How to Provide Exceptional Customer Service: A Quick Guide

In the contemporary business world, Caveat Venditor – “let the seller beware” is the guiding principle. Customers’ needs and preferences are treated with utmost importance. If you want to build a strong and long-term customer relationship with your buyers, customer service is the key. 

But what is the best way to offer customer service? In this digital era, between email and instant messaging, do people even think of phone calls?

It turns out, consumers still prefer to get over a call and resolve the issue at hand at the earliest rather than waiting for a reply back on email. Thus, it’s still imperative to get a business phone number to provide support to your customers. 

Let’s delve into the nuances of customer service. 

What Does Customer Service Mean?

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Customer service refers to the seller’s support to customers throughout their buying journey. The scope of customer service is not limited to the point where the customer has made the purchase. Instead, it’s a benefit that the customers enjoy even after the purchase.

In essence, customer service is performed to provide a hassle-free and memorable buying experience. 

Types of Customer Services

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Business calls and FAQ listings are the traditional methods of providing customer service. However, channels like social media, live chat, and more have become prominent with the new emerging business trends. 

Let’s look at some of the most renowned and important types of customer service. Many companies outsource offshore customer support for enhanced quality and convenience.

1. Services based on Telephone: Providing services to the customer on the phone (like Query Handling, SMS services, etc.) is one of the oldest types of customer service. Get a business phone number and start providing customers the convenience of getting their queries solved instantly.

2. Services based on Email: Email has enabled a higher degree of flexibility in providing customer service. The employees can provide support and solve the queries of the customers by maintaining an official email ID.

3. Services based on Live Chat: The aim of customer service is to provide customer convenience; therefore, a live chat solution is an excellent representation of the same. It provides almost 24*7 support to the customers and enables instant responses for all queries. 

4. Services based on Social Media: Social Media has the most potential to serve customers and prospects today. Through platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc., the customers can publicly express their views and queries about the product/service online. It helps create brand awareness and a community of loyal customers. Moreover, features like polls help the sellers to know the general preferences of the target audience.

Good vs. Bad Customer Services

According to a Gartner research, “89% of companies now expect to compete mostly based on customer experience.”

One can establish by now that customer service is very crucial in the success of any business. But one should note that by merely providing customer service, the purpose is not solved. 

There is a need to differentiate the good customer service from the bad service if you wish to stand out from the crowd. 

Good Customer Service Example

• When the company resolves your problem in time;
• When the customer involvement is the lowest while resolving the problem;
• If the issue is resolved without much effort required from the customer.

Bad Customer Service Example

• When the agent on call keeps on asking for assistance and puts you on long hold;
• When the agent asks you to verify your profile again and again;
• When the customer has to talk to multiple agents and explain the issue numerous times.

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Tips to Provide Good Customer Service

Attributes like punctuality and understanding customer’s needs enable convenience, whereas inadequate representation, late responses, and harsh tone of voice can induce frustration in the customer’s mind. For a business’s customer service to be qualified as good, it should follow the below-mentioned tips:

Create a Quick Response System

The first aim should be to respond to the customers as quickly as possible. A quick response system makes the customers feel valued and helps create a sense of trust within their minds. In contrast, a long response time can result in frustration and leave a wrong impression on your organization. When considering customer service optimization, it is beneficial to conduct a thorough contact center comparison to ensure your approach aligns with industry standards and best practices. One aspect to explore in this evaluation is the choice between communication solutions like 8×8 vs RingCentral, as they play a crucial role in shaping the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer support operations. Additionally, omnichannel software allows for a seamless integration of various communication channels, ensuring that customers receive a consistent and unified experience, regardless of how they choose to interact with your organization.

Get a Business Phone Number

Organizations should have dedicated business phone numbers for providing customer services. It segregates the personal and official calls of the employees, makes the tasks easier, and throws a professional image into the customers’ eyes. In addition, they can use landline providers because landline is cost-effective and gives unlimited local calling. Whereas not using a business phone number may create chaos in the tasks and make you look unprofessional.

Provide Round-The-Clock Support

Just ensuring a quick response isn’t enough these days. The customers prefer organizations that provide round-the-clock support. In addition, it helps in maintaining patience with the customers. When an organization doesn’t offer this, customers grow impatient until the official hours for services resume.

Be an Organization of Principles

This is an essential step as the organizations that stay true to their claims enjoy an excellent reputation and strong customer relationships. Organizations that deviate from their claims face many backlashes and get their reputations tarnished and lose customers. For example, Amazon believes that the customer is God; therefore, the company sticks to this principle which helps it to deliver a great customer experience.

Personalization Is Necessary

Humans get attracted to human interaction and involvement. In addition to the above technology-based steps, actions like customized birthday SMS, special discounts, loyalty schemes, etc., are very well received by the masses.

In-app Chat API for iOS or Anodrid adds another layer of convenience to customer service. With a well-integrated chat API , businesses can offer real-time support to their customers, ensuring instant responses and a seamless communication experience on the go.

Conclusion

The customer is considered the king of the Market Kingdom. Irrespective of their size and type, all organizations should invest their funds and energy towards providing excellent customer service and human resources training for the same. 

Based on a survey, 86% of the users are willing to pay more for a better customer experience (CX). Therefore, customer experience is the key to retaining existing customers.

And, if you want to uplift your customer’s experience, you can do so by making customer communication personalized and seamless. Implement a cold calling software and start using a virtual business phone number. Ensure the growth of your business and improve its reputation. 

Approximately 45% of small businesses fail during the first five years, and according to Tidio’s survey, your business has a better chance to stay on the market with top-notch customer service.