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.