Hug your Haters by Jay Baer

Customer service teams dread bad feedback from customers. This customer service video from Jay Baer highlights the enormous opportunity that companies have for customer complaints. Jay reveals research about responding to complaints, why and where customers complain, and how to turn customer service into a marketing play. This engaging and entertaining video can help any customer service team embrace negative customer reviews and use them to level-up their service.

3 Examples of How to Easily Wow Customers with Adam Toporek

The term ‘WOW moment’ in customer service is nothing new. These moments of extraordinary service making an impression on customers and an even longer impression for companies. The good news is that wowing customers is fairly easy to achieve when you take advantage of opportunities that focus on mini-momentous moments. In this customer service video, Adam Toporek shares three examples of how easy it is to create WOW moments with little effort and at a low cost. If you feel inspired by this video, we also suggest checking out the other customer service videos in this series!

Customer Service Secrets from Richard Branson

Virgin Atlantic is known for its exceptional customer service. Founder and CEO, Richard Brandon shares how good customer service starts with treating your employees right.

This customer service video is important for every customer service leader to watch as it addresses effective management styles and how managers can gather open and honest feedback from their team so everyone feels appreciated and inspired to deliver great service. 

5 customer service training videos

5 Ways to Listen Better by Julian Treasure

Listening is one of the most important soft skills for customer service reps. Everyone, including customers, wants to be heard. Customers express themselves through words, tone, and body language, and it’s key for reps to engage in active listening. Julian Treasure’s customer service training video shares five ways that customer service reps can retune their ears for conscious listening.

The Surprising Secret to Speaking with Confidence by Caroline Goyder

Good customer service starts with confident reps and agents. After all, customers want to know that the employee they are talking with knows what they’re doing. This is why it’s so important for every customer service training outline to focus on both learning and practice. When paired together, reps will hone newly learned skills and become more confident. We love this customer service video with Caroline Goyder because she encourages everyone to feel confident in their voice. It’s a great motivational video to share with the entire team to boost confidence and team morale!

7 Essential Customer Support Skills Every Rep Needs by Hubspot

While we all strive to provide a positive customer service each and every time, the truth is, sometimes we fall short. In fact, you can probably think of at least one interaction you’ve had as a consumer where the service was a little lackluster. The good news? Improving customer service skills is possible. With intention practice and conscious investment customer service can be enhanced all around. In Hubspot’s customer service video, they share seven skills to develop in your organization to be a star in the eyes of your customer. 

Funny Customer Service Videos for Training

The Office Customer Service

Customer service is key for any customer-facing role. Just ask the employees of Dunder Mifflin. In this funny customer service video, Micheal, Dwight, and Jim show sales reps exactly what not to do in an interaction with a sales prospect.

Animated Customer Service Videos—Zootopia

Customers value efficient service. In fact, 12% of Americans rate lack of speed as their number one problem with customer service. This bad customer service movie clip is another great example of what not to do when interacting with customers.   

Customer Service Phone Training in The Internship

Despite popular belief, the phone is still the preferred method for customer service. In this hilarious clip from the movie The Internship, a group of students take part in customer service phone training where their customer service phone skills are put to the test. This is an excellent example of the importance of practice for new customer service reps before they start working directly with customers. 

Use customer service videos in training with Seismic Learning

Videos are a powerful training method. We make it easy to share good and bad customer service videos with your team so can see what good customer service looks like. Learn more about Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly) and get a demo today. 

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If you aren’t totally sure what a positive service culture looks like, let’s explore various scenarios. There are tons of service culture examples you could probably think of from the top of your head. A sales associate at a large sporting goods retailer showing you not only the exact item you were looking for but also giving you tips on additional items you might need for a camping trip is an example of a favorable service culture. Or calling into your insurance company and being asked to complete a survey with your honest thoughts on customer care is also an example of a positive service culture.

Simply put, any organization that puts the needs of customers at the forefront of business operations is embodying a positive service culture definition.

Importance of service culture

There are many reasons why a strong service culture is important for your business. However, the importance of service culture goes far beyond just what your employees or your customers experience—customer service and company culture need to go hand in hand for your firm to be successful.

Why? First, having a focus on making sure the customer is satisfied is just an easy way to have a stronger organization. Not only will your reputation be much more favorable if you’re focused on the customer, but there’s also a good chance that the number of repeat customers you have will increase.

Second, the strong relationship between service and culture of an organization goes even farther than the ability to enjoy more sales and a higher level of customer loyalty. Another benefit of a strong service culture is increased employee motivation and better customer experiences. Just think how many employees might actually enjoy their workday if they aren’t constantly yelled at or berated by irate customers.

