3 Effective Customer Service Techniques Your Agents Should Try
Editor’s note: If you’re wondering how to solve your clients’ issues quickly and make your clients feel appreciated, check this guide from our IT support team. And in case you need profound assistance in addressing your clients’ problems, don’t hesitate to request our outsourced help desk services.
Providing quality customer support includes making it quick, instantly available, and accessible via any communication channel a customer is comfortable with. However, these measures can be insufficient for ensuring top-notch customer service, if they’re not backed by certain techniques for better customer experience. If you’re willing to know more about these customer service techniques, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve picked up the top 3 techniques for your customer service team.
#1 Practice active listening
Active listening ranks high on the list of must-have customer service agents’ skills. Careful listening to customers’ issues and complaints makes them feel appreciated. The active listening techniques include using listening indicators (phrases like “I see”, “Okay”, etc.). Using these indicators is effective for a phone conversation, in which interlocutors don’t see each other. For video customer communication, it’s also helpful to use gestures, like nodding. Also, agents can paraphrase and summarize the customer’s words, to show that their problem is clear and, therefore, manageable: “Okay, so, you’ve been facing SSO issues with your email and document management system, which makes you enter your credentials over and over again”.
#2 Ask the right questions
Another essential customer service technique is asking the questions that lead the conversation to issue resolution. Such questions may contain an agent’s suggestions about the possible cause of the issue and help receive as many details as needed for efficient resolution. Say, when a customer tells about their faulty reports in CRM, an agent may ask whether any objects and entities had been introduced into the system or removed from it before the problem appeared. Still, to be able to ask the right guiding questions, an agent should know their product/service inside-out and take regular training sessions to keep up with any changes made to the product functionality or service offering.
#3 Always go the extra mile
Showing customers your willingness to do more for them always proves their importance and your adherence to the customer-centric approach. Such readiness to do more can save situations when a successful resolution isn’t possible. For instance, when a customer is looking to acquire a particular product, or its edition, which has not been released yet, an agent may say, “Sorry, I’m pretty sure the product isn’t available for preorder, but let me double-check that for you”. This technique also works when an issue has been resolved, but there’s a need to reinforce a favorable impression from your service. In that case, an agent may offer a small product/service, which complements the one a customer already has, for free. Although many businesses are reluctant to provide free extras, such strategy significantly raises customer happiness and brings impressive payback.
Never cease to hone your customer service
Besides the abovementioned customer service methods, there are other tips your agents can use to create a favorable customer experience. Among them are applying channel-specific customer service techniques (e.g., communicating hold times for phone and personalizing templates for email), being confident, yet polite, and following up on every customer request. And in case you need a consultation on choosing a suitable technique for your business or a full revamp to your customer service processes, just let us know.