Ways to Deliver Consistently Great Customer Service

You may have a fantastic product, but if your customer service is unhelpful, unreliable, or just plain hard to get in touch with, folks will hear about it, and you’ll lose customers over it. That’s one big reason why investing in customer service is key to long-term business success.

What is great customer service?

Great customer service means following best practices like valuing customers’ time, having a pleasant attitude, and providing knowledgeable and resourceful resources, but that you also take things a step further to exceed rather than just meet expectations.

While you can use many different methods to delight your customers and have them raving about your support to their friends, here are some of the best ways to deliver great customer service.

1. Know your product

As a customer support agent, you spend all day troubleshooting for customers, and that means you need to be a product expert.

Expansive knowledge of your product is an essential customer service skill. Ideally, you should believe in your product, be able to discuss features and use cases in an insightful way, and show your customers how the product can benefit them.

2. Maintain a positive attitude

Attitude is everything, and a positive attitude goes a long way in providing excellent customer service. It’s easy to misinterpret the tone of written communication, and email or live chat can come across as cold. Don’t be afraid to use emojis to convey warmth and good humour, or pick up the phone if you find an email or chat conversation getting tense.

3. Creatively problem-solve

Over 80% of customers have churned because they experienced bad customer service. That’s why you must thrive on solving problems for your customers and make it a central part of your support role – and there will always be problems to solve.

4. Respond quickly

66% of people believe that valuing their time is the most important thing in any online customer experience. Resolving customer queries as quickly as possible is a cornerstone of good customer service. Speed should be of the essence — especially for smaller issues that don’t take much time to solve.

Customers understand that more complex queries take time to resolve. There’s a difference between the time it takes you to respond and the speed at which you resolve their problems. Customers don’t want to languish in a ticket queue, but they’ll spend as much time as it takes to resolve their issue. You should, too.

5. Personalize your service

40% of customers say they want better human service. That means they want to feel like more than just a ticket number. Customers want to interact with a person not a company. It’s part of the reason why many businesses send gifts to their customers on their birthdays.

6. Keep your word

If you promise something, making sure you deliver on it is common-sense customer service. Don’t let your customers down. Keeping your word is about respect and trust.

All of the elements above combine to produce great customer service. It’s great customer service that keeps your customers loyal to you and your business — and that earns you a reputation for being helpful and a pleasure to work with.