Customer Service Tips For

Your Business

by Raneen Jamaledine Published on January 27, 2018

Customer service involves providing great services to your customers before, during and after
purchasing your products or services. From the time your prospects interact with you in the shop,
on the phone or on the website to the time they make that purchase. It continues across the
lifespan of the customer’s engagement with you – when they need support. Many businesses,
think of service only at that last phase.
Good customer service is what all businesses aim for in order to meet the customers’ needs.

This Customer Service guide will take you

through a step by step process of how to
design a customer service plan to help you
create loyal ambassadors for your business.
This will, in turn, help you build an exceptional customer service team that can tackle almost
anything.
Are you ready?
 
As the say goes” Be thankful for customers who complain, you still have the opportunity to
make them happy.”
We will provide you with practical tips that could be used to maximize your customers
satisfaction.
Let’s start with why you should have a customer service plan in the first place!

4 Reasons Why You Should Have a

Customer Service Plan
Businesses aim to deliver their products or services to the community at a high standard in order
for their organization to excel in the future. Designing a customer service plan will guide the
business in achieving that goal.  This video will explain why you need to perform a strategic
customer service plan for your employees to follow.
Here are the 4 reasons:

1. It creates a positive business environment. Employees know what they have to do

which makes them more confident when dealing with the customers. Using the customer
service plan as a guide will diminish small unnecessary questions and queries that will
just waste time and money.
 2. Gives your business a professional image. Building this image takes time but with a
customer service plan every individual, internal or external to your business, will have a
pre-acknowledgment that your business follows a reliable, respectful and service-oriented
strategy.
3. Enhances the quality of your business. A customer service plan can include
information concerning the appearance of your staff, appearance of your products, quality
of your services, prices of your sales and maybe the tone of voice that employees are
suggested to use while dealing with an upset customer. All this and much more play an
essential role in improving one’s quality of business.
4. Sets a system to classify customer complaints in order to manage them in a smooth,
professional manner. Every individual will try to follow the system in the most
convenient way to be able to handle these complaints right away. This will minimize
stress and highlight what is most important making both your employees and customers
happy.

Every organization is advised to establish a customer service plan for employees to follow. All
successful organizations use a customer plan as it is the key path to a growing fulfilled business.
So get ready to fight for your clients with your paws as there are others ready to pounce and take
them away from you!
Now, we’ll look at what makes great customer service teams.

8 Qualities of Exceptional Customer

Service Teams
Customer service is providing services to your customers before, during and after purchasing
your products or services. Good customer service is what all businesses aim for in order to meet
the customers’ needs. Bad customer service generates problems, complaints and diminishes the
existence of good repeated long-term customers.
Here are 8 Qualities of high-standard customer service team and which we suggest you follow:

1. Being patient and empathetic are essential keys to a happy customer. Give your full

time and energy by listening and interacting with shared interests. Customers can be
boring, picky, problem makers or too slow to understand.
2. Being persuasive is essential. Know your products or services very well to be able to
convince your customer that they are worth having.
3. Have a pre-planned strategy on whom to forward the problem to and how.
Unexpected problems faced for the first time must be handled in an efficient way.
4. Communicate clearly and immediately. Make sure the customer understood clearly
what you are trying to say as to avoid wasting time.
5. Be ethical with good moral values. Give maximum help but with good time
management skills. Let the customer trust you completely.
6. Have a full knowledge of your customers’ bad and good experiences. This will help
you learn how to satisfy your customer in the future.
 7. Being able to close the deal with the customer confirming that the issues have been
resolved. Make sure that the customer’s satisfaction has been reached.
8. Conduct regular surveys whether through emails, phone calls, websites or even when
sending an invoice to a customer, surveys are really helpful in meeting the customers’
needs.

As explained, good customer service skills are needed at all times to maintain happy long-term
customers which are what all businesses need. Everyone in the company can be involved in
providing great service, and it is essential that you have a dedicated team or individual who is the
point of contact for all customer issues.
Satisfied customers are the key to a successful business! So use the above tips to WOW your
customers and create loyal ambassadors for your business.
 

Five Steps Building a Culture of Great

Customer Service
Good customer service skills apply when you have the right interaction with your customer.
Keep your customers satisfied by making them feel that they are always right. Customer
interaction is a communication skill between the customer and service team. Improving that
interaction will lead you on to the path of a great customer service team.
The following are five basic steps that you can implement to improve your interaction with your
customer:

1. Make sure your customers feel that there is a common ground between the both of
you. Make them believe you have common interests and that their problem is your
problem.
2. Listen carefully and empathetically to their needs. In other words, “Put yourself in
their shoes”. Listening is a key factor that plays a big role in making the customer feel
that you truly care.
3. Admit “yes, I am wrong” when you are genuinely mistaken is important. It makes
you reach the customers on a whole new level. You are proving that they are not beneath
you and that there is no room for arrogance between the both of you.
4. Follow up after a problem is resolved is very important. Conduct surveys whether
through emails, phone calls, websites or send it with the invoice to the customer after
resolving all issues.
5. Learn from your mistakes is the fastest way to increase your understanding of
customer needs. Experiencing customer interaction on a daily basis increases the rate of
learning.  This may happen at the point of sale, at your customer relationship programs or
after a problem has been resolved.

As explained, part of the customer service skills is to improve customer interaction so use these
five basic guidelines to make your way to a superb customer service!
So we’ve put a customer service plan, we’ve built a team – how do you handle customer
complaints.

