How To Earn A Perfect Customer Satisfaction Score

I’ve never heard someone say, “I’m hoping for a bad customer service experience.” On the contrary, people want and expect a good service experience. We know what good service looks like. We like the company that is easy to do business with and makes us feel appreciated for the money we spend with them. Investing in the creation of that good experience pays. Plenty of research and statistics support that concept. Our friends at Help Scout compiled a list of stats, facts and quotations about customer service, including this: 73 percent of companies with good customer service make more money.

While perfection is not reality, shooting for perfection is a pretty good goal. And there’s a company that caught my attention with a perfect customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and an astonishing 99.5 percent renewal rate. That company is Endgame, a security company that protects its clients’ computers and networks from hacks, computer viruses and other cyber threats.

I was intrigued by the perfect score and almost perfect renewal rate, so I asked Rick Hensley, senior VP of customer success at Endgame, “How did you do it?” Below are his answers, followed by my commentary:

1. Know your customer’s goals and KPIs and monitor for their success, even if they are beyond the product’s scope: When you understand your customers’ metrics, you can easily define success.
2. Use software as an empowerment tool, not as a customer service replacement: Hensley is talking about automation, AI and chatbots. These technologies are great for basic support, but there must be a seamless transition to human support when needed.
3. Hire only Tier-3 analysts – and put only the most experienced analysts on the customer support team: Hiring the best of the best means your customers won’t be frustrated and ask to speak to a supervisor or higher-level support. They get the right answer or solution the first time they connect.
4. Ensure the CS process enables us to become an extension of the customer’s internal team: I wrote about this in The Amazement Revolution. The goal is to move from vendor to partner. A partner is a vendor relationship on steroids.
5. Build the right culture: It really does start with culture. Leadership must establish a vision for customer service and the customer experience (CX). The vision must permeate the organization, not just the front line, and ultimately be felt by the customer.
6. Hire the right people who relentlessly want to serve customers and absolutely love solving complex puzzles: There are people who love to deal with other people’s problems. They have the personality to calm the most anxious – and angry – customers. Getting the right people in the right job is crucial to that 100% satisfaction rating.
7. Be proactive. Ask for feedback, input and status, rather than have a “maintain and retain” mindset: My take on this is twofold: First, if you have a problem, tell the customer about it before they call you – ideally before they even discover it on their own. Second, find out if you’re doing a good job – ask for feedback.
8. Conduct white-glove implementation initially, which leads to fewer long-term hurdles: This is where customer success begins. Teaching customers how to properly use the product from the beginning is an investment that saves time and frustration for both the customer and the company.
9. Record and document. It is crucial. Don’t solve an issue that’s already been solved and don’t ask the customer a question they’ve already been asked: Every interaction with the customer should be recorded. The next time they call, you can reference the last interaction. This shows you know who they are and the history they have with you. It creates confidence.
10. Training, training, training … teach the customer to fish: This isn’t about training your employees. That’s a given. This is about training the customer. More than teaching them how to use whatever it is they have bought, teach them the best way to access support. Do you have self-service options that will get them their answers quickly and efficiently? Do you have video tutorials? If so, do your customers know how to access and use them? Of course, you want to teach them that even with these self-help and digital options, they can always pick up the phone and talk to a human if they need to.

Will using Hensley’s 10 tactics earn you a perfect customer satisfaction score with your clients? Maybe … maybe not. But none of these ideas will hurt. You can modify these ideas to suit your specific needs and use them to deliver a better – closer to perfect – customer experience.

Shep Hyken is a customer service & customer experience expert, keynote speaker and NYT bestselling author. Learn about his latest book The Convenience Revolution. 

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.