Get to Know Your Customers Day: Hallmarks of a Successful Customer Care Program

Customers are the most important aspect of our businesses – and it shows. Everything we do is for them. Our teams develop products they need and enjoy. Our marketers design campaigns that speak to their pain points and interests. And our frontline employees work tirelessly to provide a positive customer experience each time they walk through the door.  

But there’s always room for improvement. And with Get to Know Your Customers Day, there’s no better time to polish and perfect your customer service than right now.    

Below, we’ve compiled a list of 5 things you can do to provide exceptional customer service and create a positive customer experience, each and every day.     

Availability 

Problems aren’t confined to normal business hours, and customers don’t always use the same channels to connect with customer support teams. Sometimes, they choose to call you directly in the middle of the day, and sometimes, they choose to post a complaint on social media at 10 o’clock at night. You may even have some customers who want to chat with a support agent at 1 o’clock in the morning. 

And unfortunately, any significant delay in response time can solidify bad feelings toward your business. So, how do you combat it?  

The best way is to increase your availability – either by scheduling your support team to work around the clock or by leaning on a professional 3rd party customer service team, like Radial, who already has the framework in place to deliver phone, email, text, live chat, and social media support to your customers 24/7.  

Empathy 

Whether they’re frustrated or relaxed, your customers want to be understood by your customer service agents. They want to be heard and validated.  

This can be difficult to do – especially if you’re dealing with an angry or stubborn customer. However, practicing empathy in these ways can be a game-changer for customer service. 

That doesn’t mean you have to honor every request or agree with every complaint lobbied against your business, though. All it means is that by showing customers you care – through your words, your tone, and your body language – you can create a more positive experience for everyone involved and increase the likelihood that your customers will walk away happy, even if they didn’t get what they wanted.   

Product & Brand Knowledge 

As a customer, there’s nothing worse than coming to an employee with a support problem and realizing you know more about the product or brand than they do. Not just because it means you have to explain the issue in more detail, but because it diminishes their authority on their subject and lessens their ability to actually help you solve the problem.  

Fortunately, there is an easy solution to this issue. By providing employees with both onboarding and ongoing training, you can make sure there are no major gaps in your support agents’ knowledge about your brand and products.  

That doesn’t mean they’ll have an answer to every single question a customer might throw at them. But it will increase the likelihood they have enough information to work through the problem with the customer or route the ticket to a customer service agent who can.  

Problem-Solving 

Listening to customers is only half the battle. After all, they’re coming to you for solutions to the problems they’re having. So naturally, you need to come to the table with solutions that will actually resolve their issues.  

In some cases, the answer may be very straightforward, like when a customer asks an FAQ. However, there will be times when customers will approach you with a nuanced problem that doesn’t have an easy answer. In these situations, the best thing to do is help them problem-solve.  

It may require additional research, work, or communication on your end, but the work will reap rich rewards in customer satisfaction.  

The Right Tools 

While there are a lot of strategies you can use to enhance your customer service, it can be difficult to execute any of them without the right tools.  

Luckily, you don’t have to rely on run-of-the-mill call center software or invest in a large tool stack. By partnering with a customer service outsourcing solution, like Radial Customer Care, you can respond to support tickets 24/7, provide omnichannel support, and even deliver self-serve options to help your customers solve problems on their own.  

Being among the top call center companies for eCommerce businesses, Radial Customer Care offers everything you need to support customers before, during, and after a purchase.  

Now, more than ever, it’s vital to provide exceptional customer service. But doing so doesn’t have to overwhelm you or your team. By empathetically listening to your customers and providing deep insight and detailed solutions in a timely manner, you can drastically improve your customer satisfaction.