Remodelling your Customer Service Strategy

How we do business is changing and most of us have had to re-look at our strategies because customers’ needs have changed. More businesses are now remote and the customer service industry has been under immense pressure. 

Here are some helpful tips to help you relook at how you do business to help you transform your customer service strategy.

1.    Be prepared for anything

The year 2020 has proven to all of us that nothing about life is certain. You have plans of your own, however, you always be prepared for anything. 

Business continuity is something organisations should analyse with the coronavirus being a hot topic at this moment.

A survey conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has revealed that 42.2% of the country’s businesses have indicated that they have run out of financial resources to continue operating during the Covid-19 outbreak.

It is however, possible for businesses to bounce back when all of this is over through improved innovation strategies, local trade, better financial planning and upskilling.

2.    Be realistic with customers

Some queries cannot be resolved immediately due to legal/compliance issues. The key is to manage expectations about turnaround times for resolution. Companies often do this badly and leave the customer frustrated. 

3.    Ask your customers what they value

Ask the customers what’s important to them. You can do this in several ways such as running polls on social media, short questionnaires or directly over the phone through your sales agents. 

This will help you align your metrics to what your customers’ value the most. Just because we think we know what they want/expect doesn’t mean it’s true. 

4.    Take nothing for granted – review your procedures

I think businesses should review metrics all the time to make sure that they are supporting great service. We achieve them and that is in part because they are service-oriented, so the team buys into them.

5.    Appreciate your agents

Regular, genuine feedback is vital for building and maintaining a team.

A sincere ‘Thank You!’ is a great motivator.

6.    Involve all staff in training and development

Regular communication with your team and keeping them up to date with developments, news and feedback (good or bad) builds your relationship with them.

This will give your team confidence in you, and if you can resolve their queries and questions promptly, then this will reinforce your authority.

7.    Train agents for empathy

Customers are anxious and feeling frustrated today due to what is happening around us. The least you can you as a business is to give them the best services. There needs to be strong training in getting employees to put themselves in the customer’s shoes.

What would they want if they contacted a company?

8.    Understand the culture of communication platforms

We use emoticons in live chats to make the conversation more fun and more personal. But sending a sad emoji when advising someone their refund is declined is not recommended. Keep it light, but also keep it professional 

9.    Discover new ways to personalise your service

Nothing says “we don’t care about our customers” like impersonal, irrelevant messaging. Consumers hand over so much personal information these days, it’s only natural they expect some thoughtful offers in return. Personalization is so important to consumers; they make serious buying decisions based on their experiences with brands.

There needs to be a personal touch to how you offer your services. Add value into your customers’ lives. This is a time of worry and adding value to your customers can go a long way for your business.

10. Stay on top of customer expectations

No matter how great customer support is or how pretty that marketing email turned out, your efforts won’t yield much if customers aren’t seeing the same level of quality throughout their experiences with your brand. You need to remember that consistency is a major predictor of customer loyalty. 

Show customers that they can expect positive experiences with your company across channels, and they’ll continue coming back.

11. Embrace multichannel interactions

Customer interactions aren’t limited to phone or email anymore—they can happen practically anytime, anywhere, on any device. Customers don’t want to jump through hoops to answer a simple question or wait till business hours to submit a request. With social customer service on the rise and personalized messaging the new norm, customers expect quick, convenient ways to contact companies. That means companies have to choose the right communication channels and provide quality experiences across all of them.

Remodelling your customer service strategy means relooking at how you connect with your customers. You need to connect to your customers in the right place at the right time, and your message will carry a lot more weight. You can make massive improvements to your customer communications just by re-evaluating your channels and asking customers for their input regularly. From there, it’s easier to stay on top of evolving customer expectations and deliver offers and experiences that keep people coming back, even in challenging economic times.