Opinion: signs you should change your customer service

Columnist Alan Ridgell addresses the pressing need for customer service improvement in hospitality

Customer service is one of the more important aspects of any business that desires to become a leader in its market. By offering customers the support they require, your business can reap massive benefits and establish a well-rounded impression on current and potential clientele. That is why adapting to customer needs and continuously striving for improvement with regard to customer service is a must in today’s dynamic business landscape. In this article, we will delve into signs that showcase the need for customer service improvement as well as provide you with a number of methods through which you can begin to implement changes and innovate your business’s customer service. 

How to determine whether you need to re-tool your customer service?

When approaching the issue of restructuring your customer service, it is utterly important to keep in mind that the best signifier of the effectiveness and efficiency of your customer service is the customers themselves. Customers utilize various methods to showcase their level of satisfaction such as through ratings, online comments, and more. That is why it is essential to maintain vigilance and not neglect customer dissatisfaction, as it might be just what you need to understand where things have taken a turn for the worse. 

Another signifier comes in the form of churn rates. Churn rates refer to the rate of customers that stop engaging with a business altogether. Put simply, churn rates provide a way to inform businesses that they are losing valuable customers. Nonetheless, it must be highlighted that a high churn rate does not necessarily link directly with poor customer service; however, by improving the level of customer service quality, you ensure that there is one less component that potentially contributes to higher churn rates for your business. 

Methods to improve the effectiveness of your customer service

Improving your customer service is all about paying attention to the little details that actually provide satisfaction for your customers. The following list showcases a number of components that you can address to improve your business’s customer service: 

  1. Practice active listening: When converting with customers, it is of paramount importance to make them feel understood. Thus, you can provide training for your customer service employees to further improve their level of competence. 
  2. Know your products: Customers tend to grow irritated when they speak to customer service that is not fully knowledgeable about the products offered by the company they work for. Hence, it is important that the customer service team is well-informed about the service or products offered to the customer. 
  3. The customer is always right: When conversing with customers, the customer service team must remain polite, solution-focused, and positive throughout the entire conversation. This way, even if the issue faced by the customer is not resolved by the end, the customer is left feeling as if the customer service team is doing all they can within their power to help alleviate their issue.

Outsourcing as a means of customer service improvement 

The benefits of outsourcing are twofold. On one end, the overall quality of your customer service increases, while on the other, your costs and the amount of time required to address client requirements decrease. This is precisely why many businesses nowadays have begun to outsource enterprise contact center services and use email software services in an attempt to better the service they offer to customers and benefit on the business end simultaneously. 

It is important to note that such contact service companies are professional and experienced in the field of customer service. Thus, by outsourcing their services, the time required to see results decreases and the amount of customer inquiries addressed scales up. 

Enterprise contact services are also known for their incorporation of technology that allows for response automation. This way, if a customer cannot get a hold of a customer service employee at a specific moment, they will be automatically sent a message or called back once the line is free. In addition, such contact centers employ the omnichannel strategy that allows for customers to have multiple channels of communication with the business.

Key takeaways

To remain a top competitor in their market or industry, businesses must pay close attention to the quality of their customer service. It is utterly important to not neglect signs that might indicate the need for improvement. In addition to the many methods through which you can better your customer service, outsourcing enterprise contact center services serves as one of the more prominent paths you can undertake to propel your customer service to the next level. By automating call distribution, employing omnichannel strategies, and dissecting analytics, enterprise content centers ensure that your customers are addressed properly, on time, and with the utmost care.

Alan Ridgell

Further details:

If interested in learning more, you can contact the author via email at alannridgell@gmail.com.

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