8 Efficient Ways Managing Customer

Service Complaints
Customer complaints are received when customers are not happy with a product or service they
have purchased. This is good for your business because when handled efficiently a customer
complaint can prevent further problems and lead to stable, long-term happy customers. Happy
customers mean more profitable returns.
We suggest following these 8 ways while managing your customer complaints:

1. Analyse your customer complaint. Study the reason that led to the problem. Find out
who is making the complaint and how often is this complaint encountered.
2. Record details of your analysis. Implementing software for recording analysis is a great
way to prevent problems from reoccurring in the future.
3. Understand your customer needs. Determine what the customer is looking for as a
solution. Be polite and listen carefully. You might be surprised that some of their
solutions are less than what you expect. Know what will make them satisfied customers.
If you end up with unhappy customers, they will leave your company for a competitor.
4. Acknowledge your company’s costs, services, qualities, billing issues and
communications. Having the full and right information guides you to find the best
solution to the problem.
5. Take the best action to solve the problem. Put all the above-collected information
together in order to find the best solution to fix the problem. The best solution is obtained
when an agreement is reached between the customer service team and client.
6. Fast response. Quick responses are advised when dealing with complaints. It is not
preferable to keep customers waiting. If you have no choice but to pass on the customer
to another employee, make sure to explain why.
7. Follow up after the problem has been solved. Make sure the customer is satisfied with
the solution. This will encourage the customer to come back to you with any other issue.
8. Always thank the customers for their patience while solving the problem. Satisfied
customers will be back and hopefully will attract their friends to social media to come.

At some point, everyone in the organization is bound to deal with an upset customer. As
mentioned, the solution is to manage this situation efficiently resulting in a satisfied customer
thinking you are part of a wonderful organization.
We suggest you follow the 8 steps above to help u achieve long-term relationships with your
customers.
4 Things to Do to Handle an Unexpected
Customer Complaint to Perfection
An unexpected customer complaint in customer service happens when one has encountered a
specific product problem for the first time or a service issue that has never appeared to one
before. Surprises are bound to happen in any business. Part of good customer service skills is to
be able to handle such circumstances efficiently and promptly in order to keep your customers
satisfied and happy.
Have a time-efficient strategy. We suggest your strategy to follow these 4 steps when dealing
with an unexpected complaint:

1. The person to-go-to or forward the problem to. We suggest pre-planning your

hierarchy of chosen employees according to the magnitude of the problem.
2. The part of the information that you will forward to that selected person above. Be
clear and definite on what the problem is so as not to waste time.
3. The communication method that will be used to pass the information. Emails, chats,
phone or face-to-face. The communication method will be chosen depending on the size
of the problem. The bigger the problem the more contact is needed between customer
service and client.
4. The rate at which the problem should be adhered depending on its magnitude. More
immediate action to be taken the bigger the problem is.

Learning and applying these steps in the business improves with experience. The more problems
encountered the more a customer service team will be able to handle them with good time-
management skills.  The customers’ satisfaction is essential to every individual in
the organization.
As explained, dealing with unexpected complaints is one of the skills a good customer service
team can endure so follow these four steps to resolve your unexpected issues in a smooth,
professional manner leading to a WOW performance!
 
Listen to the Customer Service Fundamentals Audio Course here:
 
 

5 Things to Ensure That You Have

Achieved Customer Excellence
Customer Excellence is making sure that you have fully met your customer needs before, during
and especially
after purchasing a product or service. All businesses aim to reach customer excellence by
providing strategies for their employees to follow. This will guide the employees to understand
the customers and thus play an essential role to drive a profitable growth of their organization.
Here are 5 things we suggest you follow to make sure that you achieve customer excellence:

1. Don’t leave your customers waiting. A fast response should be taken. Customers hate
waiting and if there is no escape, make sure you have a plan of entertaining the customers
while they wait. Maybe let them take a survey, fill up their details in an application,
explore new products of your business or give them an overall view of your up to date
services.
2. Know your customers well even on a personal level. Collect all information needed for
your customers’ needs. What their likes and dislikes are. Get to know their names.
Customers are happy when they feel that you really do care.
3. Find solutions to your mistakes. High standard of customer service is achieved when
the organization admits they’re wrong and fixes the problem as soon as possible. After
the problem has been resolved, performing a nice gesture towards the customers as a sign
of apology is advised in order to ensure that the customer will return.
4. Be creative. Take an extra step. Whatever makes your customers happy should be taken
into consideration even if it may seem like a strange action to perform. Twisting the ropes
little might attract your customers to repeatedly come back to your business.
5. Create long-term relationships with your customers. This can be done by conducting
surveys as a source of feedback on whether your customer was fully satisfied. Ensuring
that your customer leaves your business with a memorable experience can lead to long-
term loyal ambassadors of your corporate organization. Remember these ambassadors
will probably bring others through social media leading to a profitable success in the
future.

Delivering what is promised by your product or service and more importantly following up with
requests and queries after that, will lead to fully satisfied customers. Reaching customer
excellence gives your organization a competitive advantage over other businesses. As explained,
the goal is to have long-term customers that will not leave your brand for other competitive
businesses.
So follow the 5 steps that we have advised in order to make your business a unique and
memorable experience to your fans!
 Conclusion
We hope that through these Customer Service Tips you would be able to learn what should be
done to Build an Excellent Customer Service Team.
To empower yourself through our real-world education and reach your business potential, we
invite you to visit our store. You will find in it practical courses, services, guides, products, and
other resources to help you succeed.
 

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