Customer service can be a rewarding career. In addition, it teaches skills that can be a business foundation throughout your life. Customers are the lifeblood of any organization and ensuring customer satisfaction is a crucial skill for any business.
What’s the best way to succeed as a customer service representative? Here are four key ways.
1. Understand the customer’s expectations
Approach customer service work from the perspective of the customer, not from your own personal perspective. Frankly, most customers call customer service when they have an issue of some kind. They may have received a product other than the one they ordered. The product may be defective. They may have a billing issue.
In all these situations, you need to understand and have empathy for what the customer desires from the call.
If a customer is calling because they were sent the wrong product, for example, you need to ensure they are promptly sent the correct item. But the customer may also want sympathy for the incorrect delivery. It may have inconvenienced them to have received an incorrect item. Perhaps they had to go to the post office to return it, or were expecting it for a special occasion and didn’t have it.
Express sympathy for any inconvenience. It’s also a good idea to ask if their expectations have been met.
2. Recognize your role as an ambassador for your company
When you speak to a customer, you’re representing your company. What they take away from the interaction is going to have a major impact on how they feel about the company. You are an ambassador of your company’s brand.
As a result, make sure you fully know and understand your company’s brand. Then, implement customer service techniques that are consistent with that brand.
Disney, for example, has a very recognizable brand. They are friendly and family-oriented. Employees at Disney theme parks are very proactive about making sure customers get what they need in a friendly way.
3. Show customers respect
Customers need to be shown respect, always. That means they need to be responded to politely, patiently and with sympathy.
Showing respect may be easy in most situations. But because customers often contact the customer service department because something has gone wrong, they may be frustrated and angry. They may not understand if they caused the problem in some way. Unfortunately, some customers may not show respect to the customer service representatives.
If a customer accuses the company of incompetence, or gets angry, maintain your composure. Remember, the issue is not about you. Think of yourself as a type of actor. Your job is to maintain the role as the company’s professional representative, not to express your own feelings. You’re entitled to your feelings, but you’re not entitled to express them to customers in this role.
4. Create memorable experiences
Research has shown that customers recall how a customer service experience made them feel after the event. You want them to recall the company positively, as a place that responded well to their needs.
One good way to do this is to create a memorable experience. This means goes above and beyond the normal contours of professional behavior such as showing respect. Often, offering a benefit of some kind will create a great experience for the customer. It might be a gift card, or a discount on future purchases, or a freebie.
These benefits are perceived as a type of compensation for the inconvenience of having to call customer service to get a problem fixed. They make customers happy with the service.
Work for a Company That Will Help You Go Places
Are you looking for a job that will reward you and give you skills for the future? Nesco Resource can help you find employment with a company like that. We can help you find a company you can grow with. Contact us today to speak to a professional.