A customer service strategy is a well-thought-out approach for dealing with client contacts. It allows you to deliver a consistent customer experience across the whole customer journey.
A more loyal client base is the outcome of a better customer experience. Customers that are loyal to you buy more frequently, spend more, and suggest their friends and family to you. They leave good feedback for their customers. So, how are you going to make this happen?
We'll walk you through eight stages to develop (or revise) your customer service strategy in this article. Your consumers will be eager to talk to you after that!
Steps to Develop an Effective Customer Service Strategy
- Make customer happiness the end goal across the company
- Identify all customer touchpoints
- Set goals for customer service
- Identify customer service KPIs to monitor
- Build a driven customer service team
- Build a powerful customer service toolkit
- Give your customer service representatives power
- Create a consistent feedback loop
Step #1: Make customer happiness the end goal across the company
Focusing on client satisfaction leads to a successful customer service approach. On the surface, this makes sense for individuals who work on the front lines. What about those who never have to deal with a customer? Just a few examples are operations, engineers, and product designers.
Why would they spend their time worrying about clients they never speak to rather than completing their jobs? Support staff are better at their professions when they have a customer-first mentality. Your customer care staff won't have to make solutions appear better if everyone works with the end customer in mind. They simply hand them over.
Another advantage of a customer-centric strategy is that it eliminates organizational silos. The customer support staff and other teams may exchange information rapidly. This increases the efficiency and thoroughness of client service.
Example:
Let's assume a consumer is unhappy with how your goods were packaged and delivered to their doorstep. It arrived shattered.
You'll have more angry clients like this one if your firm runs in silos. Your fulfilment staff, for example, is packing the product in this manner because it saves them time. As a result, some items are damaged during shipping. However, if you establish a company-wide strategy that prioritizes the consumer, your fulfilment staff will follow suit.
Step #2: Identify all customer touchpoints
Examine your encounters with customers. Answer the following questions to do so:
- How quickly do your consumers contact you after purchasing from you?
- How frequently do your clients contact you?
- What routes do they utilize to do this?
- When your consumers contact you, what do they ask or request?
- Do consumers who quit buying from you eventually contact you more or less than customers who don't?
- How do you determine whether or not a consumer is engaged?
You may plan out and visualize these responses to create a complete client experience. These insights will assist you since they will allow you to:
- Become more knowledgeable about the context of customer service queries.
- To avoid certain consumer concerns, improve your product or service.
- Predicting client demands will allow you to better allocate your personnel.
- Customer turnover can be reduced and customer lifetime value can be increased.
- To put it another way, you can meet and even surpass consumer expectations.
Example:
Let's pretend your typical client journey looks something like this. You've noticed that billing is the subject of many queries in the first month. They arrive by phone calls. You may solve this by providing more actionable information with customers earlier in the customer success process.
You've also learned that if your consumers don't contact you at all by week 16, you're at risk of churn. You may avoid this by checking in with your customer earlier and dealing with any difficulties that arise. Remember that 91% of customers who are dissatisfied with a brand will just quit. They aren't going to complain. Learning about their problems can be beneficial to you!
Step #3: Set goals for customer service
Here's an example of SMART objectives for your service team:
- Instead of broad ideals, define particular goals: Make each objective specific to one area.
- Make objectives that are tough enough to keep you improving while yet being reachable with hard work and focused effort.
- Make sure your customer service goals are in line with your company's aims.
- Determine how you'll measure your progress and when you'll achieve them.
Finally, the greatest customer service representatives prioritize client interactions. They have the confidence and support to do the right thing for the consumer. Make this strategy the foundation for all of your customer service objectives.
Example:
Goals for good customer service can include:
- Customer retention
- Lifetime value
- Customer satisfaction
When you break down these big-picture goals into specific areas, however, they will become actionable. Use numbers and deadlines to define them, for example:
- Reduce the average handling time (AHT)
- Improve the Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 5%
- Surveyed customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) to be improved by 10%
Step #4: Identify customer service KPIs to monitor
After you've set your goals, you'll need to create KPIs to track and improve them. You won't be able to transform your goals into action plans without them.
- KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) provide you with a quick snapshot of how well your customer service is performing. The following is a list of customer service KPIs to consider:
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT), for overall customer happiness
- Net promoter score (NPS), for the power of your referrals
- First response time, to measure the time your customers are on hold
- First contact resolution, to estimate how many customers have to talk to you more than once to get a solution
- Average resolution time
- Active issues
- Resolved issues
- Number of issues, to track the number and nature of issues over time
- Customer retention rate
Example:
You could have improved one KPI, such as NPS, for example. However, you've seen that revenue indicators like client lifetime value are deteriorating. You need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how the two are related.
Improving the average resolution time is another example. Let's assume your team can cut the time it takes to close a problem in half. As a result, people begin to handle problems in an inept manner. Customer satisfaction and a variety of other important KPIs may suffer as a result. To put it another way, don't look at your KPIs in isolation.
