Good customer service is essential nowadays. A positive interaction with your company's customer service can keep customers engaged. However, good customer service is not a final destination but a process.

It requires constant change and improvement because your customers and their needs also evolve. How do you ensure your customer contact team stays competent? We offer you three tips to better serve your customers. 

Tip 1: Invest in the skills of your customer service employees

Your employees are in direct contact with the customer. Therefore, good customer service starts with the right employees. These employees need the right skills so that your customers can be served faster, better, and more efficiently. How do you achieve this? Through training and on-the-job coaching, for example. The following customer service skills and attributes are important for a customer service representative: 

• Empathy 

• Patience 

• Helpfulness 

• Good listening skills 

• Clear communication 

• Problem-solving ability 

• Product knowledge 

In this article, we delve deeper into the skills mentioned above. 

Do you also want to invest in the skills of your customer service employees?

Tip 2: Ensure the customer is central throughout the organisation

It's unavoidable these days: the customer must be central. The focus should be on the needs of the customer, not on your numbers and KPIs. You can continue advertising roasting pans, but it is pointless if your customer needs a pressure cooker. Therefore, make sure you know your customers. What occupies them? What problems can you solve for them? Making the customer central should be woven into your organisation's culture. That way, you ultimately create an experience that meets the customer's expectations.   

 In this article, you can read more about putting the customer first. 

Tip 3: Knowledge is power 

How do you know where to improve your customer service? Knowledge is power! Use the following methods to assess and know what you can address in your organisation. 

Provide customers with a way to give feedback. There's a lot to learn from customer feedback. Therefore, make it easy for your customers to provide feedback. This can be through a telephone survey at the end of a customer contact moment, an automatically sent email survey, or a form on your website's contact page. You can ask about the accessibility, friendliness, and reliability of your customer service. This way, you find out what the customer's experience was with your organisation. What are your organisation's strengths? Where is there room for improvement? 

Mystery shopping. This popular method is widely used by shops, hotels, and restaurants. You hire people who pose as customers in your shop or guests in your restaurant. Based on their experience, you can determine whether your organisation is perceived and acts as it should. 

Social media monitoring. Social media has become an outlet for many people nowadays. Frustrations or disappointments about organisations are often shared online. It is the perfect place to hear the unfiltered opinions of customers. 

Objective customer service metrics. You can use customer service statistics for an objective assessment of the quality of your customer service. What might you measure? Consider: 

• First response time. This tracks how quickly a customer receives a first response to a query. This is the moment the customer knows they have your attention. 

• Response time. Most people expect a response within 24 hours of sending an email. How does your organisation measure up? 

• Resolved at first contact. Customers prefer an immediate answer or solution. How many of your customer service interactions are resolved or handled at the first contact? 

• “Handovers” per resolution. This tracks how many employees are involved in a resolution. Customers could describe this as being “passed from pillar to post”. The fewer handovers, the better. 

• Average wait time. The time customers wait before receiving assistance. 

• Minutes per conversation. This provides insight into the efficiency of your customer contact employees. 

How is the quality of your customer service? 

Use these three tips to elevate your customer service to a higher level. Exactly what your customers need, and more! Nowadays, good customer service quality can effectively enhance a company's image. Don't neglect your customer service but invest in it!