CUSTOMER SERVICE BEST PRACTICES
10 Best Practices for Providing the Best Customer Service
Time to read: 7 minutes
Customer service best practices help you keep your clients in focus.
To the average business, customers are a means to an end. Without customers, businesses don’t generate any profit, and so it only makes sense to want to maintain them as a resource. However, businesses with this mindset fall into the trap of treating their customers like numbers. Naturally, this isn’t how customers want to be treated. In fact, 66% of customers would switch brands if they were to be treated like a number, rather than like an individual.
Likewise, it’s not enough to establish a single customer-facing department capable of offering high-quality service. Inevitably, situations will occur where your customers end up interacting with other departments, and if the level of service isn’t consistent across departments, then 73% of customers start looking for other brands.
1. Know Your Product
2. Creatively Problem Solve
3. Actively Listen
Effective communication is a two-way street, and active listening is a cornerstone of it. Train your service agents to listen attentively to customer concerns, ask clarifying questions, and demonstrate empathy. Actively listening to customers not only helps in understanding their needs but also builds rapport and trust. This practice ensures that your responses are tailored to the specific concerns of each customer, enhancing overall satisfaction.
To the average business, customers are a means to an end. Without customers, businesses don’t generate any profit, so it only makes sense to want to maintain them as a resource. However, businesses with this mindset fall into the trap of treating their customers like numbers. Naturally, this isn’t how customers want to be treated. In fact, 66% of customers would switch brands if they were to be treated like a number, rather than an individual. Likewise, it’s not enough to establish a single customer-facing department capable of offering high-quality service. Inevitably, situations will occur where your customers end up interacting with other departments, and if the level of service isn’t consistent across departments, then 73% of customers start looking for other brands.
Your customers expect service that is not only exceptional but also consistent. To help you provide this level of support, here’s a list of the seven most important customer service best practices for any business:
4. Hire the right people, and treat them well
5. Correctly manage customer expectations
6. Focus on first impressions
7. Constantly collect data
8. Personalise it
9. Be where the customers are
10. Maintain your focus
Salesforce Service Cloud Is the Best Practice in Customer Service
It’s no surprise that so many best practices take advantage of CRM technology when it comes to providing the best customer service. CRM improves communication — with clients as well as with employees across departments — and makes it possible to build the relationships that grow your business. Salesforce, the most trusted name in CRM has taken this one step further, with Salesforce Service Cloud.
Salesforce Service Cloud is a powerful CRM designed specifically for customer service and support. With Service Cloud, you’ll be able to help clients across every available channel, close cases faster and more efficiently, and provide customers with better self-service resources. Most importantly of all, Service Cloud puts the client relationship right where it belongs, at the centre of everything you do.