5 things you’re getting wrong in customer service

One of the most common issues many companies struggle with as they are trying to grow their local market share and operations is that they forget the golden rule of business: “The customer is always right.”

With the understanding that clients are literally the thing keeping your business going, you have to understand that great customer service is essential to your operations. In fact, 1 in 3 customers say that they will walk away from an organisation after a single bad experience. Despite this, a lot of people surprisingly still get it wrong, in a number of ways.

The following are some of the most common, and understanding what they are can help you avoid falling into these unwanted approaches:

1) The problem isn’t what you should be focused on

When a customer rings, upset with a product or service that didn’t function as expected, companies often spend too much time trying to get to the bottom of what caused the issue. That’s frankly not something the person on the other end of the line likely cares much about — they want to know that you’re listening. GetApp advised that your customer service should instead focus on what you will do to make things right. The reason they’re calling is the problem. Customers want you to talk to them about what the solution will be.

The difference between good and bad customer service is vital for your company.

2) Are you documenting everything?

As with anything else in business, you should not be in a situation where one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. In many customer service scenarios, the first person to pick up the phone won’t have unilateral power to fix the problem, and others will have to come into the situation to get to the proper solution. As such, all staffers should take careful notes when conducting any customer communications, so that every piece of information is accessible to the next person who gets involved.

3) It’s rarely a one-time issue

When a customer or client has a complaint, the problem will likely not be an isolated incident, according to Helprace. Whether it’s a defective product they purchased or a worker on site who cut a corner or two to get the job done quickly (rather than properly), it’s wise to look into what happened so you can react more effectively the next time someone reports a similar problem.

4) It isn’t always enough to just fix the issue

If you sell a person a defective product, sometimes it really is enough to just replace it as quickly as possible. However, there may be situations where a basic replacement — or extra work to fix an issue on site — isn’t enough to make that customer or client happy.

While some difficult clients will never be satisfied, your organisational approach should be to go above and beyond the basic solution to ensure your baseline is more than just the bare minimum.

5) ‘Passing the buck’ should never, ever happen

Finally, when a customer rings with a problem, they do not want to hear excuses, even if there’s a perfectly good explanation for why your company fell short of expectations. Playvox stated that it’s important for the employee picking up the phone to avoid putting the caller on hold for long periods of time or transferring them to multiple different departments. That worker should be the point person on getting the issue sorted.

If you need to improve your organisational approach to improving and maintaining customer relationships, training efforts for your whole staff can go a long way toward getting everyone on the same page. Get in touch with ICML today to learn more about how our Delivering Exceptional Customer Service course can be tailored to your business needs.