Businesses large and small rely heavily on customer service. It’s not usually what gets customers and clients in the door the first time, but it’s often what keeps them coming back. Sometimes all it takes is one negative customer service experience to lose a client forever. If your business is struggling in the customer service department, it’s in your best interest to fix it. But how do you do this?
Get Feedback
Your clients are your business’s customer service experts. Getting feedback from the clients themselves is arguably the best way to get an understanding of what your business is doing well and what needs improvement. Once you’ve identified what needs to be addressed, you can begin to take action towards improving your customer service. There are multiple ways to get feedback. You can send out customer or client surveys through email or if you have their phone numbers you can text them a link to a survey. Using text-based survey software has many benefits. Most people read texts pretty quickly, and the added convenience of using a phone is often appealing to customers. Just make sure your survey is formatted for mobile devices. If not, you’ll probably receive far fewer survey responses.
Have Good Communication
Improving the communications you have with your clients is another good way to improve your customer service. For your part, communication should be clear, concise, and correct. You don’t want to be overly technical, confusing, or inaccurate in what you tell clients. Clients will also appreciate you communicating with them using their preferred method of communication. With the overabundance of robocalls and spam calls, people are less interested in you calling them on the phone. If your communication is not in person, they are more likely to prefer texts or emails. These are less intrusive methods of reaching out that cater to the client’s desire for convenience. On the other hand, if they are calling you, they’ll probably want to talk to an actual person, rather than an automated voice response.
Team Training
Of course, if your team is on the customer service front lines, you need to make sure they are well-trained in customer service protocol. Providing excellent customer service requires certain skills that take time and practice to develop. If your team needs to brush up on these skills, hold training sessions that educate them and give them an opportunity to practice in a controlled environment. After training, observe your team and follow up with them on their progress and how they’re doing. This may seem far down the line, but many freelance businesses bloom into well-established teams and this is a skill that can fall through the cracks.
Businesses need to have excellent customer service. It’s an essential part of what turns one-time client into your best regulars. Work to improve your customer service by getting feedback from your existing clients, learn to communicate with them better, and train your team to deliver customer service excellence. These steps will help you wow them and keep them coming back again and again for more.
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