\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Download our Individual Member Resource \u2013 Customer persona guide and template<\/strong><\/p>\n Read our advice and use this ready-made template to create your own customer personas. It's as easy as filling out each box with the relevant information and you can quickly implement personas into your marketing strategy.<\/p>\n Access the Customer persona guide and template<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n At the heart of good customer service is a strong focus on the value you\u2019re providing the person you\u2019re serving. This is the first element you need to embed into your customer service team and other business teams. Your business exists to give your customers what they need and to help them gain value from it. If they\u2019re not getting value from you, they won\u2019t return to or recommend you.<\/p>\n Customer service revolves around value provision because this team has the unique responsibility of helping people make use of what they have. Often, customers initiate contact with your employees only when they have questions, concerns, or problems that they can\u2019t sort out on their own. In order to foster a strong relationship with every customer, you need to build your team that always operates with customer value in mind.<\/p>\n From the first interaction to aftersales service, customers should always be receiving service that\u2019s valuable in that time and that specific situation. If they\u2019re asking about how a product you offer would fit into their need, value to them is giving them honest feedback from a place of product knowledge. If they have a problem, value to that customer is a knowledgeable employee walking them through the steps to solve their problem and continue using the product to the fullest.<\/p>\n Although the specific value you provide at a certain moment will vary, everyone interacting with customers should understand the basics of how to identify the value they need and provide it.<\/p>\n Valuable service means little when the method of receiving service is inconvenient for the customer. If, for example, a customer must wait on hold for 30 minutes just to speak with a customer service agent on the phone, they\u2019ll be far less satisfied with the experience even if they get the resolution they were seeking.<\/p>\n Customers that are passed around to multiple different people, who have to wait a long time for service, or who have to contact your company multiple times for an answer are less satisfied. Do whatever you can in your power to make it as simple as possible for customers to get in touch and reach a resolution.<\/p>\n Some of this is related to the knowledge and understanding of the employees providing service. If your company keeps information segregated by departments, it will naturally take longer for a customer to reach a resolution if they bring their issue to the wrong person. All employees should have a base level of product or service knowledge, with continuous learning.<\/p>\n Technology has made it simpler to reduce hassle today. For phone service, you can create a single queue system that updates people on their position in the queue. Or, even better is to give customers an option to hang up and get placed in a call-back queue, relieving them of the burden of sitting on the phone waiting. Properly utilized CRM systems also make it easier to access specific customer information to get up to speed when someone brings up an issue.<\/p>\n Every time someone contacts you, your team needs to provide over and above what they expect. The bare minimum should be a satisfactory experience where all the customer\u2019s needs are met. A gold standard for your team would be to exceed customer expectations by providing them better service than they expected to receive.<\/p>\n This means different things for different companies and industries. Your job is to identify the expectations of the customer and then do your best to fulfill them.<\/p>\n Amazon is one of the few companies in the world that\u2019s known specifically for their excellent customer service. They\u2019ve managed to achieve this by being what they refer to as \u201ccustomer-obsessed\u201d.<\/span><\/a> From the top-down, the whole company operates with a customer-centric mentality.<\/p>\n If you contact Amazon customer service, you can expect to get excellent service. There are far more compliments than complaints. Many times, the company goes beyond expectations to replace, refund, or otherwise compensate customers when mistakes occur, even if it\u2019s not the company\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n Amazon has only managed to achieve this level of consistently excellent service because they place a high value on providing incredible service. Because of their core belief in customer value, they have built a whole company culture around the idea that their customers deserve the best in everything, including customer service. The result? An army of loyal Amazon customers who order again and again.<\/p>\n On the opposite end of the spectrum sits Comcast. This company regularly makes it into lists of the worst companies for customer service in the US, usually topping it<\/span><\/a>. Year after year they\u2019ve failed to improve their service, continually providing a dissatisfactory experience. There are a number of complaints made about Comcast customer service<\/span><\/a> itself, rather than the telecom services provided.