It won’t matter how great your products are or what help you can offer people through your services; if your customer service is lacking in any way, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be successful. People like to be treated well, and because there is so much competition in business, if you don’t do it, someone else – your competitors – will. This means lost revenue, lower profits, and potentially a poor reputation, which is always difficult to pull yourself back from. 

Therefore, customer service must always be a priority no matter what sector you are working in or how much competition you have. Here are some ways to ensure you deliver great customer service every time. 

Image from Pixabay

Know Your Product 

Excellent customer service isn’t just about being nice to people and asking how they are (although there is, of course, an element of this). Great customer service is also about ensuring you can help your customers and potential customers when they need you to. This means you have to know your product. 

When you know your product inside and out, you can be there to answer any questions people might have about it. You can sell it better too since you’ll know exactly what it can do. Plus, you’ll be the perfect troubleshooter, and your customers won’t have to go elsewhere for their information. If you can learn everything possible about your product, prospects are going to trust you more, and they’ll want to buy from you rather than someone else. 

Respond Quickly 

Time is a precious commodity, and we all seem to have much less of it these days. If you leave a customer waiting too long for an answer, or even any service at all, they are sure to leave your store (physical or online), and you will lose the sale. 

Therefore, you must respond quickly to any queries, orders, or even complaints. This is especially true when there are many different ways you can be contacted – ignoring one entire set of people because you don’t have time to respond to Facebook comments or questions left on your blog is bad for business. 

To respond quickly, you may need to implement some additional measures. These could include extra phone lines from Lingo Communications, a part-time (or full time if you are very busy) social media assistant, or someone to take over your website’s maintenance. 

Help Customers Help Themselves 

Although getting in touch with the business you want to buy from is something that a lot of people do, and they will all expect a prompt response as mentioned above, there are a good number of potential customers who would prefer not to do this and would like to be able to make their purchasing decisions by themselves. If they are out there and they might spend their money with you, helping them to make those decisions and help themselves is crucial for any business that’s serious about its customer service. 

If possible, implement a ‘self-service’ system in your business. The customer is then put right at the heart of your operation as you will be ensuring that everything you do is right for them. Although you won’t be involved in a hands-on way (because that’s the point), this is still seen as excellent customer service.