Customer service tips

Customer service tips

Treat your customers the way you would like to be treated;

Integrate your customer service with your marketing effort, making it a value-added activity;

Pull your weight as good customer service requires dedication and,

Stand out to make sure your efforts are noticed

Picture courtesy of Hargreaves Plants with our thanks

to be continued...

More customer service tips

 Having put together our top five customer service tips a little while ago, we though it would be worthwhile adding to the original list. At the moment, the only certainty is that there are plenty of them. Whilst we build a list, please do leave us a comment below to suggest some tips to be added to the list. Thank you







There are many resources on the internet providing lists of steps to go through if you (and your employees) want to provide a great service to your customers:
We will suggest some further reading to do if you are interested in the topic. To quick start the list here are a few suggestions:
-  Tips for empowering customer service employees

Customer service employees: have they come out of their shell?

Customer service employees

As your customer service employees return from their summer holidays, do make sure that the benefits of a relaxing time on the beach is being felt by your clients. Is the outlook of your customer service employees changing? Have they come out of their shell? They should be given more of a free rein to resolve customers issues and problems before they fall back into their well-worn customer service old habits. Whilst procedures and discipline should not be overlooked, an empowered customer service workforce is very likely to be more enthusiastic and able to deploy its skills more effectively.

Customer service email

How to handle customer service email?

With regards to customer service email there is just one simple piece of advice: do answer the emails from your clients and don't let them sit in your computer's inbox for too long. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than waiting for an answer which never comes - and by the way, make sure you  reply to your [potential] suppliers too, making it one your top customer service qualities

Customer service success

Customer service success should be celebrated. Why not send away your customer service team to one of the 5 star best hotel getaways so that they can celebrate their success in style, maybe with a bottle of Champagne? Customer service success only comes after a lot of innovation, passion and hard work. If your organisation is successfully delivering its customer service strategy it is critical that the teams responsible are properly thanked and rewarded in the same way as sales and marketing teams are. The benefits of a successful customer relationship management strategy are well known but often under-stated. Isn't it time to adopt a new approach?

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Learn to bend the rules

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Customer service is often about excelling in the the delivery of rigid processes following a well defined set of rules and procedures. Developed over many years through the accumulated work of thousands of senior executives, this approach certainly appears rock solid and unbreakable. However, leaning on the experience and wisdom of the older generations, we are convinced that a little flexibility has some good. This is especially true given that the development of social media channels has dramatically raised the expectations of customers in terms of customer service. Indeed, many customers now expect a response within the hour, if not within 30 minutes. In order to ensure customer satisfaction and deliver against the very demanding expectations of your customers, should you not try to widen your employees' customer service skills by teaching them how to bend the rules?

Does customer service improve with age?

Customer service improvement

Can the passage of time improve customer service? Some wines have the ability to get better with age but let us not forget that they need to be kept in perfect condition, monitored to assess their balance and sometimes remedial action needs to be taken. Customer service presents a similar degree of complexity to the extent that the environment can change rapidly and everyone's taste can be substantially different. Time can help to bed down procedures, to perfect the training of employees and better understand customer needs. But, as for wine, there will come a time when quality starts to deteriorate. Rather than wait, it is preferable to design new service standards and celebrate their implementation with a deserved glass of the said wine rather than see it being wasted.

Picture courtesy of Riedel, the Wine Glass Company, with our thanks