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Expert Answers to Biz Questions
Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.
5 Online Customer Service Mistakes to Avoid
Online customer service mistakes can be catastrophic for your business. There's no telling the online reviews upset customers may leave for your company. Therefore, negative customer experiences should be avoided at all costs.
While you won't be able to please everyone, there are ways to make sure you're providing the best support and communication possible.
Below, we'll go over five mistakes to avoid that will serve you well in running a successful business.
1. Lack of Proper Training for Agents
Knowing what questions to ask will provide a successful outcome on issues with a shorter response time when speaking with a customer. Telling agents to refer to the user manual or knowledge-based articles is not providing proper training and will cause response times to take longer than necessary.
Providing customer service coaching is a great way to make sure they are fully prepared. Having proper training will reduce confusion and make agents confident in their position.
2. Limited Availability to Customers
A major pain for customers is when your business isn't available to provide help right away. Customers should be able to reach you at any time. There are many reasons why you should provide 24/7 support. Clients may live in a different time zone, or maybe they just have busy schedules, so they cannot contact you during your business hours.
Lack of availability can not only lose clients and their trust, but it can also take a toll on your reputation. Chatbots, along with other AI software, is a very common way to avoid this issue.
3. Not Providing Quick Support
There's nothing that customers like more than receiving a response without a long wait time. Response time applies to all customer service support, including phone calls, email, or live chat. A customer's response time can be a deal-breaker in continuing or selecting service from a business, and expectations are high.
There are programs to measure your net promoter score and customer satisfaction to get an idea of your support team's quality of performance and track the average call time.
4. Lack of Omnichannel Support
Providing many ways for customers to contact you is a great way to avoid losing customers. Giving options to care for each customer is a way to improve your reputation. There may be customers who prefer the usual phone calls, and there may be others who tend not to like phone conversations and would prefer to communicate through email or live chat.
It's great to let customers choose their contact method and make sure you provide a reasonable response time.
5. Not Maintaining Customer's Previous Data
Providing excellent customer service is not just about how quickly you respond or knowing the answer to their question. When you provide a proper resolution to their request, this tells clients that you're ensuring they are given the best outcome and demonstrate that people can trust you.
A customer relationship management tool (CRM) will keep a customer's previous data together. This ensures you can access a client's past data quickly, therefore personalizing their experience. With a CRM tool, you'll have access to the customer's name, purchase history, previous concerns, etc. With this data, you can improve the experience for both your customer and agents.
Final Thoughts
Poor customer experience causes consumers to become uninterested in what you have to offer and look elsewhere. Providing the best support will create a positive and strong customer relationship and maintain or even boost your sales.
Use these common online customer service mistakes as a guide so that you can work to make sure it doesn't happen in your business!
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