How Do You Leverage Customer Service?

Excellent customer service is a fundamental aspect of the daily operations of any company that wants to grow. Today, dissatisfied customers can use social media to vent their frustrations about a poor customer service experience.

A satisfied client will return and they’ll refer your business to family, friends and strangers alike. So it’s the duty of customer support agents to offer a positive customer experience.

An effective customer service system provides multiple channels for consumers to contact your business and get their needs met. Understanding your client base will help you know which of the following customer service channels you can leverage to create customer loyalty and grow your business.

1. Self-Service Knowledge Base

Some clients are comfortable getting their queries answered by searching through a self-service knowledge base. These clients want to have easy access to information and a quick answer to their questions. Having a well-organized knowledge base with rich descriptions, images, videos, and instructions makes sure they get their answers immediately. This channel is good for your company because it doesn’t need a lot of investment.

A knowledge base helps customers to access general information, but it may lack information that addresses unique situations. Keep information up to date as the business policies and procedures evolve. Regardless of these concerns, a well-conceived knowledge base makes sure your customer support staff have time to address customer concerns which the knowledge base can’t handle.

2. Social Media Support

Today, most businesses have a social media presence. And customers nowadays use a business’s social media account to get the product- and service-related information, to ask questions, and to complain. These accounts need a committed social media manager to address your customer’s concerns.

Customers use social media to complain about poor experiences they’ve had with a product or service. But you can turn this into a positive for both your business and your customers by addressing their issues with diplomacy and honesty. This will help them see you care about them and you’re willing to resolve their issues.

3. Live Chat Support

Live chat is the best choice for customers who want to speak to a person to resolve their issues; this is good for those clients who don’t want to use email. Based on your live chat hours of operation, a client can get immediate support even while they’re in the middle of making a purchase.

Research shows that 73{da74ea48cec7d1c659e4125ffe517180d7bd6cbbe5631d32f11d21c45900f39b} of clients who use live chat are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the experience. So this is an effective way to increase your sales.

For this system to work well, your live chat agents must have excellent communication skills and they should be able to handle multiple inquiries during peak periods. Also, you must provide your customers with an alternative channel when live chat isn’t available.