Take a look around you and you just might see some essential customer service skills missing. Keep your customer service skills sharp by recalling the following:
Don’t Raise Your Voice
Interactions with customers can often become very heated. Think of it as: he who yells first, loses. Don’t give in to frustration. Keep your calm and don’t raise your voice to the customer.
Look for a Solution
Think of how you can solve the customer’s problem. They may be requesting a certain thing that can’t be done. Why do they want it? What do they really want to accomplish? How can you make that happen even if it isn’t what they initially asked for?
Don’t Hide Behind Policies
It is very easy to hide behind corporate policies and rules. You can simply defer to those organizational restrictions and give up. Don’t do this.
Find a solution that fits within your company’s policies.
Smile
A smile is catching, or so they say. If you are happy, it will diffuse tense situations. Smiling forces you to keep a positive attitude and look for ways to better help the customer.
Not Everyone is Equal
Don’t follow the same script with every customer. Long-time customers deserve to be treated well and show they are appreciated. New customers will need extra help and support so that they become long-time, return customers.
Fix the Problem
Customer service issues usually arise because of some type of problem. Instead of just addressing that problem every time, get to the root cause of the issue and fix that problem. Don’t just put band-aids on the symptoms, solve the underlying disease. This may require that you document and hand-off the issue to another group or person in your company.
Customer for Life
What if you had to treat every customer like they were a customer for life? What if you couldn’t lose any customers? Think about how you’d treat each person differently.
These 7 customer service skills don’t have to be lost in your business. Rethink how you interact with your customers and change your mindset and actions to better serve them. Your customers will thank you and the repeat business will follow.