Avoid Millions in Churn By Upping Your Customer Service Game: Advice from a Customer Service Consultant

Article by Micah Solomon - Customer Service Consultant

Photo by Pablo Merchan https://www.pablomerchan.com/?

One of the most frustrating causes for customers leaving your business (“churn”) is this: you’ve developed lapses in your customer service and customer experience that are alienating your customers and driving them away.

These customer service lapses often get worse during a period of rapid company growth. It’s fairly easy to deliver fantastic service when you only have a few clients. But when a company's clientele starts to grow, the attention and attentiveness given to each customer tend to wane. Workers no longer manually sign their thank-you cards. Instead of coming out into the open to welcome even VIP or long-term customers, managers spend their time in their office completing increasing amounts of paperwork. Phones are answered more slowly and sporadically; responses to customers take longer than expected to arrive (and when they do, they are abrupt and impersonal); recruiting standards are lowered; and CRM notes lose some of their original texture and complexity; and managers are often unavailable to resolve customer conflict because they are simply too busy.

Is this lowering of standards the unavoidable status quo as a business grows?

Definitely not—as long as you refocus your attention and resolutely maintain your commitment to offering outstanding customer service. The guiding principle is this: If you would have done something for your very first client, you must find a way to continue doing it for your ten-thousandth, without hurrying, without taking shortcuts, and without doing anything that would make a customer believe that your company doesn't appreciate them.

Generally speaking, a growing company is more like a commodity provider than it thinks. You need to prioritize offering outstanding customer service in each and every customer interaction if you want to keep your business out of that commodity dustbin where you'll be seen as completely interchangeable with other suppliers.

Here are five crucial actions to help you get back on track.

1. Look for any violations of customer service standards: How fast do you answer your phones? Your standard should be three rings. (Why? According to studies conducted by the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, by that fourth ring, guests will have become concerned that you won't answer at all or that you won't be attentive if you do. How fast do you respond to emails? In today's society, a "within 24 hours" requirement is unacceptable; that's equivalent to 36 years of internet time. Instead, make a commitment to respond to every question on the same morning or afternoon. Do you receive queries on your website? You might be amazed to discover that these often go completely unanswered. These should receive the same attention as emails.

2. ?Create a company lexicon (phrasebook) of preferred customer service language that employees should use, as well as phrases they should avoid. Some phrases that are immediate turn-offs for your customers may include, "No problem," "I beg to differ," "I'm not going to argue with you," "Did you plug it in?" and "Calm down." Employees should always use courteous phrases like "You're welcome" and "My pleasure."

3. Develop your situational empathy skills. Improving and sustaining a high level of customer service requires training in situational empathy. Also known as "customer service-specific empathy," this enables an employee to relate to consumers again and again via phone calls and emails.

4. Customize your service training to fit the specific market your business caters to. For instance, if your clientele are high-net-worth individuals, there are transformative concepts and practices that are special to them. Similarly, patient experience training can be a lifesaver in the medical field.

5. Meet customers at their current location. When your customer base is expanding quickly, you want to make every effort to offer convenient communication, allowing the customer to select the channel and switch it whenever they want. They should be able to easily and conveniently text you in the morning, tweet at you at night, and call you when necessary. If you communicate with clients through a variety of platforms, consumers shouldn't have to repeat information they've already given on another channel. In fact, they detest doing so. Choosing the correct CRM (customer relationship management system) can help you avoid the dreaded "Could you repeat your credit card number for me?" charade. Some CRM solutions are made to be "conversational," meaning they will continue a conversation as your customer moves from X to Y.