Explaining the Customer Service Management Process
Companies can no longer afford to make mistakes with service delivery. For 32% of consumers, it only takes one bad experience to sour the relationship to the point of no return. As a result, customer service management today must take a proactive approach to prevent churn.
Developing an effective customer service management process is the first stage towards improving the customer experience. Many companies, however, make mistakes because they don’t understand the scope of the process.
This post will discuss service management and the processes surrounding it. It’ll center on fostering a better understanding of this complex concept and provide tips to improve your performance.
Customer Service Management Defined
Customer service management encompasses every interaction the client has with the firm, not just the frontline support. An effective strategy deals with each touchpoint along the way.
The Customer Service Management Process Defined
The customer service management process encompasses the steps that the firm takes to ensure that the client has an outstanding service experience.
An effective strategy starts with developing products and service level agreements. It continues through to aftersales support.
What Makes for an Effective Strategy?
To be effective, firms must ensure that service levels are consistently high at all touchpoints. They must deal with every aspect of communication the client has with the firm. Partnering with a professional client support provider like SupportYourApp is an excellent first step.
SupportYourApp provides consistently high levels of inbound and outbound service. Firms must then carry through the momentum built by ensuring that other touchpoints meet the same high standards.
There are several areas for the company to address.
The Firm’s Internal Culture
The organizational mindset is crucial to success. The company culture must center on delivering high-level customer service. Management must lead by example and should start by addressing issues that impact employee satisfaction.
A disengaged, demotivated workforce cannot deliver the support that clients deserve. Companies should reconsider potential barriers to service delivery, such as overly high sales targets or workloads.
By removing such obstacles, the firm benefits through increased employee satisfaction and productivity.
Train All Frontline Personnel
Firms must ensure that consultants dealing with clients have the right interpersonal skills. All agents should learn to:
- Engender trust
- Practice active listening
- Provide empathetic support
- Deal with several types of clients
- Use positive language
- Gather feedback through thoughtful questions
Ask Your Clients What They Need From You
Amazon may have saved themselves $170 million by following this piece of advice before launching the Fire phone a few years ago. Launched at a price similar to the Apple iPhone, this smart device had merely a fraction of the features.
The unique camera design made it stand out, but not so much that clients snapped it up. Amazon assumed it knew what its clients were looking for and ended up making an expensive mistake.
Firms can avoid making similar errors by conducting extensive market research. They should periodically re-evaluate what their target market needs and requires. A firm’s existing active database is one of the best sources for this information.
By conducting reviews of what their clients expect, companies may make timely course corrections to meet the customer’s changing needs.
Give Clients More Than They Expect
Market competition today is high. Firms that merely deliver what clients expect are missing out on an opportunity to position themselves as market leaders. Going into 2021, clients expect an exceptional customer experience.
Measure Client Satisfaction Creatively
Conventional satisfaction measurement tools are useful only up to a point. Measurements such as the Net Promotor’s Score and Customer Satisfaction score provide insight into a small part of the customer experience.
What’s more, the overuse of such tools has led to survey fatigue. Consumers are beginning to see them as an imposition rather than of value.
Going forward, firms should consider changing things up. One method of reviving interest is to reward clients for completing surveys. It’s not a flawless approach as clients may feel obliged to leave good feedback in exchange for the reward. If firms can somehow ensure customers of a reward and anonymity, the results might be more accurate.
Firms might, for example, remove any fields requiring identifying information. They may reward customers utilizing a voucher code that loads as soon as they complete the survey.
Such questionnaires still require active participation by clients. Firms may instead rely on a more passive form of feedback. They might examine client calls, comments online, and reviews to gather more necessary information.
Monitor Results and Tweak the Strategy
Finally, firms should review the data that they receive from all sources. Is customer satisfaction increasing? If not, it’s time to finetune the strategy.
Final Notes
Going into 2021, companies will maintain a competitive advantage by creating an outstanding customer experience. Those that focus on the small details at each touchpoint stand to gain the most.