Step #5: Build a driven customer service team
Then it's time to find the proper people to help you achieve your objectives and KPIs.
People who work on successful customer support teams aren't simply motivated by those aims; they're also customer care champions. In other words, they're dedicated to providing the best possible customer service. They discuss how important customer service is to other teams. They are always willing to share their knowledge and best practices.
When putting together a customer support team, look for the following characteristics:
- Are they inspired to produce outstanding work for reasons other than money and status?
- Are they self-aware of their urges, judgments, and moods? What effect do they have on others?
- Positive attitude: Do they show kindness, excitement for difficult jobs, and a commitment to teamwork?
- Adaptability: Are they eager to learn new technology and processes?
- Do they have empathy and social skills, and do they truly care about other people? Can they recognize wants and concerns as they arise by reading social cues?
Determine which personalities will provide value to your team and fit your company's culture. Make a list of all the abilities you'd like someone to have for each of your customer service positions. Include both hard and soft talents, and mark all mentioned skills as must-have or good-to-have.
Example:
To be successful in their jobs, all customer service representatives should have the abilities listed above. Some people, on the other hand, may require a different set of soft skills than others.
Reps who have direct interaction with consumers, for example, should be excellent listeners, negotiators, and critical thinkers. They should be able to swiftly adjust and solve difficulties. Mentoring, project management, dispute resolution, and supervision are all skills that customer service managers should have. They should also offer timely feedback and encourage their staff regularly. To put it another way, creating detailed profiles for all levels and types of customer support positions will pay off in the long term.
Step #6: Build a powerful customer service toolkit
Your salespeople must think fast, make rapid judgments, and handle many channels and discussions at the same time. Remember that 72 per cent of customers consider it bad customer service to have to explain their situation to several individuals. Every time they communicate with you, they want to be heard, understood, and cared for. There isn't much space for error. A VoIP phone system can assist you in effectively managing such a demanding omnichannel environment. Phone assistance, live chat, and email are common channels.
Example:
If your client data isn't consolidated, you'll run into problems whenever one of your salespeople goes on vacation or quits their position. It's also difficult to onboard new employees of the customer support staff. Customer data is only helpful if it is accessible to those who require it. Nobody cares about data hidden in notebooks and spreadsheets. You may simply reassign client concerns when using a centralized CRM programmed. From the customer's perspective, there are no problems or delays, regardless of what occurs with individual support representatives.
Step #7: Give your customer service representatives power
You'd have a solid customer service plan if you stopped at the previous stage.
However, with this and the following phase, you'll have a plan that surpasses consumer expectations and distinguishes you from the competition.
Is there a way to get there? Give your customer support representatives more authority.
Empowering your customer care representatives can help them respond more quickly to consumer concerns. It also leads to an increase in productivity. Why? Because it allows them to make their own decisions. They don't have to go through hoops merely to help a consumer.
Define the techniques and advantages that customer support representatives can use to resolve a problem without obtaining consent in this stage, such as:
- Discounts
- Replacements and returns
- Bonus products or services
This will prevent the consumer from going elsewhere before the problem worsens. It will also generate positive word-of-mouth and save time for managers and other senior employees.
Example:
The employee empowerment initiatives of Ritz-Carlton hotels are among the best in the industry. They have a well-known policy that allows their workers to spend up to $2,000 on each single client concern that arises. They don't have to wait for a green signal or ask for a manager.
As a consequence, the consumer always receives an instant response. With a service like that, there's little space for dissatisfaction. Do you think $2,000 per incident is excessive, particularly if your income isn't that high? If that's the case, keep in mind that the Ritz-Carlton calculated this figure based on a client lifetime value of $250,000.
Step #8: Create a consistent feedback loop
You have two options after launching or updating your customer service strategy.
The worse option is to do nothing at all. To put it another way, you should never look at your plan again and call it a day. And what's the best course of action you can take? Create a dependable client feedback loop so you can continue to improve your customer service.
Two equally essential sources of information should be the focus of your feedback gathering strategy:
- Feedback from your customers to your customer service reps
- Input from your customer service reps to you
Surveys, polls, social media, focus groups, and discussions with your salespeople are all ways to hear from your consumers. You'll be able to enhance your goods, features, placement, and all business interactions in this way. Pay attention to what your salespeople have to say about their experiences serving your clients. You'll be able to spot training and employment possibilities this way.
Conclusion
You can push your organization to success and build more pleased, lucrative, long-term client connections by creating a well-defined customer service plan. To find out what works best for your consumers, keep tracking, measuring, and optimizing your plan.
Many people consider good customer service to be the most significant distinction between you and your competitors, and it may help you establish a solid reputation in the industry. Furthermore, being renowned for providing excellent customer service will encourage individuals to work with you and remain with you, as well as contribute to client loyalty and advocacy.
