How do you share customer service innovation with your audience?

In my experience, authenticity is one of the most important characteristics you can have with customer service and building strong relationships.

In my experience the best and most effective way to assist customers is to actively listen to their needs and issues. What I mean by that is listening to what they’re saying as they’re saying it, not listening to form a response. Once you hear them out completely that’s when you would then formulate your response. When you listen to respond you can miss key pieces of information.

With customer’s testimonials and sharing their feed back on their true and real experiences with you, others are more likely to trust and inquire to know more about your services.

Definitely tell a success story that can inspire others, including your team of how impactful you can be. Share your passion in resolving those issues and keeping your customers happy.

In my experience, Sharing personal up’s and downs about the product in a genuine and positive light helps customers build a visual picture. By simply being genuine and honest about the issues and offering solutions to those issues or workarounds where necessary this can help customers feel more comfortable. This can also show them you care about resolving and improving the situation. New people to customer service tend to shy away from this because of the fear of “dissing a product.” Don’t say “this product is horrible.” But don’t be afraid of acknowledging that there can be potential issues. Remember, the customer isn’t always right. It’s about how much you know and they know during the conversation. Offer good solutions to them.

A common problem many people run in to when it comes to seeking feedback is that through open ended questions customer service tends to get in to long conversations. Being able to close this loop within the time constraints provided in today’s global communicative society is important. Doing this effectively is to ask open ended problems directly based on their words as suggested by this article through active listening. Ever hear, “What seems to be your issue, please provide more details?” Especially when you’ve found off topic conversations during high volume. That’s because this direct, open ended question provides a direct response that tells customers to provide you with their issues so you can solve the problem with them quickly.

One thing I’ve found helpful to the “disheveled” customer service employee is to express to them that small wins add up, word of mouth add’s up and this in return helps grow the business. Often one really angry customer ruins another persons day because they take it personally. When in customer service don’t do this, celebrate each win. Buy a small bagel together or drink a nice lemonade. Connect with your team as well over good food and conversation. Listen openly to their feedback of how you can improve. These are things that will keep your team going. Always give each employee the bigger picture of what they are working for and why. Let your team know they aren’t just a “number” working in a hierarchy and mean it.

Customer service these days is about emotional quality intelligence and not just “here’s the data.” Building that connection for customer retention takes work, dedication and passion towards providing solutions to unsatisfied customers. Usually, customers are unsatisfied because of five main points ?Product deficiency and struggling to get a placement ?Product didn’t work for them due to the customer not understanding or doing enough research ?Product miscommunication, literally misunderstanding how to use the tool or service, why it’s there. ?Customers having a bad day and the product was the “Nail in the coffin.” ?Too many calls or emails asking “is this resolved?” After two follow ups and no response, people generally lose patience.