Customer Service Tips

27/02/2025 FOSVA Admin

Are you giving your customers a great customer service experience? Read on for our customer service tips.

Did you know that a person will determine whether or not they do business with in 7 seconds. It’s based on how you answer the phone, or your response to their initial enquiry.

How you respond is very important to secure their business. It’s no use just saying ‘hello’ or being impolite, or not mentioning your company name. This will have a negative impact on them and give a poor impression. It comes across as unprofessional, so then your potential customer may have doubts about how you will serve them.

Therefore, it’s imperative that the person answering your phone is well versed in customer service. That also goes for replying to a text, email, or live chat. Some telephone techniques or other customer service training will make a big difference.

A customer is more likely to remain loyal if you handle their issues promptly and efficiently and offer a solution.

If you cannot pay for an answering service, practise some of the following customer service tips. These will teach you how to handle customers – even the difficult ones.

Smile – it’s true that people can tell when you’re smiling down the phone. So when you take that call, make sure you put a smile on your face.
Check your tone of voice – how you sound impacts your customer. How you come across to the person on the other end is important. Make sure you speak clearly.
Greet the caller politely. Say “good morning/afternoon”, then your company name. You should then either say, “[your name] speaking, how can I help?”, or “how can I help?”
Listen – people like to be heard, so make sure you let your customer speak. Do not interrupt. Most people respond well when you are polite.
Empathise – your customer may have a complaint, so again listen without interrupting, Empathise to show that you understand their frustrations. This will help them to feel heard and understood. If they keep venting, let them continue without saying anything. They will feel better once they have got it all off their chest.
Offer a solution – tell them how you intend to fix their problem, and outline the steps you will take. Give them a timeline of when you will get back to them. Then ask them how that works for them.
Ask their opinion – is your customer satisfied? If not, ask them how they feel you could fix their issue.
Take ownership – it’s important that you donot blame the customer, your suppliers, or anyone else. Never tell them it’s not your problem. Your customer is doing business with you, not your contacts, so it’s up to you to sort the problem and keep them updated. Check back with the customer, or your contact, to ensure that the issue has actually been resolved and if it has not, follow up again.
Keep your customer informed – if you have to put them on hold, and you are waiting for an answer from someone, or the person you are transferring them to isn’t answering, then keep going back to them and apologise for keeping them waiting.
Escalate – if you cannot resolve the problem immediately you will need to do more. Tell your customer you will escalate the problem. Let them know you will get back to them later once you have an update.

Stand out from your competition and excel at customer service. Don’t leave them hanging, and make sure you have several ways that they can reach you, including a ‘live’ person.

We hope you found these customer service tips useful. If you don’t feel you can apply them effectively, then reconsider using a professional telephone call answering service. This will help with your reputation and to keep your customers coming back for more.

For more information on how we can help you to give your customers a great customer service experience get in touch. We’ve been doing it for our customers for over 20 years, and have over 40 years’ experience in dealing with customers on the phone.

Small Business Services, Telephone Answering

Cyber Sale!

21/11/2022 FOSVA Admin

Are you ready for this year’s Cyber Sale?

Cyber Monday is nearly here again and you can benefit from great savings in our cyber sale.

It’s very important that potential customers get a professional experience when they call you. How you handle those calls alone will determine whether a customer would like to do business with you.

An answering service is a useful service to have if you’re a small business owner – especially if you don’t have a lot of time to answer the phone.

If you’re busy in meetings, or driving, or just doing day to day operational stuff, it means you could potentially be losing sales.

If you’re missing your existing customers calls too then that won’t bode well for your business reviews! Your customers should be getting a first-class customer service experience.

This is where Freelance Office Services and Virtual Assistance (FOSVA) can help. Our virtual assistant will screen your calls so you don’t have to. We can then transfer the caller to you. Or, we can simply take a message and email or WhatsApp the information to you.

In this year’s Cyber Sale you can save a massive 50% when you take out our Answering Service. This discount will remain in effect for 6 months!

Get in touch with us Monday 28 November to take advantage! It’s for one day only so don’t miss out!

Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Virtual Assistant

Live Chat Assistant

05/08/2022 FOSVA Admin

Live chat is extremely important when it comes to giving a great customer service experience. Especially if you have an online shop, or social media pages.

In this world of virtual working people are doing more and more shopping online. Many prefer to communicate that way too.

So, it’s a good idea to have a few different way for your customers to get in touch; after all we all know how frustrating it is when you can’t get hold of anyone if you have a problem!

