Every second of the day your customers are being bombarded with messages in the hopes of wooing them away from you. I know, I used to specialize in it and business was good. I was part of a team that worked on creating engaging messages, highly-targeted message placement and crafting stories with a “grass is greener on our side” feel. Even with the allure of better pricing and better products, we had an Achilles heel…customers who had such a good experience with their current provider that they wouldn’t dream of making a switch.
If it hasn’t set in yet, this is your call to action. Your products and services have alternatives. There’s always potential for your customers to become someone else’s customers, they just have to perceive value. The biggest block for this type of move is to provide your customers with awesome customer experience. But how?
Why Provide Your Customer Facing Teams with the Information They Need to Succeed?
Keeping your team informed of all organization developments is definitely one of the best ways that can be used to improve the overall organizational efficiency of your company. But it’s not enough keeping your team informed, particularly those people who are directly responsible for handling and dealing with your clients. You have to make sure that their skills are on par so that they can use the information they have effectively. The best way you can make sure of this is via initial training and continuous development. Let’s look at some benefits of constantly educating your Customer Services Team.
Imparts Learning and Helps in Skill Enhancement
It can’t be denied that one of the greatest benefits that emanates from constantly educating and training your team, particularly the one directly in charge of client relations is that it can bring about results which in turn helps enhance their personal performance. Customer service trends always shift on a regular basis and these shifts are mostly influenced by changing client behavior which makes it important for employees to learn new methodologies to apply when dealing directly with clients so that they may help keep client retention rates at a level that is higher than average. Apart from that, there are several skill sets apart from clarity in communication that are need when one works in the customer service department. Normally, the employees that are directly responsible for interacting with your clients have to have problem solving skills and must also now and understand human behavior which will help them effectively manage the human relations side of your clients. Such skills do not come by magic but by constant and continuous education.
Increased Employee Engagement.
This is a benefit that applies to every department of an organization but it’s a necessity to the customer service department. As I said, your customer service department is directly responsible for dealing with all your clients and normally, for the team behind this department to do its job effectively, it has to be 100% engaged to the activities of the particular job. Why? One reason is it is a major source of motivation for any team. When the people who are directly responsible for the greater part of your client interactions are not engaged in what they are doing, a lot of unfortunate things begin to happen which includes them responding emotionally to rants by dissatisfied clients causing clients to think otherwise of your service. Apart from keeping your employees motivated throughout, employee engagement also helps in that it gives employees a voice. They will feel comfortable to offer you advice in how the sales and communication process can be modified if need be for improved client relations.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
If you ask a lot of business leaders, particularly the C-Executives why they are in business, they are likely going to tell you it’s to increase their revenue which is correct in theory but not in practice. Why? Because if I’m asked the very same question, I’d likely say to keep the customers as happy and as satisfied as possible, if you are foresighted, I’m sure you can already see why this is a more practical answer. Yes, although the former answer of revenue is correct, the latter answer is significant because if you don’t have customers, there won’t be any revenue to talk about. This makes customer satisfaction a top priority for your business especially for those teams directly responsible for handling client relations. By effectively training your client services teams, you will be thoroughly equipping them to be able to meticulously resolve all issues with innate accuracy reducing the number of return calls which is a fairly strong indicator of customer satisfaction.
What Does My Customer Service Team Need to Know?
The direct requirements for each respective team will vary depending on the types of requests they get. However, as long as knowledge isn’t sensitive and can be properly organized for easy reference, it’s best to provide all access for the best outcome.
Consideration Points for Strong Customer Service Expereince
Product and/or Service Information and Details
- What do your customers purchase from you?
- What does it do?
- What is the value?
- What is (are) your pricing structure(s)?
- What are the features, functionalities, etc.?
- How do I troubleshoot?
As a customer service representative, you should have access to all of this information. And let’s be honest, remembering all of it by heart is going to be a challenge for even the most seasoned veterans, especially if your company prides itself on innovation.
So don’t put your representatives in a situation where they’re constantly fighting a losing battle. Be the superstar leader who facilitates your team to become superstar representatives.
Policies
- Return policies
- Service policies
- Warranty information
- Replacement policies
As a customer, have you ever called up the company you did business with to have a question resolved, only to bounce from representative to specialist and back? The real cherry on top is when you get to repeat your question over and over. Instead of playing phone tag, provide every team member with the information they need to have an informative and helpful conversation. Your customers will thank you for it.
Internal Operations
- Email directories
- Phone operation
- Program operation (think of the programs you use for documenting calls, information lookup, logging service information, etc.)
- Material locations
I think you get the point here but this is often an overlooked aspect of training and continuous improvement. Even star team members with the best of intentions run into situations where they don’t know how to properly fill out a form, use a platform designed to streamline operations or simply locate the materials they need to do the job right. Every
Communication Skills
- Phone etiquette
- Proper email etiquette
- Details required for different requests (service calls, returns, etc.)
- Problem solving skills (perhaps even decision trees)
Being knowledgeable is one thing, being personable is another. In dire situations such as these, it’s not enough to be a master at one (but if you have to pick, lean towards personable). The experience your customers have with your representatives is going to be heavily weighted on whether or not they felt as though they were understood and treated with respect.
DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS ASPECT!
In the end, providing exceptional customer service isn’t easy. It takes much time and effort to learn all of the required information there is about the business and how to properly talk to those you’re servicing. It isn’t stagnant, but rather constantly evolving. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
As with any project, it’s important to identify the needs of your team members and customers alike. Facilitate those needs by providing your team members with the information they need to be successful and they will in turn provide your customers with the experience they need to remain your customers.
Looking for more help? Let’s be honest, we all are. Let us help you. Shoot us a message or give us a call we’d love to hear your story.
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