Third, your reputation means a lot. If your company is widely known for rudeness to customers or unhelpful staff, there’s a good chance that they won’t continue to choose you over your competitor. For firms in incredibly tight markets, this can mean the difference between making a sale or not.

Finally, there’s the overall picture of having a strong service culture in your organization. Let’s go back to our customer service culture examples we discussed in a previous section. Companies such as the sporting goods store with employees who go above and beyond for the customer likely make more sales than those that simply allow the shopper to pick items out themselves. Furthermore, the insurance company that takes the time to survey customers also gets immediate feedback about any areas that need adjustment. Both of these companies likely have a positive or above average employee turnover rate.

Enabling Customer Service Success

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How to build a strong customer service culture

Now that you’ve learned to define the term service culture, it is important to figure out where your company is currently at and how to get to an improved status. Of course, there are several steps you can take to ensure your business has a strong sales and service culture. Here are five of the most common.

Step 1: Clearly define what great customer service means through your mission, vision, or brand promise.

You probably already have a clear mission, vision, brand promise, or a combination of more than one. But if you aren’t currently including a section that defines your stance on excellent customer service, it is time for an amendment. When these items include elements of service culture within them, it becomes clear to the customer and your employees that excellent service is a top priority.

Step 2: Hire the best employees who will live out this vision.

Having a great stance on customer service is important—but only if your employees remain committed to living out this vision. Having a strong service culture starts with your hiring practices. Screen potential candidates to see if they have what it takes to meet the goals of your organization. Likewise, offer incentives for positive customer service to help retain your best workers.

Step 3: Set guidelines for your entire customer service team.

Clear expectations are the backbone of any strong organization. Be sure to set guidelines for your entire customer service team and match training practices to these principles. The more time you spend making it clear that you are a service focused organization, the easier it is to help carry the mission through to the end customer.

Step 4: Engage employees with your service culture through adequate customer service training so everyone is on the same page.

As we’ve previously discussed, the benefits of good customer service to the employee are great. Not only does having happy customers make everyone’s job easier, it also helps keep employee retention high. To do this, make sure you offer adequate customer service training. Even employees that aren’t part of your sales or service teams should know that their efforts have a positive effect on the final customer.

Step 5: Set goals based on your customer service vision and guiding principles.

Finally, it is important to set goals based on your customer service vision and guiding principles. This allows you to continuously monitor where your company is at in terms of having a strong service culture while enjoying the benefit of having data to back it up. A few easy ways to do this include offering customer surveys or routinely monitoring sales calls.

Finding the right dynamic for bringing your company into a service-focused culture doesn’t have to be difficult. These five steps are a great way to ensure you have happy customers, motivated employees, and a strong business reputation.

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What is customer service?

While Avis may never have used the word “intentionality” in reference to providing excellent customer service, they may be one of the first large companies to intentionally make superior customer service central to its brand identity. In order to maintain its customer service reputation across hundreds of branch offices, Avis instituted a number of programs, including dedicated customer service training to ensure that all of their employees understood the importance of customer service and followed its best practices. The company also gathered information from its customers and implemented customer service tips offered by its employees at regular employee participation meetings. Those tips led to such innovations as cars reserved specifically for non-smoking customers and compiling local traffic laws and tips for each service area.

When your company is trying to figure out the customer service experience for your typical customer, it helps to distill some of the lessons learned from companies with a reputation for excellent customer service, not bad, good, or even great customer service (see continuum below). One of the major lessons Avis learned is that great customer service doesn’t come naturally – it’s a highly individual concept that every company must establish for itself, and train its employees to effectively maintain in all of their day-to-day customer interactions.

Your own company’s definition of customer service

So how do you start improving customer service in your company?

The first step in creating a culture of excellent customer service is to understand what bad, good, great, and excellent customer service means. According to Investopedia, customer service is “the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service.”

That very generic definition explains the goal of every customer service program, but it doesn’t tell you much about how to achieve that goal. In actuality, the concept of ensuring customer satisfaction is something that must be built into every step of your business’ interaction with customers – and it starts well before any employee actually comes into contact with a single customer.

The businesses that excel at providing a good customer experience intentionally create processes that gather information from customers and define customer service standards for your business. Once that’s done, you need a way to disseminate what you’ve learned to every employee, as well as to keep everyone up to date as your company learns more about what your customers expect. These days, the easiest and most efficient way to train your employees on your company’s expectations of service is through training software. The best customer service training software can not only teach your employees how to interact with customers, it can help you track performance, keep everyone on the same page with updated standards and ensure that every single one of your customers gets the same excellent customer experience as your very favorite customer of all time.

Of course, that barely scratches the surface of the true definition of customer service. Read on to learn more about the different levels of customer service and how you can improve towards excellence.

