The Secret to Excellent Customer Service in Kenya

Effective Communication in Customer Service

Is your customer service team communicating or are they simply just speaking?

When it comes to customer service, communication is key. It means everything!?

Either a customer needs help with purchasing a product or they are absolutely disappointed to the point of wanting to abandon the brand, customer service agents need to use the right skills to connect with customers in a way that leaves them calmer, satisfied, and confident in the brand.

So regardless of the type of business you do, the success of the business often depends on your team's ability to provide quality customer service. Strong communication skills and habits can serve as the foundation for positive interactions with clients, build brand equity and keep the company valuable.?

The way an organization handles customer service communication can make or break the business. In Kenya today, a single customer on the receiving end of bad service can damage a company’s reputation.

Effective communication is not just part of customer service but the most important part. The secret sauce to effective customer service communication lies in the ability to gauge your customer’s expectations and then to mirror and respond appropriately.

?So Why is Effective Communication so Important in Customer Service?

Customer service is often an entirely communicative act, which takes place via written or spoken interactions and as a result, it requires skilled professionals who are careful of how they speak to others.

Communication is essential for customer service because it enables valuable exchanges that better meet the client's needs.

Most successful Kenyan companies have understood that customer service goes beyond just helping individuals who have questions and concerns. Customer service affects networking, sales and branding.?

When the public has an association of positive communication with your team's organization, you earn greater trust and loyalty.

Outstanding communication also reduces the confusion that can undermine otherwise strong customer service.

Cultivating effective customer communication skills should be an integral part of the company values. Improving the way to communicate helps to promote the organization’s brand to future customers, build a strong relationship with existing customers, and address customer concerns.

How to Build Strong and Effective Customer Service Communication

1. Make Communication Clear and Concise

You communicate, but do you communicate clearly?

The customer service agent needs to speak clearly, emphasizing the important details to ensure that the quality information they possess, reaches the customers. By stressing words and phrases, the agent will limit the need for customers to ask the agent to repeat and enable more fluid conversations.

Agents need to remember that one aspect of effective customer service communication is keeping the exchange fairly concise and always relevant, whether it’s verbal or written.?

This is especially important for communication through social media, chat, and SMS, as these channels are defined by keeping the information short and to the point. When it comes to emails, they should be kept to a length that gives just the right amount of relevant information.?

It is important for agents to strive to use a natural, conversational tone in their communication both on the voice channel and in written form to keep a personal connection with the customer.?

It’s particularly necessary to humanize the experience for non-voice channels. Effective customer service communication combines a personalized approach with efficient practices that save customers time and frustration while ultimately winning their loyalty.

For the personnel in customer-facing roles, feeling tired can result in less clear communication. Reminding yourself to enunciate is a simple way to monitor how you're speaking with clients, even toward the end of the day or week.

At the end, when customer service agents deliver all needed information as briefly as possible, they assist customers internalize key points and avoid misunderstandings. You also respect customers' time when you aim to help them as efficiently as possible.

2. Use Consistent Brand Vocabulary

The terminology the customer service team uses to describe its products and services hugely defines its corporate image.?

It is also important for agents to communicate with customers using the vocabulary used to describe products or services. The terms used should match the language on the company website, mobile app, menu options, and social media sites.?

This ensures a customer has a seamless experience when comparing the instructions, they receive from customer service with what they read in a manual or online.

Brands should be consistent in the vocabulary they use across all channels, and agents should be skilled in the brand terminology and use it accurately during service interactions for faster, more efficient service.

3. Ask Questions

As a manager, encourage the customer service team to ask the customers questions because that is how they uncover key pieces of information about the customers.?

Clients appreciate customer service because it's often how they can best access your team's expertise. Below are a few areas in the customer’s journey, your business could benefit in asking questions:

• Before purchase: As a business you can learn about a buyer or client's needs by asking about their priorities and directing them toward the product or service that best suits them.
• After purchase: After a customer has made a purchase, it would be ideal then to ask customers questions about their experience buying from your business. They can provide specific details and feedback you can use to improve while their memory is still fresh.
• When problem solving: When helping a customer with an issue, asking questions to narrow down the source of the problem makes your service more efficient and likely to succeed.?

As a business owner you may consider drafting a list of standardized questions so that the team can follow the best troubleshooting practices for a product or service.

• In marketing emails: Marketing emails help to maintain connections between the brand and the customers. Including surveys or questionnaires shows you value their input and want to consider it when providing customer service in the future.