Many people like to be able to speak to someone using an online chat facility such as website chat or Google messaging.

A lot of small businesses will already have Facebook shops, where customers can send you an inbox message to enquire about your products or services.

Whatever method they choose to use, it’s a good idea to make sure you have every avenue covered.

Enquiries need to be dealt with preferably within 24 hours as with email enquiries, so enabling your out of office auto replies on the relative platforms is a must.

Ideally, though, you ought to have someone available to respond quickly or you may lose out to a competitor!

Nobody likes to be kept waiting!

However, this takes man hours. So what do you do when you don’t have staff around the clock dealing with these enquiries?

Do you just leave enquiries unanswered and miss potential sales? Or, do you provide a fantastic customer service experience by getting an assistant to monitor your live chat?

I think you’d agree that the latter makes much more business sense.

Get in touch to find out how we can help.

Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Virtual Assistant

Cyber Monday Explained

03/11/2021 FOSVA Admin

What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is a marketing expression for e-commerce sales on the first Monday after Thanksgiving in America. It’s basically the online equivalent of Black Friday.

Its primary function is to drive people to online shopping sites. It typically runs between 26 November to 2 December depending on the year.

The term was created by a woman called Ellen Davis from the National Retail Federation and Scott Silverman.

Its first appearance was on 28 November 2005 in a press release entitled:

“‘Cyber Monday’ Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year”
shop.org

Historically it was reported at its first inception in 2005 that 77% of retailers saw a dramatic increase in their online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving.

It’s also reported in 2017 that online sales increased to a record $6.59 billion which is substantially greater than sales of $2.65 billion in 2014!

Cyber Monday is a great way for online retailers to compete with the big stores who offer massive discounts on the High Street during Black Friday.

It’s recognised as an online marketing term not just in the United States, but now all over the globe! You’ll see many retailers advertising discounts during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend.

The biggest online shopping day to date was on 30 November 2020 in the US. It brought in a massive $10.7 billion sales.

We’re jumping on the band wagon this year. So on on Monday 29 November come back to our website and chat to us to get your 50% discount!

Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

E-Commerce Business Owners

09/09/2021 FOSVA Admin Leave a comment

E-commerce business owners – If you’re too busy to deal with the day to day administration of your business, then a Virtual assistant is a great option.

Customer Enquiries

Having a professional on the end of the phone to speak to your customers is paramount if you’re to secure sales and promote a great customer service ethic.

There are still a lot of consumers who like to talk to a human being on the phone so it’s important you can answer the calls!

The same can be said for visitors to your online store – for instance have you got a chat bot on your website?

What happens when the website visitor needs a bit of extra help? You’ll need to transfer them to a live operator to handle those types of enquiries on your site.

Then we mustn’t forget the other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

It’s true that the mobile phone generation tend to use Messenger and Whatsapp to communicate via text rather than pick up a phone so you will need to have all avenues covered!

Even Google maps has a text facility so who’s answering the queries?

Order Processing

Once you’ve dealt with an enquiry you will then need to take the payment and process the order.

There are many payment services out there such as Sum Up, Square, Sage, PayPal etc. so you’ve probably got a payment facility set up on your site already – but what about when someone calls and wants to pay over the phone? Can you handle this?

After the order is in it has to be sent to the supplier (unless you manufacture your own products in house), but either way you’ll need a process for this to keep on top of your orders and deliveries including all the logistics.

If all goes well and the customer receives your product within good time and there are no issues, you can then follow up for feedback and get these good reviews put on your website and social pages.

However, what if the customer is not happy, or if the order is not fulfilled? You’ll need someone to handle the complaint, chase up suppliers and liaise with carriers for missing consignments etc.

Only when your customer is happy will they think about purchasing from you again so good customer service and communication is imperative if you’re to gain a great reputation.

This is where a Virtual Assistant can prove very useful, especially if you can’t afford to employ a permanent member or staff or don’t have space for a staff member in your office.

So what exactly can a VA do for e-commerce business owners?

Here are a few suggestions and not limited to:

Deal with all enquiries be it email, on line chat, messenger, social media, whatsapp or by phone
Advise customers concerning your product and how it will benefit them
Take payments over the phone via an on line terminal
Process/track orders, liaise with suppliers and carriers
Deal with any issues such as complaints, non-deliveries
Follow up with the customer for feedback and gain reviews for your business

Your Virtual Assistant will become very knowledgeable about your products very quickly.

