Customer Service and Support

What Is Customer Service? A Detailed Guide

Excellent customer service is every organization’s priority. But providing great customer service, time and time again, is easier said than done.

In this article, we will decode everything you need to know about customer service and what it takes to drive customer service success.

What is Customer Service?

Customer service is the advice and assistance that is provided by a company to the people who purchase or use their products. To put it in another way, Customer Service or Customer Support refers to an organization’s ability to:

  • solve customer problems with expertise, agility, and promptness,
  • educate customers on how they can use the product/service effectively,
  • answer customer queries and support tickets in real-time and as effectively as possible, and
  • address their requests and complaints with regular follow-ups.

All in all, it refers to how a brand addresses the customer’s needs, whether it’s troubleshooting a technical issue with your product, creating a refund request, or installing a new product.

5 Customer Service Benefits

Salesforce claims that for 90% of customers, how an organization acts during a crisis demonstrates its trustworthiness. In other words, bad customer service can cost brands literally and figuratively.

Delivering clear customer service, be it online customer service or customer service phone support, requires consistency. Below are the top-5 benefits of acing your customer service strategy.

  • Improved customer satisfaction: Good customer service leads to happy and satisfied customers, who are more likely to remain loyal to the brand and recommend it to others. In fact, McKinsey states that improving customer experience is one of the fastest-growing priority areas for customer care leaders.
  • Increased sales: When customers have positive experiences with a company, they are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend the company to others, leading to increased sales.
  • Reduced costs: By addressing customer issues quickly and efficiently, companies can reduce the cost of handling customer complaints and potentially avoid costly legal battles. Moreover, the cost of finding new customers is higher than retaining existing ones.
  • Better reputation: Companies with a reputation for excellent customer service are more likely to attract new customers and retain existing ones. As per Salesforce, 78% of customers will continue to engage with a company even after the brand makes a mistake if the brand consistently delivers great customer support assistance.
  • Improved employee morale: Providing good customer service requires a well-trained and motivated workforce. The trouble is that it takes between 3 – 6 months to train a new employee for optimal performance, according to 41% of customer care leaders. Clearly, organizations cannot afford to have a high attrition rate, or the quality of service will get hampered. When employees feel valued and supported, they are bound to be more satisfied with their jobs, leading to improved morale and reduced turnover.

The learning: Providing great customer service goes beyond addressing customer complaints. It entails a shift in the mindset of the company to always put the customer first–whether it’s addressing their needs in real-time or preempting their requirements in the here and now.

8 Must-Have Customer Service Features

As per a BCG report, the future of customer service is fast, agile, and lean. In simpler words, adopting automation will turn out to be a game-changer for companies who want to stay on top of their customer service game.

Below are some of the most important features and functionalities every organization must invest in.

  1. Live chat and AI-powered chatbot: Live chat is an instant messaging feature offering real-time customer support. This can be a big win for your customer support team as well as your customers. If you don’t want to have a live agent, you can opt for an AI-powered chatbot that can be trained to provide automated responses to common questions, handle low-complexity tasks, and reduce the workload of your support agents. Moreover, brands can also save on overhead costs and help customers quickly.
  2. Phone and email support: A dedicated phone line and an email ID for customers to reach out are must-have communication channels today. Organizations can create personalized marketing campaigns and educate customers about new product launches, upcoming sales, ongoing offers and deals, and more.
  3. Text messaging: Text messaging is a wildly popular support channel that is only gaining momentum. As per estimates, around 7.5 billion people will have mobile phones by 2026. It is critical for brands to reach out to customers where they’re active or not. Most people log into their social media profiles via smartphones today. Additionally, customers prefer having SMS updates about order status, tracking, etc., on their mobile. Not providing a text messaging communication channel can restrict you from reaching out to this gigantic target base.
  4. Knowledge base: You must also think about creating a comprehensive online library of articles and FAQs to help customers find answers to common questions. The best way to empower customers is to help them self-serve. Adding credibility to this is the fact that more than 69%of customers want to solve issues on their own.
  5. Ticketing system: Organizations must also think about investing in a system for organizing and tracking customer support requests. This will streamline your customer service process and prevent confusion or the chances of customer support tickets falling through the cracks.
  6. Multichannel support: Another area that demands immediate attention is the ability to offer support across multiple channels, including live chat, phone, email, and social media. Remember to have a team monitor requests and customer complaints on social media, or else you risk giving your brand a bad name.
  7. Integration with CRM: When deploying a customer support tool, make sure that the tool integrates with the existing customer relationship management system. This will ensure a seamless experience for customers and support agents. Plus, agents will be able to assist customers with greater context and a better understanding of the user’s needs.
  8. Reporting and analytics: Finally, the automation tool you choose should be able to measure the performance of customer support and identify areas for improvement. The reports must be comprehensive and available anytime, anywhere.

The learning: For organizations looking to deliver the best customer service, they need to consider leveraging the power of automation with the irreplaceable human touch. For instance, companies can deploy a chatbot who can tackle the repetitive, routine work and leave the strategic thinking, problem-solving, and lateral thinking to the human agents.

Tips to Improve Your Customer Service

  • Proactive: Ensure that your customer service is proactive (where managers reach out to customers to strategize and set goals) and not simply reactive (where customer reps troubleshoot common customer issues).
  • Culture: Focus on creating a culture of helpfulness, patience, empathy, and dedication.
  • Effort: Empower agents to go the extra mile to help customers and wow them, even for the smallest issues.
  • Authority: Enable agents with greater autonomy and let them take charge of decision-making (as opposed to wasting time getting approvals from seniors).
  • Thankfulness: Demonstrate gratefulness and thank your customer service team for a job well done.
  • Honesty: Be honest and upfront with customers in case of a mistake instead of ignoring the issue or playing the blame-game.
  • Emotional intelligence and automation: Focus on improving the soft skills of your team and invest in robust automation tools to make the customer rep’s life easier.

Conclusion

For customers, the term ‘customer service’ may bring about polarizing memories.

For some, it may refer to long holds, repetitive information, and wasted time. For others, it might mean prompt customer support assistance and effective problem resolution.

If your brand lies on the positive side of the spectrum, you can benefit from lasting customer success. To make the most of your customer care service strategy, drive a change in the mindset of your agents and watch your customer base grow from strength to strength.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is good customer service?

Customer service refers to the support and assistance provided by an organization to its customers. This can take the form of answering questions, solving problems, and providing information about products or services.

What are the most common channels for providing customer service?

Some of the most common channels support teams use for providing customer service including phone, email, live chat, social media, and in-person support.

What skills are important for customer care representatives?

Important skills for customer care representatives include active listening, effective communication, problem-solving, empathy, and patience.

How does good customer service benefit a business?

Good customer service teams can help a brand increase customer satisfaction, drive greater loyalty, and promote positive word of mouth. All these, in turn, can drive business growth and profitability.

What is the role of technology in customer service?

Customer service and tech support go hand in hand. Technology plays a crucial role in enhancing customer service by automating repetitive tasks, improving communication channels, and providing access to information and resources.

Vijaya heads the Global Support team at JustCall, where he has played a pivotal role in expanding the support team and diversifying its channels and services. Under his guidance, the team consistently earns top customer satisfaction scores. With a passion for team-building, Vijaya is committed to empowering his staff to deliver unparalleled customer experiences. In addition to his managerial responsibilities, he is a certified Leadership Coach, specializing in helping leaders overcome their unique challenges to achieve success.

How useful was this post?

0/5

-

( 0 votes)

Learn from our videos