Excellent customer service is offering excellent products or services in an excellent manner to customers who desire or need them. It involves the manner in which customer service officials (individuals who offer customer service) render services to clients. I believe anything worth doing is worth doing excellently well especially in this country where extremely bad customer service is rife with most service providers. Ensuring your organization pays adequate attention to providing excellent customer services by providing well trained and courteous customer service officials and good feedback systems will garner more trust with customers and eventually result to a large and loyal clientele.
Customer service is very important because it is an essential part of a business. Every customer service official is an image maker of their respective organization and every time they come in contact with a client in person, on social media, through mails and messages and on the phone, they should pleasantly and positively represent their organizations as every good or negative deed consciously or unconsciously done is registered in the mind of the customer.
There are skills a customer service official must have in order to render quality services to clients and they are; patience and good listening skills, attentiveness, tenacity, excellent communication skills, negotiation and persuasion skills, the ability to handle surprises, willingness to learn, a calming presence and the ability to make customers feel welcome and important, the ability to read customers: According to Wikipedia, it is suggested that a brand can be successful if they have employees who can adjust themselves (personality, mood) to the personality of their customers, time management skills, extreme knowledge about the product.
The key to good customer service is building good relationships with your customers. The following are other keys to excellent customer service;
1.The customer is king: Every customer service officer must have this sentence imprinted in their subconscious as it influences their every action towards each customer. Every customer has a belief about a brand/service, so customer service official who encounter dissatisfied clients should do all to dispel all negative beliefs and exchange them with the right beliefs which is consistent with the brand.
2.Handling complaints the right way: Every time a customer is unhappy, they complain to friends, family, social media and sometimes to you.
So as a customer service official, the best way to handle complaints is to listen patiently to what the customer has to say, apologize profusely for any inconvenience the client has had and try to come up with a satisfactory solution. Be sure to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
There would be times you will have to face extremely difficult customers who will literally scream at you and sometimes get a little violent; using these following steps would help in resolving any issue.
First and foremost is the need for the customer official to be calm and listen, understanding the issue from their perspective. Secondly, is the need to empathize and respect their truths no matter how right or wrong it is, accept whatever they have to say. Respect their views, don’t argue, it shows that you care about them. If a client perceives respect from a service provider, he will return it but if he perceives disrespect, he perceives it as a personal attack and will lash out at the offending individual.
Thirdly is to negotiate and come up with a lasting solution. It is advisable to always try to exceed expectations but avoid overpromising.
3.Feedback: feedback is extremely important to a business as you serve so many kinds of people and they perceive differently, so a good brand should not assume everyone would like what they put out in their shops, social media or even website. They need to create an avenue where customers can voice out their concerns, suggestions, complaints and commendations so brands know what they are getting right or wrong.
4.Don’t overpromise: It is better to say what you know you can do as a brand and do it excellently well and be truthful about your shortcomings than exaggerating your strengths and disappointing your clients. This breeds mistrust.
5.Be accessible: you must respond quickly to mails, comments and questions immediately you can.
6.Show your customers that you understand their needs: Help them get the best of your services. Even if it is letting a customer know about an event that you know they’re personally interested in or informing them of relevant information about their favorite products.
dressesbyaloli 