CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service is the act of taking care of the customer's needs by providing and
delivering professional, helpful, high quality service and assistance before, during,
and after the customer's requirements are met.
Customer service is meeting the needs and desires of any customer. Some
characteristics of good customer service include:
Promptness: Promises for delivery of products must be on time. Delays and
cancellations of products should be avoided.
Politeness: Politeness is almost a lost art. Saying 'hello,' 'good afternoon,'
'sir,' and 'thank you very much' are a part of good customer service. For any
business, using good manners is appropriate whether the customer makes a
purchase or not.
Professionalism: All customers should be treated professionally, which
means the use of competence or skill expected of the professional.
Professionalism shows the customer they're cared for.
Personalization: Using the customer’s name is very effective in producing
loyalty. Customers like the idea that whom they do business with knows
them on a personal level.
TYPES OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
1. EMAIL
Email is the classic, common, and widespread way customers
communicate with companies. With the right software, email can be
one of the easiest ways to organize, prioritize, and delegate customer
support interactions in one place.
2. LIVE CHAT
Offering real-time communication as a channel can create a personal
connection with customers looking for immediate support. With chat
and messaging abilities, agents can engage customers over websites,
mobile apps, and even popular messaging apps like Facebook
Messenger, Twitter etc.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media customer service is the practice of providing consumer
support through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. If
your customers are writing about you in social media and those
interactions are falling through the cracks of your support
infrastructure, it’s time to invest in a solution—because these days an
unhappy customer is likely to lodge a complaint on your Twitter or
Facebook.
4. PHONE
A phone conversation remains a powerful way to solve problems—
even in the age of email and social media. When customers get help
over the phone, agents can resolve complex issues faster and deliver
detailed, personalized support.
5. SELF-SERVICE
Support teams know a lot about customer issues—and the best way to
solve them. Unfortunately, more than 20% of agent time is spent
looking for info. A collective knowledge base can help tap into that
institutional knowledge and aid agents with the information they need
to better serve customers. It can also help your business to understand
and fill the knowledge gaps your company might have.
FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMER SERVICE
Non-Availability of Agents – lack of availability of live support:
A customer never likes to wait. When they contact your customer service
department, they want a response instantly. You cannot afford to provide a
bad experience to a customer you have already acquired.
Lack of Metrics:
If you don’t know the correct direction, then you may not reach your
destination. If you’re not tracking the correct metrics, then you won’t be able
to check and keep a tab on the quality of your customer service.
Lack of Training:
This is one of the major factors affect customer satisfaction negatively. If
your customer service team replies instantly but doesn’t solve the problem,
then it will hamper the customer satisfaction. You need to train your
customer service agent staff to provide superior customer experience.
Lack of Empathy:
When providing customer service, your agents need to treat customers as
real people and understand their issues. What makes us human is emotion.
Your customers will love if you can speak their language and share their
pain.
Not taking Social Media as a Customer Service Channel:
Social media is an important channel for connecting with your customers.
While most of the brands use social media to promote their brand, never
neglect the use of social media as a customer service channel.
Not using Technology/Tools Properly:
When a customer contacts your customer service team regarding some issue,
he expects you to solve it in most efficient manner. They also expect you to
use the latest technology to provide better customer experience and after
sales service.
Lack of Teamwork:
It is needless to say that teamwork is important in every department of every
organization. If you don’t work as a team, then achieving any task becomes
difficult. Lack of team work in your customer service team can be seen from
the deteriorating rate of your customer satisfaction levels.
Tired Employees:
If a customer service agent is handling the same kind of complaints on daily
basis then he will get tired of it and his productivity will start decreasing
slowly. Customer service agents are also human beings, they listen to
customer issues all day long and provide solutions, and after this if they
would be asked to extend their working hours then it would be harmful. You
will be able to notice the difference in the quality of interactions.
