Today with more and more competitors competing for customer's attention, exceptional service is no longer just an option it is indispensable. Your competitors can easily copy your products, your prices even your promotions but they can't copy you, and the service you provide. You are the key to your costumer. You're the voice and the personality of your organization. As the person who deals with customers on a day-to-day basis, you signify all that your company stands for both good and bad. You have the link; you have the competitors snapping at your heels. But most of all, you have customers demanding nothing short of the best. Take one step beyond.
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"Today with more and more competitors competing for customer's attention, exceptional service is no longer just an option it is indispensable." |
Serious competitive pressure will always be there for us. You can have ideas. But today, regardless of the age, everyone handles the World Wide Web and as it seems the sooner the better. So our customers need to reach you. We need to be accessible. Therefore it is preferable to state that everyone ought to have a way in which their customers can get through to them. We all need a competitive edge on service distinguishing ourselves from the rest. How we handle that is up to us.
Let's begin with the basic essential of delivering customer service. To deliver exceptional service by focusing on these five dimensions:
Reliability
- Do what you say you are going to do.
- Do it when you say and do it right the first time around.
Responsiveness
- Create a sense and culture of urgency.
Valued
- Give attention
- Show appreciation
Empathy
- Show understanding
- Display listening
Competence
- Be knowledgeable
- Convey confidence
You might want to keep in mind that customers want two things, good feelings and solutions to problems. How you convey both of those to the customer is an important aspect of exceptional service.
So reflect on this one. What is one thing you really despise and which totally irritates you? Could it be waiting in line; getting caught and tangled in a never ending automated answering service; being transferred from one dept to the next without success and repeatedly retelling the same story to each clerk. Or is it getting the same impersonal automated reply on the Internet? Where do you go? There isn't any number to call. It is wee hours of the morning that we typically work at in this neck of the woods and the company is closed.
We have eagerly committed ourselves and voluntarily accepted these new technological advancements to aid our business and private matters. Of course these technological leaps in communications have enabled us to become more efficient but at the same time they have left plenty of room to prepare ourselves to respond to future changes. Let's stretch our minds for a second. Just as the workforce is in constant change and forever evolving, our businesses, and situations demand our attention. If we want to cater to our customers we need to stay abreast of the ever so changing consumer needs.
Customer service is seen as one of the most valuable tools in commercial World Wide Web. Your web sites, products and service should be available to users twenty-four seven with no down time. It is worth your time, effort and investment to delve into ways that you can serve your costumers without having lengthy voice mails and paying overtime.
Buying online eliminates the need of the salesperson and offers the convenience of shopping from home. So this embraces your website for a one to one relationship with the customer or potential prospect.
It's much easier to surf from Web site to Web site rather than to walk or drive between physical stores, enabling the visitor far more freedom of choice. E-customers expect great service, with little or no direct interaction. They will tolerate some mistakes, but not many.
Five rules for effective online customer service:
1. Be Reachable
Revealing on your site all the ways you can be contacted by your customers - including e-mail, phone and fax numbers, and your office hours. These should be correct and updated on a continuous basis.
If it is within your financial means to become more personal - give your visitors a real person to call who has a name, rather than the "contact us" option at: info@boguscompany.com. This will only aggravate the user when they receive an automatic reply, most impersonal.
2. Be Responsive
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Return every e-mail or phone call in the same day, as far as reasonably possible. Also answer your phones within the second ring. These are very basic essentials of CS. Many companies reveal that they failed to respond to e-mail sent through their Web site within one month. And some of these companies don't have a usable e-mail address on their sites at all.
Build a great rapport with your customer. Sound upbeat and smile thru your message. Thoroughly read and proactively respond to the message. Don't assume. Find out what the customer really wants. Restate contents; use partial restatements; don't just repeat, rephrase in your own words; and avoid judging the situation. Restate and summarize actions to be taken. Finish with a follow up such as a quick close-ended question; is there anything else. Realize that the greatest challenge is your attitude.
3. Be Informative
Respond to all orders by processing their information and correcting for any mistakes or erroneous data. Send e-mail confirmations and if goods are exchanged, send data on shipping actual products give tracking numbers and expected delivery dates. Also process any credit card information and personalize a thank you e-note.
4. Explicit Return Policy.
Have all staff and yourself support a fair policy across the board. You might learn that you either need to be more lenient or more conservative, giving you more information and room for growth.
Regardless of the site quality and policies you will find that people still want to speak to a live person. They desire human interaction. They want to know that the business is real, want reassurance on their order or return or to merely walk them through the Web site. Many dot.com have failed due to inadequate customer service and fulfillment procedures.
Those companies, which took the lead on electronic customer service, had the insight, the means and the need to undertake the challenging aspects of customer service and electronic customer service. They did the surprising thing, they set a trend and took one step forward and beyond. It took serious competitive pressure, vision, and a unique understanding of client/server networking for these companies to pull ahead of the pack.