5 Essential Do’s and Don’ts as a Customer Support Representative
When was the last time your customer support representative “wowed” your customer? Generally speaking, it costs 6 to 7 times more to acquire a new customer unlike retaining an existing one. As a matter of fact, customer service is the lifeblood of any business. If you are assuming that your long-term loyal customers love your brand. You are wrong. More often than not, they love your customer service representative. In fact, your hard-won clients don’t buy from you; they buy from your people, your employees! You cannot afford to make costly mistakes of losing your loyal clients. Isn’t it? For this reason, you need to make your customers believe in you. This is where you go the extra mile to impress, delight and surprise your customers through your interactions! In order to do the best work, manage leads and crack the deals, customer support representatives are the direct connection between your business and clients. Impeccable customer service from the customer support executive is sure to make all the difference.
Goals of a Customer Support Representative
In the first place, the goal of customer support executive is to solve customers’ problems quickly in a way that lead to a pleasant experience. Nevertheless, it goes before and beyond the initial purchase and continues throughout the sales process across each touchpoint until you close the deal. It’s up to your customer service representative not only to resolve support issues but also to improve credibility and cultivate long-term relationships.
In the pursuit of customer support excellence, here are some essential do and don’ts that your customer service executive should live by to perform their job professionally:
Do’s as a Customer Support Executive
1. Respect your customer
Another key point of a strong customer service culture is customer service respect. Yes, if your customer service executive shows respectful behavior, even an unexpected and unpleasant situation turns out to be easy. So much depends on how your customer care executive behave, speak, interact, act or represent themselves in the workplace.
2. Be quick to respond
Nothing will annoy the customer more than waiting for a long time for your response. Remember. If you are not making it easy to do business, your competitive rivals might steal even the most loyal customers. Henceforth, the secret of outpacing your rivals is to make prompt responses to all customer inquiries a priority. Get back to them quickly even if it is a mere ‘thanks’ or advising them that a customer service executive will get in touch soon. This will make them feel valued and not neglected.
3. Take ownership to resolve issues
Your customer service representatives are your public face. Therefore, any interaction, whether it is a complaint, frustration, inquiry, inconvenience or any situation should be tackled promptly by the customer care representative. By ensuring timely and quick professional responses to query resolution should not only fix the issue smoothly but also fetch appreciation from your customers.
4. Show gratitude
It takes much less effort to build a strong customer base with these words,” Thank you”. Let your customers feel appreciated for the brand they choose. Alternatively, you gain customer loyalty for your brand. Indeed, that’s quite much with so little effort! Besides, your professional assistance as a helpful customer care representative also adds up to your brand credibility.
5. Take customer feedback
Mutual conversation between you as a customer service representative is always vital to pinpoint improvement areas. Make the conversation more friendly and ask the customer to give feedback after an interaction with the customer service department. On the positive side, this will help you know your strengths and weakness as a customer support executive. Also, the customer will get enough freedom to express how he/she truly felt about the experience.
Don’ts as a Customer Support Executive
1. Don’t neglect customers
Certainly, once you lose a loyal customer, you will never win him/her back. So be as attentive as possible to respond to the customer queries. Rather, make your customers feel more important in customer interactions, regardless of the channel they contact you. Remember, customers hate to be ignored. Neglecting to communicate with them can be more harmful considering the digital channels- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. that customers choose to voice their opinions about your brand.
2. Don’t force your personal opinions
If the customer has raised a concern and you are forcing your personal opinions, they will just stop doing business with you. Also, you are ruining your opportunity to improve several aspects of your business. Not listening to what the customer says can break your business. Remember the customer is always right. Rather than rushing into a response that you are unsure of, pass it on to someone with authority who can give the correct response to the query.
3. Never blame the customer
Even if it’s customer fault, setting the customer care executive up to blame the customer will backfire your business reputation and revenues. The act of blaming the customers will simply turn the customer service experience negative. With this in mind act accordingly to come up with a solution that everyone is happy with.
4. Never make false promises
Broken or false promises such as low price, fast service, uninterrupted or hassle-free service made by most companies are the major reason for customer service failure. Don’t do that. Remember, it might be a good tactic to temporarily draw your customer in, but once they find out you will lose your valuable customers forever. In the long run, they will lose faith in your brand and choose your competitor over you.
5. Do not over complicate the issue
Your customers are much more sophisticated, experienced and technically savvy. Do not underestimate your customers’ inexperience when they seek a simple straightforward service. Doing this will hurt your business image deeply. Lack of the right tools of technology such as phone, email, FAQs, self-service and social media channels is a customer support challenge that can upset the customer. If the issue is too complex get them easy access to the tech support team to fix the situation.
Of course, keeping the right finger on the right pulse at the right time will save the client-business relationship and your business reputation big time. But being prepared to work with the customers in the right direction will build better and healthier customer relationships, no matter the myriad of challenges customer support brings!
So now, that you have learned the basics that you should follow as a customer support executive, it’s time to find some tools that address customer support challenges better. Contact us to improve your customer service and get started on the road with customer support success.
