As businesses strive to increase customer engagement through social media and new offerings, customer service may rank low on their priorities. However, customer service is the first line of defense when dealing with struggling consumers—who have the potential to become your brand ambassadors if served well.
A reliable customer service ecosystem retains your consumers and draws prospective ones by fostering trust. It must effectively manage your consumers’ concerns and expectations by closing potential communication gaps, to prevent rumors and misunderstandings that can rapidly damage your business reputation.
Improve your customer service with these three underrated tips:
Review Your Customer Service Data
Feedback about your business is all around: reviews and common queries highlight issues that your consumers face when using your product or service. The struggles of your customer service team also reveal factors that prevent them from responding to your consumers’ requests adequately.
Rank these issues by their urgency and budget (i.e., money, manpower, and time needed to implement the solutions). Update and review the list regularly to execute timely strategies to meet your consumers’ evolving needs and demands.
Besides addressing existing issues, you can also use a customer journey map to anticipate your consumers’ concerns. When you run through the different touchpoints a consumer has with your business, you can take preventive measures to safeguard your business.
Analyzing your customer service data may be a laborious process, but it allows you to effectively grasp the pain points of your consumers and customer service team and implement comprehensive strategies to manage them.
Automate Your Customer Support
Consumers are increasingly likely to call out businesses on their social media platforms for their poor service experience, knowing that your employees may address their complaints more quickly. The pandemic may have also lowered your business efficiency as your staff struggle to adapt to fast-changing working arrangements, business- and government- guidelines, and even contract the virus themselves.
As your business grows its social media presence, a single negative comment left on your social media feed can deter prospective consumers. It may even go viral if existing consumers in similar situations speak up about their negative experiences, tarnishing your business reputation.
The bottom line is: your consumers want to be addressed directly.
While you can’t stop consumers from leaving negative comments and reviews, you can strengthen your direct communication tools with them by automating your customer support. Automating your customer support tools can help address your consumers’ queries quickly and manage their expectations if they have to wait for a follow-up.
If you operate a service hotline, engaging an IVR voice talent can help enhance your interactive information menu script and deliver it professionally. A well-planned script should flesh out common customer queries collated from your customer service data.
Activating auto-replies for your customer service email can assure your consumers that your team will respond to them in due course and provide helpful information from your business’ frequently asked questions (FAQs) page.
Repurpose Your Customer Service Data & Experience Regularly
When was the last time you updated your FAQs page? Your consumers will look for answers to their queries on your website, so sharing outdated or inaccurate information will only amplify their frustration and dissatisfaction.
Update your business’ FAQs page frequently to communicate relevant changes to your consumers. Post your FAQs or links to your FAQs on your social media channels to make helpful information more widely accessible to your consumers. Increasing salience to common queries can help your consumers look for answers they need effectively and free up your customer service team to address more complex requests.
Use your consumers’ service experiences for your content calendar. Be it content articles or Instagram story reels, highlighting their pain points—and the support your business can give to them—reiterate your value as a business and distinguish you from your competitors. Translating testimonials of positive service experiences to different content forms can also help build customer loyalty.
Repurposing your customer service data and experience creates more direct communication tools to connect and support your consumers. Compared to direct calls and emails, these tools are passive as your business doesn’t need to expend extra time and effort to follow up with your consumers. However, they can still effectively respond to your consumers’ needs and demands in a timely manner.
Customer Service Must Be Your Priority
Delivering top-notch customer service goes a long way to building credibility for your business. The impacts of customer service experiences don’t end once your business has tended to your consumers’ requests. When they share their customer service experiences in-person or on social media, others are more likely to perceive your brand positively and subscribe to your offerings. Your customer service experience and data can also inform and drive your business development, ensuring that your new products and services create value for your consumers.