A company that is customer-centric means that it must continually deliver a high standard of customer service. Communicating to customers by phone is a lot more personal than an email, particularly when it comes to things such as sales and handling complaints but many telecommunications teams can underestimate how important certain factors are.
- Respect every customer
Remember that without your customers, your company would fail to thrive. Of course, you’re bound to have difficult customers every once and a while, but this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be respected. Each member of your customer service team should respect and appreciate every customer and care about overall customer satisfaction.
- Listen
Arguably, this is the key to any form of good customer service. Communicating to a customer via telephone can be difficult as there will be no cues in body language or facial expression to help you but listening carefully and attentively to your customer will allow you to ask the relevant questions and determine the type of issue you’re dealing with. You can still learn a lot about a person’s emotional state simply by listening to their voice so remember the way you respond will impact the overall conversation, too.
- Get personal
One of the first things you should do is to ask the customer his/her name. This way, they’ll feel as though they have a more personal connection with you and will be more willing to discuss any issues they may have or even go ahead with a sale. Knowing a customer’s name will also show a great deal of respect for them, but you should still keep the right distance and be aware of the customer’s comfort zone.
- Know the 5 C’s
When it comes to good communication, there are five key components. All communication should be clear, complete, concise, concrete and correct. Speak to the customer clearly and give them the complete and correct information in terms that are brief but specific. If you’re proving the wrong information or speaking in a way that is too complex for the customer to understand, you’re more likely to have a bad telephone experience. Always avoid technical terms and jargon.
- Handle customer complaints effectively
Customer complaints are unavoidable, so it’s important that your customer service team knows what to do when they arise. One of the main things to bear in mind in the case of complaints is patience. Time and time again it has been proven that great service beats fast service and this is largely down to the patience of customer service staff when dealing with frustrated customers who have a complaint.
- Go the extra mile
Demonstrate that the customer is important by showing that you are giving more than the minimum effort in your communication with them. By taking this initiative, customers are more likely to think that you have gone the extra mile for them and this can help to drive sales both new and returning.
If you’re a company seeking a communication service for your business that you can rely on, Capital Telecom offers inbound call management systems that can increase customer satisfaction and efficiency of employees.
