Customer Service in the Digital Age

It seems as though in business we spend a lot of time looking for the next big thing. One that is too often overlooked is the value of good customer service. Customer service will make or break a business in the long term. To be successful at it, you need to consider 3 things: company culture, employee training, and measurability.

Company Culture

This seems like the easiest part of it, but really it is the hardest to implement and the most important to do well. When everyone at a company is on the same page, the service and response your customers receive will be the same whether they interact with a customer service rep over the phone, a sales rep in the field, or a truck driver delivering product.

You do you build culture? It’s easier said than done, you need to make sure that every level of the customer understands what kind of experience your customers should have.

“You have to be no less than a customer concierge, doing everything you can to make every one of your customers feel acknowledged, appreciated, and heard. You have to make them feel special, just like when your great-grandmother walked into Butcher Bob’s shop or bought her new hat, and you need to make people who aren’t your customers wish they were.”

– Gary Vaynerchuk, “The Thank You Economy”

Employee Training

Even the most seasoned employee needs to have updated training periodically to remind them of best practices, new information and reinforced policies. We can all use time to review situations and take the time to come up with the best responses to those situations so that when the time arises we are not on-the-spot making it up.

I recently heard half of a phone conversation one of the customer service reps in my office was having with a particularly difficult customer. As the call progressed emotions got high and it became more and more difficult for  the rep to successfully conclude this call with the customer being happy. While I think the rep handled the call professionally as as good as could be expected, there were things to learn in it.

Several people in the office reviewed the call afterwards and we used the time to reinforce things like avoiding trigger words that make customers defensive or emotional. Constant review and training, both formal and informal, will keep you on top of everything.

Measurability

Coming up with metrics that make sense for your situation and business is important to know if your efforts are making any difference. Are you retaining more customers? Is talk about you on social media more positive? Are your existing customers spending more money with you? Whatever the metric is, find a way to measure it regularly over time and keep at it. If you don’t measure you don’t know.