It is a sad fact that customer service levels fall far short of “acceptable” in many countries around the world.
Granted that there are many reasons why some people don’t offer great customer service, such as low pay, poor working conditions and general job dissatisfaction, there are still some people that actually have really good and well-paying jobs yet feel that it is far beneath them to treat their customers with respect and dignity.
Photo via Flickr (credit: Alan Cleaver)
It seems that the general work ethic for a lot of people these days isn’t about making the customer happy or their lives easier, and, unfortunately, this means that customers will literally go and use a competitor service provider instead of you!
But aside from firing your less-than helpful employees, what else can you do to improve the customer service experience that your customers receive from your business? Well, there is a few ways that you can utilise, and they all revolve around one thing: technology. Here is how technology can help improve customer relations and stop your customers leaving you in droves!
One of the biggest complaints from customers of all sorts of different businesses is the fact that when they call up to query something or to place an order during a busy period of time, they are put into a queue (sometimes without any “hold music” playing), and they aren’t made aware of an estimated period of time when their call is likely to be answered!
This typically results in increased levels of customer frustration, and if they try to get through on multiple occasions without success, they end up venting by writing a letter or email complaint to your firm, or worse, they post their complaint up on your Facebook page!
I actually recall having a similar issue a while ago when I tried to phone my local GP up to make an appointment. Patients are encouraged to phone up at 8am each morning to make appointments, but because hundreds of other people try to do so at the same time, you can hardly ever get through!
Taking issues such as these on board, they decided to streamline their telephone service with a menu system and took on more staff to handle calls. The new system was much-welcomed, especially as it told you how long you are likely to have to wait until your call was answered, as my local GP annoyingly uses a premium-rate phone number in a bit to generate more revenue for the practice!
Offer multiple contact methods
Another way that you can streamline your customer experience management is by offering multiple ways for your customers to contact you.
If they can’t get through on the phone because you are busy, you should invite them to email you, and use an email system that: a) automatically responds to them and informs them that your message has been received, and b) gives you the facility to track and allocate all messages received so that all messages are actioned in a timely fashion.
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