Consumer choice saturates today’s market. As a result, building and maintaining a good customer service culture in your business is more important than ever.
Are you the Fawlty Towers of customer service in your industry?
Remember when Mary Portas and Michel Roux Jnr. graced our screens, extolling the virtues of good customer service? They aimed to put paid to the perception that British customer service has more in common with the fictional antics of Basil Fawlty than the Maitre’d of Claridges.
With the advent of social media and the fact that consumers now have an enormous, open forum to discuss your services, it is vital that you not only offer an exceptional product but that your customers have an all-round positive experience when dealing with your company.
The convenience enjoyed from shopping online adds further challenges to purely customer-facing organisations. At WeAnswer, we believe that despite the advantages that e-commerce offers, you cannot underestimate the power and value of a face-to-face conversation. Having someone actively listen and proactively meet your service requirements creates loyalty, builds a brand profile and gives you a competitive edge in an increasingly over-saturated market.
We live in a culture where, traditionally, the customer is always right. While this does not necessarily sit well with a profitable business strategy, there are many ways to positively manage your customer relationships without wasting your valuable profits or upsetting the apple cart. The Guardian’s Worst Customer Service Award is not something you want your business to win!
But what can be done about it?
You achieve good customer service by choosing the right team. Long-term staff need to be knowledgeable, empathetic, proactive and enthusiastic about promoting your services. In addition, management should empower their employees. Build on their strengths, and encourage them to take pride in their work and the company they represent.
If contentious issues arise, staff must be patient, reasonable and eager to resolve the customer’s problem. Each customer should be treated as a new opportunity to build the business. This is regardless of whether their call is of a positive or negative nature.
Wrapping Up
At WeAnswer, we are confident about the great contact centre service we offer our clients – acting as a seamless extension of their business, bringing expertise to every call we take and striving never to lose a customer.
We coach and appraise our staff to think on their feet, use their initiative and listen closely to callers’ needs. We train our staff for specific campaigns. Each is allocated to particular skill groups to ensure that they have the greatest possible understanding of your business.
Performance management and quality targets ensure that our experts have a genuine knowledge of your call handling needs. However, we never lose sight of the fact that your success is our success.
