Introduction
Even smart, customer-centric companies make customer service mistakes. These mistakes are due to many reasons – improper training, poor habits, or simply bad decisions – however, everything can be remedied with some focused effort.
Below are seven customer service mistakes we see companies make and how you can fix or avoid them altogether.
1) Failure to Follow-Up After Issues are Resolved
Now that you’ve resolved your customer’s issue with reactive customer service, demonstrate your company’s proactiveness and customer experience focus by following up with the customer.
Following up not only gives you the opportunity to ensure that the customer’s inconvenience was fully resolved, but to clear up any other potential issues or questions. More importantly, it replaces the last contact point, where an issue had to be resolved, with an experience that is completely positive.
2) Not Empowering Frontline Teams to Solve Issues in Real Time
To solve customer issues in real time requires a team that is both trained and empowered to make decisions on the fly. This is where many companies fail. However, they often fail with good reason. They understand liability, regulation, fraud and theft. They establish controls to mitigate these risks and losses, and over time, these controls naturally begin to stack up and are rarely re-evaluated. This usually results in additional resolution workflows and the natural progression results in an organization that becomes even more inflexible and unresponsive to customer issues. At the end of the day, your customer service team needs the ability to make sound educated decisions that keep your customers happy and your bottom line in the black.
3) Long Wait/Hold Times
Whether you’re just a little late or give your customers time frames that aren’t realistic making customers wait negatively affects the overall experience. The best solution is to set the right expectations, even though they may not be optimal, at least they’re real. Solutions like posting wait times, detailing exactly when (if possible), and avoid saying soon, as soon as possible, later and other ambiguous terms will improve your overall credibility with your customers. And when things do get delayed, update your customers on the new time frame apologetically. They may not be happy, but they will appreciate the communication!
Address these 3 common mistakes and your company is on its way to offering a world class customer experience.