<\/p>\n After pledging $300million<\/span><\/a> to improve its customer service, the company has seen <\/span><\/a>some improvements<\/span><\/a>. While it\u2019s no longer featured on the lists of worst companies in the US, there\u2019s a lot more room for improvement if they want long-term, loyal customers.<\/p>\n How do you build a system that makes sure your business is more like Amazon and less like Comcast? Good customer service and consistency are teachable. Develop a system that makes it simple for employees to provide good service and easy to monitor how well service is being done.<\/p>\n You will build consistency<\/span><\/a> by developing a customer service system that makes it excessively simple for your employees to provide excellent service. This can be accomplished with a few essential steps.<\/p>\n How can your employees meet the needs of customers if they don\u2019t know what your customers need? You can\u2019t predict what every customer needs before they reach out, but you can understand generally what they expect and prepare your employees for all those situations ahead of time.<\/p>\n Surveys and rating systems are useful in tracking this or learning about customer expectations. By asking people who contact you online or over the phone what their purpose or general need is, you can get an idea over time about what people tend to contact you for.<\/p>\n It takes time to dig up customer needs. Sometimes the obvious answers are not the right answers. Even the customers themselves don\u2019t always know the exact need they have when they make contact. But, when you take the time to study customer needs, you\u2019ll be able to uncover the real motives that drove the person to reach out and seek help from your company.<\/p>\n This is a job that can be outsourced to a professional third-party consultancy if you\u2019re looking for unbiased results or if you don\u2019t have the resources to dedicate to it yourself.<\/p>\n After you\u2019ve determined the central needs of your customers, you need to create a customer service process that helps them sort out their needs as efficiently as possible. From the customer\u2019s perspective, inefficient customer service is poor service, no matter how much money or time it saves your budget.<\/p>\n Your process should be multi-faceted, encompassing all the different methods of service<\/span><\/a>, including:<\/p>\n However you interact with customers and provide service, the best practices for doing so should be included in your process. No one should fall through the gaps because of poor planning.<\/p>\n In your process, you should lay out the steps that an employee needs to follow to provide the customer service experience you\u2019re trying to give. This will likely look different for each company, as your customer needs, company culture, and service vision will be unique.<\/p>\n Your process should be thorough, but teachable. You shouldn\u2019t dictate everything your employees say or do with a script, but you need to establish guidelines that anyone can learn to follow. Whether that means a step by step method for addressing each customer or a loose guideline for interactions, the process should make it possible for customers to get a similar experience from any customer service agent.<\/p>\n Once a process is established, it\u2019s time to train your employees and get them up to speed on your new way of approaching customer service. Implementation should be a long, thoughtful process. No matter how good the process is, poor implementation can ruin your good intentions.<\/p>\n Each employee should be evaluated<\/a><\/span> to uncover their strengths and weaknesses. Some employees may already be providing a high level of service while others may not be. You don\u2019t want to accidentally reduce the quality of service from your strong employees; all you want is to re-direct them to make sure they\u2019re following the expected guidelines.<\/p>\n Some employees are better at certain aspects of service than others. For example, while one may be very friendly and empathetic, another could be a great problem solver or salesperson. Nurture these strengths and help each employee apply them to your new process, sharing their skills with others whenever possible. Wherever they\u2019re weaker at providing service, help to compensate with extra training and direction.<\/p>\nCustomer value<\/h3>\n
Hassle-free experience<\/h3>\n
![\"Sign](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/si_blog_banner.png\")
<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/p>\nMeeting or exceeding expectations<\/h3>\n
Case study: Amazon customer service<\/h3>\n
![\"amazon_logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/amazon_logo-550x202.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\nCase study: Comcast customer service<\/h3>\n
![\"Comcast](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Screenshot-2020-03-23-at-15.32.19-550x130.png\")
<\/p>\nBuilding consistency<\/h3>\n
1. Identifying central needs<\/h4>\n
2. Setting up a process<\/h4>\n
\n
3. Implementation<\/h4>\n
![\"Training](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Training-and-memory-chart-550x441.png\")
<\/p>\n