Easy steps to improve your customer service results

Excellent customer service within our Toronto call center is something that fills us with pride and we always strive to exceed our customer’s expectations. Like any customer facing business, gauging how well our team are providing customer service is of huge importance to us. Most companies measure the effectiveness of customer service upon overall results, but we also maintain a high level of internal call monitoring, training and ongoing evaluation of the performance of our front-line employees who speak to customers every single day. What else can you do to assess the customer service you provide and ensure it is always at the highest level possible?

Time-proven wisdom demonstrates that a satisfied customer is unlikely to tell you as much without being prompted and repeat visits or purchases are the best testament to your services or goods. Conversely an unhappy customer will almost always do one of two things; decide to take their business elsewhere or share with you where you went wrong. Rather than assume you’re getting it right based on the first rule of thumb it will benefit your customers and internal processes to evaluate what customers are thinking of your services and evaluating how service is delivered and seek constant improvement. Providing easy inuitive access to customer service and swift resolution of any complaints is one crucial process to have in place. However that still leaves those who are not satisfied nor inclined to take the necessary steps to let you know about any issues. There are other methods that should be considered to try and get a more accurate reading about your customer service performance which you should consider.

Consider the option for an online or telephone survey: Simply providing this option reinforces your commitment to quality customer service. A brief and focused survey can help you determine the benchmarks for your overall performance and quickly target any trend before it becomes a recurring problem. Even if you don’t have the technology in place to conduct an automated survey with your customers, a sample percentage can still be asked if they would be interested in providing feedback at the conclusion of any contact with the company.

Never assume satisfaction: If a customer has taken the time to bring an issue to your attention they are already helping you improve your processes. All too often companies assume that when a case is closed the client has been satisfied. A recommended practice would be to contact the customer a week or two after the event to reiterate just how important excellent service is to your company. The extra level of commitment will reaffirm to your customer that problems are not the norm and that you strive for improvement.

Provide flexibility to your customers: Offer as many channels for communication to your client as possible. Customer service should not be limited to an e-mail account, offer a telephone number, an address and if applicable set up a customer service twitter account within your twitter profile. Some customers will prefer anonymity when contacting a business, others will specify exactly how they wish to be contacted. Ensure as many options as possible are provided to customers.

Repeated research has shown that how a company handles a customer’s service complaint is potentially even more important than how the issues occurred initially. With that understanding in place and by reviewing your existing customer service process you can quickly improve overall customer satisfaction. Are you doing everything possible? It’s important to ask that question as you may only have one opportunity to get it right.