How to reach excellent customer service levels

Finally, let’s talk about excellent customer service – those unforgettable experiences that can turn a casual customer into an ardent advocate and supporter of your business. These excellent customer service examples show companies that go far beyond what’s expected in the normal course of business to establish themselves as true leaders in their fields.

Trader Joe’s is well-known for its quirky ads, laid-back atmosphere, and excellent customer service experience. We have some personal experiences with the way the company steps up to make sure every customer leaves their stores feeling good about the company. A few years ago, we stopped in a Trader Joe’s on the way to visit relatives to pick up a gluten-free goodie to bring along. At the register, the card scanner refused to read the debit card strip, even after multiple attempts by both the cashier and the store manager. “No worries,” the store manager finally said. “It happens sometimes. Enjoy the cookies – they’re on the house.”

We chalked it up to a great manager, but it turns out that it’s far more than that. Trader Joe’s makes it their mission to define exceptional customer service and instills that mission into every associate. Their culture of providing excellent customer service extends far beyond a company policy of giving away groceries in situations where a customer runs into problems with a payment method.

At American Express’ OpenForum, writer Glen Stansberry tells a story that defines exceptional customer service. A Pennsylvania store received a call from a woman concerned about her 89-year-old mother’s ability to get groceries during a snowstorm. She was looking for a store that would deliver and had made multiple calls before calling Trader Joe’s – which also doesn’t deliver, but decided to make an exception. Not only did the manager agree to deliver the order – and recommend specific products to fit the woman’s special diet – he then refused to accept payment for the $50 order, merely wishing the woman a Merry Christmas.

Of course, you don’t have to give away your services to be memorable. Sainsbury’s, the UK grocery chain, once changed the name of one of its signature items on the suggestion of a 3-year-old customer who observed that their tiger bread looked a lot more like a giraffe’s coat than a tiger’s stripes. The VP that made the decision also took the time to answer the letter and called the idea “brilliant.”

Sometimes, all it takes is a few extra minutes of an employee’s time, as in the case of  ranch and farm supply distributor, D&B Supply. A customer posted a recall notice from Purina to the company’s Facebook wall, just in case the company hadn’t seen it. Just 20 minutes later, a company representative posted that their pet food buyer had checked the lot numbers on their stock and contacted Purina to ensure that they weren’t selling any of the recalled items.

Those may seem like minor things, but the simple act of responding to customer concerns in a timely manner is the hallmark of excellent customer service. Here are a few ways that you can instill a culture of exceptional customer service among your workforce.

• Establish floors, not ceilings, in customer service expectations. Your employees should know that your standards represent the very minimum every customer should expect.
• Empower employees to provide excellent service. By establishing policies and levels of escalation, you make it easier for every company rep to make your company look good.
• Make it easy for customers to give feedback on company performance – and act on the feedback you receive.
• Reward employees who go above and beyond their expected jobs to provide solutions to your customers’ problems.

What does customer service mean to you?

As you can see from the examples above, the definition of customer service is a fluid and expansive one. It includes anticipating what your customers want and need from you and extends to following up on interactions to ensure that they got everything they needed and expected from your business. The one key factor is that everyone associated with your company knows your customer service standards and acts on them at all times.

Before you can get everyone on board with your company’s definition of customer service, though, you have to decide what it is. What does customer service mean to you? How do you define customer service for your company?

You don’t have to fly blind when you’re figuring out what will exemplify excellent customer service for your brand. Remember Avis, the #2 company that decided to define themselves as the company that tries harder? Their mission statement is a good framework to help you consider all the ways that your company can excel in customer service.

It begins:

Our Vision: We will lead our industry by defining service excellence and building unmatched customer loyalty.

Our Mission: We will ensure a stress-free car rental experience by providing superior services that cater to our customers’ individual needs…always conveying the ‘We Try Harder®’ spirit with knowledge, caring and a passion for excellence.

Now it’s your turn. How will you define excellent customer service for your company, your employees, and most important of all, your customers? Getting this one thing right may be the single most important thing you ever do.

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Customer service is a top competitive advantage for many companies. 80% of customers believe that the level of service a company provides is just as important as the products and services it offers. This is important because studies also show that seven out of 10 customers will spend more money with a company that delivers great service. However, companies in the U.S. lose more than $62 billion annually due to poor levels of service. So, by delivering a positive customer experience, your company has the opportunity to retain existing customers and grow profits which is pivotal to your bottom line.

What is good customer service?

Most organizations define customer service as the process of supporting customers by answering questions and solving problems. Depending on the industry or customer base, many companies go one step further and create their own definition of service that agents should adhere to. As you consider your organization’s unique definition, it should include these 3 important qualities of customer service.

