieving a high level of customer satisfaction may sound simple enough. However, in practice, it can be relatively difficult to coordinate the needs and expectations of your customers with the performance of employees and customer service representatives who may have an apathetic attitude about their jobs or just don't understand the level at which they are expected to perform.
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Instructions
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Identify your business' strong and weak points. Ask customers to complete a short survey regarding their experiences and interactions with your business in exchange for a free product or discounted service. Ideally, you should ask no more than 10 multiple-choice or five short-answer questions related to both the positive and negative aspects of the service received, the price and quality of your products and the atmosphere of your store, if applicable. Review responses to identify the business' strong points, but more importantly, the points that must be improved upon.
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Create a customer-service strategy. It is difficult to make improvements in specific areas if you have not planned out exactly how you will execute the improvements. Start by brainstorming solutions to the negative issues uncovered by your customer service survey. For example, if your top complaint from customers is employee attitudes toward customers, one solution might be additional employee courtesy training. Conduct additional research by visiting similar businesses and observing how employees interact with customers and how customer disputes are settled.
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Communicate your customer service plan and policies to your employees. Hold a meeting or training session with your employees to explain what the weak points of the business are and how you would like them to be resolved. Employees should be instructed on exactly how much freedom and authority they have when it comes to resolving disputes for customers and whether there is a specific procedure that they should follow. For example, if you manage a donuts shop, you may give employees the authority to give refunds, coupons or free items when customers are unsatisfied with a product. However, you may instruct them to offer a replacement product first. It may be useful to create a short handbook for your employees that details customer service objectives, procedures and examples.
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Explain the consequences of poor customer service and rewards for great customer service to your employees. Some employees are apathetic about their jobs, and that translates to poor work performance, less than desirable behavior and poor customer service. Explain that your business has a "zero tolerance" policy for rude behavior, especially when directed at customers. Reward your employees with "employee of the month" incentives, prizes, gift cards or additional vacation days.
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References
- Photo Credit customers service image by Julia Britvich from Fotolia.com
