How to Build an Effective Customer Service Strategy
Have you just been winging it when it comes to your customer service strategy? If so, it’s time for that to change. A strategy is imperative if you want to successfully handle customer interactions and effectively move them along throughout their buying journey with your company.
In this article, you’ll first learn why it’s important to have this type of strategy. Then, we’ll cover how to build a customer service strategy in a few simple steps so you can create one of your own.
Key Takeaways:
- A customer service strategy will increase customer loyalty and retention, so you won’t have to spend so much time and money on customer acquisition.
- It’s important to have a dedicated team whose sole mission is to address the questions and concerns of your customers.
- Know the goals of your customer service teams so you can track appropriate metrics to ensure their efforts are successful.
Why You Need a Customer Service Strategy
If you don’t already have a customer service strategy, you might wonder if your company must have one. And the answer is, it is! Here are a few benefits it provides:
- Employees Will Know How to Handle Customer Requests: With a proper strategy and training, your employees can confidently address customer concerns and do it with a smile. This creates a better experience for your team and the customers engaging with them.
- It’ll Increase Customer Loyalty: When customers are loyal to your brand, they will keep coming back for more and refer others to you as well. This is a powerful way to bring in steady business for your company. Plus, those word-of-mouth referrals don’t cost you anything.
- It’s More Cost-Effective to Retain Existing Customers: Approximately 44% of businesses focus on customer acquisition. Meanwhile, only 18% are focused on customer retention. Unfortunately for them, they’re missing out! It costs a lot more to acquire a new customer than to implement effective customer service strategies to decrease your churn rate.
How to Build a Customer Service Strategy
Ready to build a customer service strategy of your own? To get started, all you need to do is follow the steps below, and you’ll be well on your way to easily and effectively serving your customers.
1. Build a Dedicated Customer Service Team
The reality is that not everyone has natural customer service skills. For that reason, you’ll want to build a team of people who love to talk to and assist others with their questions and concerns. When your team enjoys their work, they’ll be more pleasant to interact with and eager to help. When building your team, look for goal-oriented people who are self-aware and have a positive attitude, social skills, and empathy.
Plus, you want people who you can train for the job. Your customer service team represents your company, as they’re the ones your customers are most likely to “meet.” Everyone needs to be well-versed on what it means to be an advocate for your company, so they always portray you in the best light through every customer interaction.
2. Know Your Customer Service Goals
Next, you’ll want to map out clear customer service goals so your team knows what they’re working toward with every inquiry they handle. For example, you might set a goal to have all inquiries answered within a certain timeframe during business hours to keep wait times down. You may also want to encourage your team to up-sell or cross-sell to boost sales and customer retention. Think about what you want to achieve and follow the SMART goals framework to outline them.
3. Identify Key Metrics to Measure Success
Once you know the goals of your customer service strategy, you can then decide the most important metrics for you to track to ensure your efforts are successful. For instance, you’ll want to measure overall customer satisfaction based on their interactions with your team to see how happy customers are.
You’ll also want to measure the total number of active issues against the number of resolved issues to see how effectively your team addresses problems. It’s also smart to track how long your team responds to a customer and how long it takes to resolve their issue. This gives you an idea of how efficient they are so you can find ways to shorten response times.
4. Select Your Ideal Customer Service Channels
An important element to consider as your build a customer service strategy is which channels you will have available for people to get in touch with your team. Having too many can be difficult to keep up with, often overwhelming. Decide what will work best for you and your customers. Is it email or a live chat on your website? It’s also smart to have someone monitor social media comments and direct messages for customer service inquiries. They can either be handled there or directed to an appropriate channel.
5. Give Your Team the Power to Make Decisions
If you want to exceed your customers’ expectations and truly keep them happy, you should empower your customer service team to make decisions on their own. When responding to customer issues, give them the authority to offer discounts on your services under certain circumstances. Requiring them to wait for higher-ups to approve this isn’t going to work. They should be able to immediately assess the situation and offer a discount at a moment’s notice. Just be sure to set clear guidelines on when it’s appropriate.
Sometimes, this simple act will transform the relationship between your company and its customers. Customers will feel appreciated at the opportunity to save money and will be more inclined to make a purchase. Happy customers are more likely to tell their friends and keep coming back for future purchases.
6. Collect Feedback From Customers to Share With the Team
After someone has contacted your customer service team, ask them to complete a short survey. This will gauge how they felt about the entire interaction. You can assess their satisfaction and find opportunities to improve your strategy. Be sure to share this information with the team.
A Thriving Business Starts With Great Customer Service
Wondering how you can attract quality leads and boost your company’s conversion rate? Let BOOM Communications help! Our team will work with you to develop a unique strategy for your business and its customers.
Contact us today to learn more about our services.