• Personalized: Good service is always personalized for each and every customer. Personalized interactions let customers know that your organization cares about their questions and challenges. 
• Timely: Customers need to be able to reach an agent in a timely and convenient manner. Nearly 70% of customers note that they won’t accept wait times longer than 2 minutes. Therefore, reps need the right skills to help customers quickly and efficiently.
• Accurate: Competency plays a big role in good customer experiences. If an agent doesn’t have the skills needed to solve problems or answer questions, they’re less likely to provide accurate and consistent support.

10 essential customer service skills

The role of a customer service agent is no small task. First, their work requires them to understand numerous tools, systems, and processes in order to do their jobs correctly. They also have to possess a wealth of knowledge and skills in order to meet and exceed customer expectations. We’ve worked with customer service leaders across a variety of industries and businesses who have shared the customer service skills and abilities they prioritize for their agents. Here’s a closer look at some of the most valuable skills.

1. Active listening: Understanding the customer’s problem correctly and anticipating possible questions is key. Active listening isn’t just about hearing what the customer says. It also requires attentiveness to what isn’t said in order to get the full picture of their problem and provide a solution.
2. Empathy: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. This is critical as customers often want to be heard and understood during an interaction. By showing empathy, agents often create a mutual level of understanding that is helpful for the customer. In fact, more than 65% of customers say that a kind and empathetic agent was a key component of good service.
   

3. Effective communication: Working on the frontlines requires agents to communicate knowledge and information as clearly and concisely as possible. Effective communication makes it easy for customers to understand what they might need to do or what the agent will do to solve their problem or answer their question.
4. Confidence: Agents need to be confident in their skills and knowledge when helping customers. If not, there’s a chance the customer will reach out again for assistance. Confident agents also create a foundation of trust and professionalism with their peers which is important.
5. Problem solving: It’s likely that customers won’t always be able to explain or diagnose their problem correctly or clearly. A great agent takes the initiative to ask questions that uncover the problem or question and solve it. They can also anticipate any related problems that a customer may experience and address it during the interaction.
6. Patience: Agents need to maintain a healthy relationship with customers and themselves. Agents who are patient will appear cool, calm, and collected during the most stressful and complex interactions. They’ll also dedicate the time and energy needed to assist a customer.
7. Time management: It’s unlikely that your agents will only deal with customers who have one, simple problem-solution scenario at a time. Therefore, agents need to be able to deal with different scales of problems at a given time. For example, if an agent has a large queue of callers on hold, they effectively manage their time on the current interaction and take care of each customer as quickly as possible.
8. Team player: Being able to work for the good of the entire customer service team creates a positive and supportive environment. This will increase agent morale, drive productivity, and result in great interactions.
9. Product knowledge: Most of the skills that we’ve mentioned so far are considered soft skills — or, non-technical skills that describe how agents work and interact with others. While these are extremely important in customer service, agents also need  product knowledge and skills. This ensures that they can effectively communicate the details, features, uses, and benefits of your company’s products and services.
10. Willingness to learn: As mentioned, customer service is an ever-changing industry. Agents need to be willing to stay up to date with new products and services, processes, and skills in order to keep pace with changes.

It’s important to note that many of these 10 customer service skills serve as a starting point for agents. Once an agent becomes proficient in these basic customer service skills and more experienced in their role, organizations should expand on their abilities. The results are two-fold, as it encourages agent growth and development while ensuring that they’re well equipped to help customers at the highest level. 

For example, many organizations have tiered support levels. Newly hired agents often start their roles as Tier 1 agents and may only interact with customers on certain channels or products. As agents move tiers, they’ll likely see their roles and responsibilities expand to assist more complex and escalated customer interactions or across more channels. They may also lead a team of agents. Regardless, these roles require advanced customer service skills in order to remain successful.

How to develop customer service skills

Now that you have a better understanding of what makes an agent skilled in customer service, it’s time to take a look at the different ways you can help them learn these skills. Some leaders argue that a lot of the skills we mentioned are innate to agents. While qualities like friendliness and patience are often key personality traits, we believe that agents can also learn the key technical and soft skills they need for their roles. Here are three ways that leaders can ensure agents have the necessary customer service skills.

Customer service skills training

Customer service training teaches new and experienced agents the skills needed to interact with customers and perform their jobs. Many organizations provide initial skills training to newly hired agents, but it’s best to provide ongoing training so agents keep their skills sharp. Hubspot found that 62% of agents on high-performing teams actively learn new skills for their roles at least once a month. Training can take place through workshops, seminars, and shadowing. Teams that work in a hybrid environment have also found success providing customer service training online so agents can complete skills training from virtually anywhere.