It would make sense to utilise that knowledge elsewhere don’t you think? It would be silly not to!

Social Media Management

Your Social Media Virtual Assistant can keep your social media platforms current.

They can post content, upload videos and producst to the site. The VA can also engage with followers and process in box messages and on line chat requests. Pretty much anything else pertaining to your online presence.

Content Management

If customer service and social media is not enough, then get your VA to manage the front end of your e-commerce shop too.

Your CMS Virtual Assistant can write blog posts, upload product information and other company updates. Plus anything else you need to add to your online store.

To find out how you can keep your e-commerce business running smoothly, improve sales and gain repeat business, without spending a fortune get in touch with us.

We can tailor the service to your personal requirements.

Watch full video here.

Small Business Services, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

Customer Retention – Achievable?

06/09/2021 FOSVA Admin

Customer retention is based on customer satisfaction.

Did you know that customers will base their decision about whether or not to do business with you within the first few minutes so it’s important you have a professional at the end of your phone!

Even more important is about how you handle their enquiries or even more so, their complaints! It’s a fact that a customer is more likely to remain loyal, return, if you resolve their issues satisfactorily, regardless of how bad it was!

It’s all about a great customer service experience. Give your customers what they want, deal with any issues quickly and promptly and they’ll keep coming back.

A virtual assistant or answering service is one way to keep your customers loyal.

Watch the video for a few simple tips about how to give your customers a great customer service experience. This will increase customer retention.

A professional answering service will help you to keep your customer happy

Audio Transcription, Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Office

SMEs and Covid

13/08/2021 FOSVA Admin

As the Covid restrictions are lifted, those who were confined to working at home will slowly start returning to their offices to work – albeit reluctantly!

If you are/were in this situation, do/did you prefer the solitude or are you the type of person who prefers to be in an office environment that enables you to interact easily with others?

Some of you may have started your own businesses from home and won’t have to return – how is that working out?

We’d love to know – maybe we can help?

Here at Freelance Office Services and Virtual Assistance we have always worked remotely so it’s second nature to us.

Struggling SMEs and Covid are not a great combination as I’m sure many have found out.

Plenty of businesses have suffered badly and many have lost their income completely.

If you are a sole trader or small business owner who has been affected by Covid – don’t fret as there’s help out there for you.

You can get support with any office based task such as:

administration
social media management
answering services
content management/marketing
customer service
audio transcription
training coordinator
event planning
project management
bookings/calendar appointments
secretarial support
order processing

Until August Bank Holiday you can benefit from half price services from our business support portfolio.

Take a look by following this link and give us a shout to find out how we can help get your business back up to speed breaking the bank

Small Business Services, Virtual Assistant

Online Shop Business Owners

28/09/2020 FOSVA Admin

Online Shop/E-commerce business owners – are you having trouble handling your customer service issues?

Are you too wrapped up in getting your orders out?

Have you got a professional customer service person taking your calls, giving product information and dealing with in box queries?

It’s all very well having a great product but if you want repeat custom you need great customer service.

Online Shop owners need to know that just handling a complaint properly can improve your customer retainment.

If you cannot employ someone in house then a virtual assistant is the next best thing.

The online customer service assistant can handle the complete process from enquiry, to order processing ando dealing with any complaints.

Get your orders and enquiries handled professionally by a fully trained customer service trained representative.

Dedicated to putting your company first so your customers reap the benefits.

Please contact us if you would like more information on how we can help you with your on line business and customer service solution.

Check out more of our customer reviews and testimonials. We think you’ll agree we know what we’re talking about!

Small Business Services, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

Customer complaints – how to handle them

07/07/2020 FOSVA Admin

Customer Complaints are a regular occurrence when you don’t have properly trained staff to deal with them.

Scenario – you’re a service provider, and your customer is less than satisfied with the level of service received so has called you and is very irate – how should you handle it?

Here are the basics of handling a complaint when the customer is angry:

Let the customer rant without interrupting
When they stop ranting – empathise with your customer in an effort to placate them
Take ownership – do not blame others or give excuses!
Ask them what they need from you to fix the problem
Offer a solution and explain what you will do and DO IT!
FOLLOW UP in a few days to find out if the issue has been resolved

Customers are more likely to continue using your service or recommend you, if you take ownership and work with them to rectify the complaint.

A professional telephone answering service would provide a good solution if you don’t have trained personnel to take your calls.

Get your customer complaints dealt with effectively so your customers keep coming back.

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