4. Apply Empathy

Emotionally, customers feel reaffirmed and supported when customer service representatives acknowledge their frustrations or concerns. Empathy is a skill that improves how customers feel about their interactions with your team.?

Customer agents who take time to understand and imagine the customer's perspective, can sometimes better understand the challenges the customer is experiencing.?

You can also include empathy in service interactions, by expressing your appreciation of the customer’s honesty, being accountable for mistakes and identifying with their opinions.

5. Use Positive Language

Using positive language is a simple yet effective way to make customers feel better about their experience with your brand. It reinforces the idea that your team's company aims to be helpful and satisfy them.?

Negative language can leave the impression that your ability to help is limited. A frustrated customer wants to hear that there is a solution to their problem.?

In case an agent does not have immediate answers, they should refrain from using any language that suggests an inability to solve a problem or lack of knowledge. They should instead proactively connect them to someone who can and keep the conversation helpful and positive.

Customer service agents should refrain from using words such as "can't," "no" or "unfortunately" and focus instead on what you can do to improve a situation.

6. Manage Customer Expectations

A sure way to lose customers is to over-promise and then under-deliver. It is way better to accurately and honestly describe what you will do for a customer or under-promise and then over-deliver.

Managing expectations entails proactively explaining how you can help a customer so that they know what to expect ahead of time. This could be giving them a timeframe for a service, an honest estimation of cost or letting them know how their issue will be resolved.

Indeed, sometimes, a customer's requests exceeds your current ability to meet them. While not ideal, you can still have an excellent service interaction by showing you want to connect the customer to the right resources as soon as possible.?

When your customer understands the process, they will be far happier even in difficult situations. Providing updates is a good way to manage a customer’s expectations and keep them in the loop. Often, customers respond well to this kind of honesty and forthrightness.

7. Personalize the Interactions

Customers often seek a human touch when contacting a brand and for any business, you can often make your customers feel valued by adding a personal touch to returning customers.?

This could be anything from simply remembering their name to asking about their families. It could also be sending a card thanking them for doing business with you or a simple birthday or a holiday message to their phone.?

For small or new businesses especially, remembering the last conversation you had with a customer and referring to it is a powerful way to make customers feel cherished and it will make for better customer service.

It’s important for agents to introduce themselves, ask in an authentic tone just how they may be of service. Customers should be able to feel the agent’s willingness to help them.

So using a cheerful tone on the phone or positive language in written communication are essential to a personalized experience.

8. Communicate in Real Time

Now that technology is more widely used than decades ago, blending online and in-person services in order to help customers may require various resources and systems, such as contact forms, FAQ pages and live support.

When possible, companies should embrace customer service formats that take place in real-time, such as phone calls and live chat. These services allow customers to ask follow-up questions as they arise and have all their issues resolved faster.

Real-time customer service helps elevate the personal interactions that help people appreciate your team's talent and thoughtfulness.

9. Adopt Tech Tools

As a business owner, if you’re aiming for better customer service communications then technology is on your side. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry is rapidly growing and chatbots are a huge reason for that.?

These customer service tools are more intuitively built than ever and are constantly improving.

Having a responsive chatbot in place is often more productive than having your customers sit on hold for several minutes while waiting for a representative.

10. Listen Actively

Effective communication requires attentive listening . You cannot respond accurately to what you have not heard or understood.

The customer service agents need to be paying attention to what the customer is saying. It is very annoying for a customer to be speaking and the agent is either absent minded or is not listening.

As much as some issues may be difficult to solve, proactively listen, shows the customer that you understand them and will work hard to rectify it. Often, unhappy customers will forgive even large mistakes if they can see that you’ve listened and taken their complaint onboard.

Attributes for better customer service include reserving judgment, asking the right questions, repeating a customer’s concerns to them, and offering clear and direct solutions.?

Customers feel cared for when they can obviously tell that you’re listening to and engaged with them.

By adopting and practicing the above tips provided will go a long way to ensure that your customer service agents or employees as a whole are effectively communicating with your customers.

It is also wise to continually take your customer service team through a well-tailored training to keep their skills in check at all times.

Article Author

Jackie Wahome, a Customer Experience Trainer in Kenya with over 15 years of experience in Customer Experience across different industries in Kenya.

I help businesses make more and retain more customers through unrivalled Customer Experience.

Jackie’s Profile Link

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jackie-wahome-customer-experience-trainer-7b272554/

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