Practice and role play

The best customer service training programs also incorporate a hands-on application of newly learned skills. Once agents complete a training course on a specific skill they need to apply that knowledge through a realistic scenario that they’ll likely encounter with a customer. For example, if your training focuses on effective communication, it’s a good idea to ask agents to run through a simulation where they need to communicate with a customer over the phone or by email so they can apply what they learned. You can also have a group of agents run through a role play scenario and share feedback with one another.

Coaching and feedback

As agents learn and practice skills, it’s also a good idea for leaders to provide personalized coaching and feedback. This helps reinforce skills in which agents are already proficient. It also gives leaders the opportunity to focus on the skills that agents need to improve in order to close any performance gaps.

Help agents master their skills

Customer service is becoming increasingly complex. And, there’s no shortage of customer service skills that agents need to support each and every customer. Customer service agents use Seismic’s learning and coaching tool to learn and improve the skills needed for their work. With Seismic, teams can deliver interactive skills training online, hone skills through real-life practice scenarios, and correlate skill development with important business outcomes like NPS and CSAT. Interested in learning more? Click here to get a demo.

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With customer service evolving so quickly, one of the questions that managers and business owners have is: What is quality customer service these days? A simple good customer service definition will help to answer this and act as a guide on how companies manage customer interactions.

Quality customer service involves providing efficient, quick, and friendly service to customers as well as building strong relationships with them. It also entails responding to customers’ issues in time and handling any complaints swiftly. This is achieved by understanding customers’ needs and meeting them, ensuring quality solutions, and offering customers several options for communicating and contacting customer service.

In order to entrench effective customer service and ensure it contributes to the long-term success of the business, managers and executives should make it a critical part of the company culture. All employees should not only understand what quality customer service entails but also have the right attitude, good communication, and sales skills to deliver it.

Why is good customer service important?

Three of of four U.S. consumers say they have spent more money to do business with a company that delivers great service. This goes to show how important good customer service is when it comes to building relationships and doing business, especially since studies show that it is more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one. Here are the reasons why quality customer service is important.

• Provides value-effective customer service programs: These emphasize treating customers well, answering questions, responding to complaints, and exceeding customer expectations. Such an approach keeps customers engaged and builds strong relationships.
• Reduces employee turnover: Employees are likely to work for an employer who treats customers fairly and recognizes the contributions of their staff. When a company delivers great service, employees will be more engaged in their work and are more likely to stay through challenging times.
• Retains customers: Customers who are appreciated are likely to be loyal to the company. Once the business comes across as trustworthy, there is a good chance existing customers will keep on coming to make new purchases.
• Creates endorsements: Loyal customers will not only keep on doing business with the company but will also help strengthen the brand through online reviews and private endorsements. Companies that provide quality customer service will often get more new customers from recommendations than from advertising messages.
• Increases profits – One of the main goals of any business is to make a profit. Quality customer services helps to retain existing customers and attract new ones, a factor that contributes to higher revenue and a rise in profit.

Once companies understand the benefits of good customer service, they should also learn the difference between great and subpar customer service. While in the latter case, companies do the minimum to keep customers satisfied, the first case involves going beyond keeping them satisfied to retain their loyalty. In the end, 51% of customers will not do business with a company after one negative experience.

Examples of good customer service

The term “customer experience” is all the rage these days. As a result, there are countless good customer service examples and good customer service stories. Check out the following examples of good customer service stories and scenarios in everyday situations.

Examples of good customer service in retail

Sometimes, you may run into a situation where the customer is actually the problem. Handling these types of problems requires good customer service skills in retail. For instance, if you own a store with a 10-day return policy that is clearly printed on the receipt, and the customer wants to bring a shirt back 15 days after the purchase. To resolve the problem, you can explain the policy, accept the return if it can be resold and is unworn. Then you will be able to welcome the customer’s future business. In the end, the customer gets what they want and you don’t lose out because you can actually resell the dress. In situations like this, you are able to provide the customer with the best customer service experience, which is a win-win situation.

Examples of good customer service in a restaurant

In a restaurant, promptness is everything. However, being prompt doesn’t mean hovering or rushing. It does mean giving the customers what they need when they need it. When you provide good customer service experience examples, your customers will always return to your restaurant for a pleasurable experience. Good customer service in the restaurant industry also means welcoming and friendly service as well as being available. When the customers can see hosts, managers, and waiters, it can increase their experience because they know you are always available to help.

Enabling Customer Service Success

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How to improve customer service in the workplace

Customer service is one of the keys to any successful business. This means that companies that do not have it should make it a priority and find ways of improving customer service. However, customer service has evolved over the years, making it important to identify effective customer service strategies that will help keep customers satisfied and increase business performance. Here are a few tips to help improve customer service at your organization.

