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What Constitutes Good Customer Service?   no comments

Mar 29, 2012 @ 9:00am Web hosting

Good customer service is what separates good businesses from bad businesses and great customer service is what separates great businesses from good businesses.

I have learned over the years that more often than not, people will knowingly pay a higher price for your product/service if they feel they are being taken care of. Most people are willing to pay more for a reduction of hassle and a reduction of time required to use your product/service.
Nowhere is this truer than in the online world. It is so easy to “pick-up and move” from one site to another these days that you HAVE to have good customer service in order to retain customers and reduce churn.

Low prices might very well get a customer in the door to purchase your service but, it’s good customer service that will keep that customer. And, conversely, if you have a reputation for offering top-notch customer service, you can place a premium on your service(s) because many people are willing to pay a higher price for peace of mind and less hassle.

Let’s take a look at just one of many things that constitutes great customer service. Always answer your phone and be prepared to help. Be courteous and professional at all times. Good customer support personnel understand that the reason a person is calling is because they need help and they are generally frustrated by the time they call. More times than not, people calling for customer service can be somewhat abrasive and they will say anything they can, to tell you (the customer support rep) how important they are and how lousy you are. We all need to listen to our customers and let them vent any frustrations they may have. Always be prepared to interject, at the earliest point in the conversation, that you are here to help and would like to assist. Many customers who call for help, tell you that they want to be fixed immediately yet they will continue to talk and not allow you to help them correct whatever the issue is. This is one of the things that separates a great support rep from a so-so support rep. You need to know how to wait for that moment when the customer takes a breath and allow them to get to a place (mentally) where they are now ready to let you help them. Depending on the conversation, there might be a hundred things you could say so I’ll just give one example here. Let’s just presume that the customer is going-off on you, when they take a breath, I might say something
like:

“Ya know John, I share your level of frustration. I absolutely hate it when I feel I can’t get help from some company, let me help you get this issue corrected right now because I want to treat you the way I would like to be treated myself”.

That previous statement HAS to come from your heart.
If it’s written on a piece of paper as a canned response, it won’t work.
This is the toughest part of training any customer service representative.
You can teach them to fix any number of problems, and you can teach them certain techniques but, you can’t teach somebody how to respect someone else and to have empathy – they either have it or they don’t. When I hire customer support reps and I have the choice between a person who has multiple years of experience in the field and has a so-so attitude or someone who has no experience whatsoever but has a great attitude – I’ll take a good attitude over experience all day long – I can teach them how to fix things, I can’t teach them a great attitude.

I’ve seen lots of people who think that great customer service is fixing customer’s problems. And, although that is partially true, the most important aspect of customer service is HOW we deal with the customer. If you treat your customers with respect, courtesy, friendliness and dignity, you’ll see that you can turn nearly every situation around and make the customer extremely happy. Always approach customer service as though you’re the person on the other end of the phone looking for help. Let me offer an
example:

Lots of times I’ll get a person on the phone who is obviously elderly. When I hear that voice on the phone, I think of helping my grandmother or grandfather. For me, being able to put myself in that frame of mind, relaxes me tremendously and allows me to deal with that person just like someone that I personally know and care for. You’d be amazed how much that can benefit both the support rep and the customer, because that type of care, even though it’s in your mind, comes through in your voice and your demeanor. Obviously you’ve got to be able to actually fix their problem too but, the way you treat customers is paramount to a good customer service experience. I have had situations arise where there is no immediate fix – for whatever reason. It is in those situations where the support rep absolutely MUST employ the niceness techniques in order to win-over the customer and keep them happy. People will pick-up on your ingenuousness or disingenuousness. You can try to hide it all you want and even though you may be a thousand miles apart speaking on the phone, the customer is able to decipher your true feelings. If you truly have their best interests at heart, they will know it, understand it and be patient.

There’s lots more to great customer service and we’ll cover more ground in future posts. I hope you’ve enjoyed this.

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Written by Dave on March 29th, 2012

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