ELEMENTS OF GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

The podcast host discusses the importance of good customer service and the key elements that contribute to providing exceptional customer experiences. Good customer service involves timely and personalized assistance, creating positive experiences, building trust, and fostering long-term relationships. The customer interaction journey consists of four stages: initial contact, information gathering, problem-solving, and resolution. The key elements of good customer service include putting customer needs first, accessibility, prioritizing quality over quantity, responsiveness, empathy, knowledgeability, effective communication, issue resolutions, flexibility, consistency, and respect and courtesy. Not meeting these elements means not delivering exceptional customer service and not building trust and loyalty. The next episode will focus on standard operating procedures for customer service operations. Welcome, this is Customer Service Process Podcast and I am your host, Bing Bee. Over the past few weeks, we have been examining the topic, how to streamline customer service, a guide to building a solid structure. Last week, we talked about the implications of not having a structured customer service process and its effect on your business. And this week, we shall be talking about what good customer service is and the key elements of good customer service. It promises to be insightful. Please stay tuned. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. Welcome back. We shall begin by examining what good customer service is. A good customer service involves providing a timely, attentive, and personalized assistance to customers to meet their needs and exceed their expectations. It creates positive experiences, builds trust and loyalty, and fosters long-term relationships between businesses and their customers. Every good customer service follows a customer interaction journey. A customer interaction journey is the path a customer goes through when contacting an organization for assistance or information. It follows four clearly defined stages. The first stage is the initial contact stage. This is the stage the customer contacts a frontline staff to communicate their problems or inquiries through laid-down channels of contact, phones, emails, chats, or social media. The second stage is the information gathering stage. This is the stage your agent gathers details about the customer's issue by listening attentively in order to fully grasp the customer's needs so as to offer a resolution. The next stage is the problem-solving stage. At this point, the agent analyzes the information obtained from the customer and finds a viable solution for the customer. And lastly, the resolution stage. Here, the agent ensures the problem is resolved or the customer's request is fulfilled, leaving the customer happy and with a positive impression. So, every interaction a customer has with an organization, whether telephonic, in-person, or via chat, must follow these defined stages, no matter the reason for the contact, be it for requests, inquiries, complaints, or compliments. What then are the key elements of good customer service? The elements of good customer service are the fundamental components and practices that contribute to providing exceptional customer experiences. For your customer service to be termed excellent, it must, number one, put customer needs first. A customer-first strategy means your business is committed to finding solutions, even when they are difficult to attain or require some out-of-the-box thinking to implement, meaning that you are willing to go above and beyond to meet your customer's needs. When your customers feel you are invested in their goals as they are, they become easier to work with and also become your loyal advocate. Number two, accessibility. Create accessible omni-channel support options for your customers. Customers should be able to access support and assistance via various channels. Number three, prioritize quality over quantity. Focus more on the quality of your service delivery, rather than on the quantity of customers contacting you. Rather than prioritizing speed and efficiency, pay keen attention to delighting your customers. Four, responsiveness. There should be prompt acknowledgment and timely resolution of inquiries, concerns, issues, and requests. How responsive and attentive is your business to its customers? Number five, empathy. This is showing understanding towards your customers' emotions, concerns, and situations. Showing genuine care and willingness to help get their issues resolved shows you care about your customers. Number six, knowledgability. How much knowledge about your products and services does your frontline staff possess to provide accurate and helpful assistance to customers? Number seven, effective communication. How clear and concise is your communication, both verbally and written? Do customers understand information and solutions provided to them? Number eight, issue resolutions. Are you committed to finding solutions that meet your customers' needs? Does your business proactively resolve customers' issues? Number nine, flexibility. How flexible and adaptive is your customer service offering? Are your solutions tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of your individual customers? Number ten, consistency. Is your customer interaction across all touchpoints consistent? Does your customer get a unified experience across all channels? And lastly, respect and courtesy. Are you treating your customers with respect and courtesy even in challenging situations? Do you maintain a positive relationship? If your customer service offering falls short of any of these elements, your business is most likely not delivering exceptional customer service. It means your customers are not getting wow experiences from your business and it also means you are not building trust, loyalty and long-term relationships with your customers and this is because you probably do not have a standard operating procedure for your customer service operations. In the next episode of Customer Service Process Podcast, we shall be examining Standard Operating Procedure, what it is and why your customer service team needs one to operate efficiently. If you have not yet done so, please hit the subscribe button and kindly follow up on Instagram at CustomerService underscore Process and on Facebook at Delos underscore Process. Perhaps you have questions or commentaries, kindly drop them in the comments below or send me an email on DelosProcess at gmail.com. Until next week, remember it's always about the customer. Bye for now.