Create customer service standards for the team to follow

Once the leadership understands the importance of customer service standards, they’ll be in a position to define them for their organization. Creating customer service standards will allow the team to know what is expected of them, enabling them to make the necessary adjustments. In order to ensure that the practice is continuous and sustainable, it has to make it part of the company culture so that it forms one of the values that guide employees’ conduct and business operations.

Improve good customer service skills with dedicated practice

Embracing habits that promote improved customer service can take time. And effective customer service skills can only be developed and strengthened through continuous and dedicated practice. An example of good customer service skills is effective communication. By communicating effectively, agents can clearly answer questions, provide accurate information, and address complaints in a calm manner. Instead of waiting for agents to talk to customers in real-time, give them a safe space to practice applying their communication skills in difficult scenarios. This will give them the chance to hone their skills and gain confidence in their abilities before speaking with customers.

Train reps on key procedures, processes, and other important knowledge

Before agents can improve their customer service skills, they need to receive training on key procedures, processes, and other important company knowledge. In order to meet the needs of your customers agents have to know how to handle a wide range of situations. Training will help them keep up to date with emerging trends that influence customer service, a factor that will place your company ahead of the competition.

Look at every customer touchpoint

It’s also critical that companies know and understand their customers in order to deliver superior service. Looking at every customer’s touchpoint will not only help to personalize messages but also respond through the right channel. With the numerous communication channels that technology has brought about, businesses should have agents who are familiar with each platform.

Enhance your customer service strategy

Any business that is looking to improve customer service must have a clear strategy to help achieve set goals. Effective customer service techniques will not only serve the customers better but also deliver the desired results. Managers can consult experts in this field in order to come up with strategies that will ensure return on investment.

Better customer service starts with Seismic

Great customer service requires effective training and enablement. Support teams across the globe use Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly) to decrease onboarding time for new agents, practice essential skills, and deliver coaching at scale. Read how one customer decreases new agent ramp time by 34% while earning a CSAT score of 90%. Or, get a demo to see Seismic Learning in action.

The post How to deliver quality customer service appeared first on Seismic.

Effective customer service is more than simply a smile and a pleasant, polite tone of voice — it involves doing everything within reason to ensure the customer has a smooth and positive experience, even if they don’t make a purchase or a commitment to do business at the time.

Effective customer service starts at the top

One of the most common complaints among frontline employees is that management would never allow them to treat customers the way they get treated by management — and this is an extremely valid point. Those who are wondering how to improve customer service in the workplace should first look at their top tier employees and how they connect and engage with employees who are below them, particularly those in positions involving high levels of customer service. There is often a direct correlation between how these employees are treated by a higher-up in the company and how they relate to customers.

What is a customer service strategy?

The most effective solutions to improve customer service are comprised of customized combinations of approaches. How to improve customer service in supermarkets, for instance, will be different from strategies designed to increase sales through customer service in a business-to-business enterprise. Following are several ideas to provide you with inspiration.

Encourage feedback

Customer feedback is one of the most valuable customer service campaign ideas available. The best thing about them is that they work for virtually any business — simply provide a venue for customers to leave anonymous feedback and take it from there. For best results, look for common denominators and work on creating customer connection ideas based on the results.

Personalize customer experience

One of the most effective customer service strategy examples is to provide customers with interaction that speaks to them as individuals. Using their name is the most obvious of the most common customer service tactics, but it’s equally important to remember specifics about their individual needs and preferences. For instance, customer service strategies in retail generally involve being aware of the specific tastes of repeat customers.

Be responsive on social media

Effective use of social media may just be the best customer service marketing strategy of today’s modern business landscape. Being responsive provides an excellent way to keep new, existing, and prospective customers interested and engaged. Enabling comments and otherwise providing an interactive social media experience is recommended as a way to keep customers actively involved in your company and its products and services.

Provide appropriate training to frontline staff

Frontline staff can’t give good customer service if they’re not equipped with the right training and tools. New hires should definitely participate in an onboarding training orientation that provides them with your company’s customer service strategy pdf, but don’t forget the power of ongoing training, especially those involving customer service ownership strategies.

Research competitors

In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s essential to research the competition — especially when you’re wondering how to improve customer service standards. After all, they may have hit upon ideas and have found names for customer service programs that your team hasn’t thought of or found yet.

Hire the right people

Keep in mind that resources such as the latest excellent customer service pdf won’t be nearly as effective as they could be if you don’t have the right people on your team. Be sure to begin the recruitment process with customer service skills foremost among desirable attributes when vetting applicants.

Empower employees

Providing employees with enough autonomy to alleviate customer dissatisfaction is an excellent strategy because it has the power to stop problems before they get much traction. For instance, if you own a hotel, give front desk clerks the ability to offer upgrades to customers as a way to placate those with complaints or problems.

