Have you ever had an upsetting interaction with customer service?
Phone calls, hold times, unhelpful people… We’ll stop there so as to not bring back painful memories.
But think about the opposite. Have you ever had a shockingly delightful customer service experience?
You call to complain about an error on your last bill, statement, or order, but before you could let out your anger, the customer service representative:
Not only are you not angry anymore, but you’re delighted with what just happened.
While we might not see as many of these types of reviews published online, a study conducted by Hubspot reports that 77% of customers have shared positive brand experiences with others. Our assumption is that many of those shares are through good old fashioned word of mouth.
Customer service is one of the most important customer touchpoints in your customer’s journey. It’s a touchpoint that can cause a customer to leave a negative review of you online or worse, leave your brand altogether, OR powerfully strengthen your relationship, create loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value.
This is why your customer service experience needs to be nothing less than stellar.
Here at 360 Media Direct, we are passionate about customer service, and we pride ourselves on our a m a z i n g customer care team.
With that, we curated a list of our top six tips for ensuring your customer service touchpoints are best-in-class whether before, during, or after a purchase.
When a customer places an order, treat it as just the start of what will be a long-term relationship. Upon order creation, make sure to stay in touch with the customer via email or text message if they opt-in, letting them know the status of their order, the shipping details, and exactly when they can expect to receive their order. This type of proactive customer service makes your customer feel cared for while also keeping your brand top-of-mind.
Provide easy-to-find solutions on your website through a prominently displayed FAQ section. Make sure your answers and solutions are easy to understand; otherwise, your customers will need to spend the extra time contacting you anyway. Promote your refund and cancellation policies, fulfillment details, privacy policy, and any other essential details that your customers need to know upfront.
Hire qualified, skilled customer service team members to represent your company. Take the time to hire people are able to respond to customers with a positive, can-do attitude who knows how to make customers feel as though they are essential. Take the time to teach your customer service team about your product and how to troubleshoot the most common issues from the past. Make sure your customer service team feels empowered to help customers the best way they can.
Prominently display your customer service hours, phone number, email address, and social media handles on your website. If a customer has any difficulty figuring out how to reach you, they will probably be irritated. If a lead has any difficulty reaching you… they will probably bounce, meaning a missed opportunity! Be sure to have adequate customer service support to be monitoring and responding to all these channels.
Treat each customer like gold when they connect with you, and view every interaction as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship. If you are successful at listening to your customers' needs and adeptly responding, you just might be able to close an additional deal while you have their attention. Go above and beyond to offer personalized customer service.
For example:
Instead of:
“Thanks for your time."
Make it friendly and personal:
"Nancy, thank you so much for your time today!"
Whether it’s points, a discount, a gift, or something else, consider having something extra you can offer a customer after any particularly difficult issue has been resolved. One time Sweetgreen messed up my salad that I had already paid for. They were super friendly and apologetic when I let them know about the salad error, and then, when they fixed it, they also handed me a cup for a fountain drink on the house. Hard to stay mad after a free cucumber limeade. And look at me now, sharing my happy tale. (Keep up the good work Sweetgreen!)
A stellar customer experience ensures that the organic conversation happening around your brand is positive, and more importantly, it maintains the long-term vitality and growth of the relationship you’ve worked so hard to cultivate with your customers. Customers are the best, make sure you’re treating them as such at every customer touchpoint.
At 360 Media Direct, we've delivered over 100 million – yes million – customers to our trusted corporate partners. We've had a lot of experience over the years with careful handling of the needs, questions, and concerns of our ever-important customers.
Sources: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/importance-customer-service