Craft a customer service mission statement

Most modern businesses have some form of an overall mission statement, but smart companies craft a statement specific to their customer service vision. Be sure to place it in a visible location on your website and whatever hard copy promotional material you use.

Go above and beyond for valued customers

Being prepared to go the extra mile for your customers shows them that they’re valued and appreciated. For instance, you could consider offering a free gift or discount to customers who’ve shown recurring loyalty by placing a certain amount of orders or by staying with your company for a specified period of time.

Share knowledge with your customers

An often overlooked customer service improvement plan example is to provide customers with valuable knowledge related to the goods and services you provide. Customers frequently tune out obvious sales pitches, but actionable knowledge catches their attention and keeps them engaged.

Enabling Customer Service Success

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The importance of a great customer service strategy

At its core, good customer service is essential for any business because customers tend to find other sources of services and materials when customer service skills are lacking, making it difficult, if not absolutely impossible, for businesses that don’t practice good customer service to remain in business for very long. Even though more and more companies have entered the global marketplace, word-of-mouth still remains the best kind of marketing any business can have.

Competitive edge

Businesses with superior customer service plans simply have a competitive edge over their counterparts. In fact, even though it’s widely believed by some in the business world that price points are the most important variable in customer retention, many customers will pay a higher price if superior customer service is a part of the picture.

Client retention is good business

Although some companies manage to flounder along by constantly working on client acquisition tactics to keep a steady stream of new business coming in, this is a time-intensive strategy that results in higher overall costs. It’s far less expensive to put efforts into retaining existing clients rather than constantly seeking new ones, and even though it isn’t wise for any business to neglect to attract new customers, loyal customers should never be brushed aside or made to feel as if they don’t matter.

Customer service reflects your brand

Cultivating and maintaining a solid brand image is pivotal to success in today’s competitive business marketplace, and developing actionable customer service improvement strategies helps promote your brand in a positive fashion.

Satisfied customers will refer others to your business

Customer referrals are far more valuable than the most intensive advertising campaigns. Customers who feel connected and valued will very often sing your praises in the presence of others who are seeking the goods or services you provide.

How to improve customer service

Identifying and implementing actionable solutions to devise successful customer service strategies is something each individual business should spend a considerable amount of time and resources.

Developing customer service strategies

The first step in developing an effective customer service strategy is recognizing that no two businesses are exactly alike — and that means that no two customer bases are carbon copies of one another. In order to craft innovative customer service ideas, it’s essential to create customer blueprints to use as a foundation and build from there. For instance, if you own a wine bar, your target customer is going to have different expectations than if you owned a fast-food restaurant.

Customer service policies are fluid

Customer service policies aren’t set in stone — they’re living documents that grow and evolve with customer demographics and preferences. Always keep an open door to new ideas for improving customer service from new and old employees as well as from the customers themselves.

Provide better customer service

If you’d like more information on customer service tactics and strategies, please consider giving Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly) a look. We have the tools designed to maximize your company’s personal customer service plan by identifying applicable customer service priorities and standards and helping you put them into play. The importance of customer service strategy is something that no business, no matter how small, can afford to ignore.

Seismic Learning provides businesses of all sizes with pathways to crafting customer service training solutions that work for them. Contact us and see how we can help you become a customer service superstar. Learn more and get a demo today.

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3 employee empowerment examples

Although employee empowerment isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept that’s applicable to every individual and every corporation, some basic tenets provide its groundwork. At the core of employee empowerment is the opportunity to take actionable steps during the course of regular employment duties that aren’t reliant on getting the approval of a higher-up. For instance, employees in the hospitality industry may be given the ability to make decisions concerning customer satisfaction. One example of this might be when a customer in a restaurant is highly dissatisfied with a meal and the server has the right per their employment contract to comp the meal in question. Another example is when a hotel employee is allowed to offer an upgrade to a guest in the event of an unforeseen issue with the room that they’d initially reserved.

Customer-based empowerment

The most effective types of employee empowerment are those that revolve around the needs of the customer. Few things make an employee feel completely helpless than being faced with an angry customer and not being able to do anything to alleviate the situation, especially if management isn’t immediately available. Customer-based employee empowerment strategies are often referred to as financial empowerment because they entail being able to make decisions regarding financial aspects of the customer-provider relationship. Employees of the Ritz-Carlton, for instance, are empowered with being able to improve the experience of the hotel’s guests by as much as $2,000 per day.

Time-management empowerment

Another excellent way to foster a company culture of employee empowerment is to provide employees with an increased amount of agency over their time. Punching a clock at precise times on a daily basis used to be the standard operating procedure for the great majority of businesses, but today’s technology allows many employees to work remotely at least part of the time. This not only increases work/life balance, but it also provides employees with a sense of control over their own time.

Decision-making empowerment

Decision-making empowerment involves providing employees with the right to make applicable decisions concerning basic workplace issues. For instance, front office personnel may be equipped with decision-making power over what type of office supplies to order and where to purchase them from. Decisions should be pertinent to the individual job at hand.

Benefits of employee empowerment

Employee empowerment programs have a variety of benefits for both employees and companies. It’s a basic fact of human psychology that people who are engaged and involved in a positive way perform better on the job as well as experience higher levels of overall job satisfaction. Following are just five of the many benefits of implementing an effective empower employment strategy.

Increased productivity

Those who feel empowered and engaged in their work naturally produce more than their counterparts who experience a significant disconnect from their jobs.

Improved customer service

Customer service also improves when employees feel engaged and involved in their jobs rather than simply going through the motions. Customers are happier as well, especially when an employee has the power to immediately rectify a situation rather than going up the chain of command to get a resolve.

Decreased turnover

Job satisfaction is one of the primary factors whether employees stick with a job or move on to look for greener pastures. Constantly having to recruit, hired, and train new employees put a huge financial drain on companies as well as has a negative impact on productivity.

Improved morale

Another reason why empowerment is necessary is that everyone performs better when they like their job and feel as if they’re a valued member of the company. Employee morale is also contagious — whether moods are good or bad, they spread quickly throughout workplace environments.

Improved recruitment

One of the main objectives of employee empowerment is attracting the right applicants. After all, those who are the right fit for your company will be more productive and useful in the long run.

Disadvantages of employee empowerment

Lack of empowerment in the workplace often results in lackluster performance and disengaged employees who feel they are merely going through the motions in order to receive a paycheck. These work environments typically have high turnover rates, particularly in periods where the economy is thriving.

However, when well-intentioned employee empowerment programs aren’t implemented in the right way, they often do more harm than good. Some managers read a few employee empowerment articles and go from there, but this approach has significant drawbacks. Following are just a few of the things that can go wrong when an employee empowerment program hasn’t been properly implemented.

Too much pressure on inexperienced employees

Employees who are still growing into their jobs may feel overly pressured to perform when given too much responsibility too soon.

Some employees take things too far

Some employees confuse empowerment in the form of being given autonomy in the decision-making process as a license to do as they please, which will inevitably result in interpersonal workplace conflicts.

Security risks

One aspect of employee empowerment is the free sharing of information, but this can have a substantial negative impact on the company if important information or data is somehow leaked. Effective employee empowerment policies balance empowerment strategies with confidentiality concerns.

Getting as much information as possible before starting your workplace empowerment program, such as reading employee empowerment articles pdf files, increases the likelihood of success.

How to start the process of employee empowerment

One of the most important things to remember during the initial stages of creating and implementing an employee empowerment program is that these are living policies designed to change and adapt as they’re fine-tuned to meet the individual needs and preferences of each company. However, there are certain steps companies can take to get the empowerment process started — following are five stages of the empowerment process designed to provide your empowerment program with structure.

Smart recruiting

As mentioned earlier, empowerment begins with identifying and attracting the right applicants. Develop a clear vision for each available position and aim your recruitment strategies directly at that vision.

Clear job descriptions

Vague job descriptions and expectations don’t mix well with employee empowerment programs. This combination creates an environment where miscommunication and confusion can easily reign. Make sure job descriptions are clear, concise, and complete, and provide employees with paper as well as digital copies.

Goal-oriented training programs

Many modern employees realize the importance of employee empowerment, they sometimes fail to understand that employees need to be prepared to be empowered. Good training programs provide employees with the tools they need to thrive. After all, a workplace atmosphere of empowerment accomplishes very little if employees don’t have the necessary training to put that empowerment to work. Employee empowerment ppt publications are rich sources of information on implementing training programs.

Match authority equally with responsibilities

Be sure that authority and responsibilities balance as equally as possible within every individual job description. Authority outside the scope of specific positions can create tension in the workplace as well as result in poor customer service due to employee overreach and error. On the other hand, only providing a seasoned, trustworthy employee who’s grown into their job well with only a token amount of workplace autonomy comes across as pointless posturing that creates the illusion of empowerment

Provide feedback and recognition

Feedback and recognition keep employees moving on the right track, so be sure to implement regular feedback sessions into your employee empowerment strategy. Feedback sessions also help promote clear communication and identify areas in which employees are ready for more responsibilities.

Over a period of time, your workforce empowerment program should naturally become customized to your company’s individual culture, requirements, and environment. Don’t be afraid to try new things and to leave certain strategies by the wayside if they simply aren’t a good fit for your particular situation. If you’re ready to empower your employees, get a demo of Lessonly by Seismic and see how training can help.

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