What Is Customer Service?
The definition of customer service is evolving. Here’s what every service professional needs to know.
The definition of customer service is evolving. Here’s what every service professional needs to know.
Customer service is the support you offer your customers — both before and after they buy and use your products or services — that helps them have an easy, enjoyable experience with your brand. But customer service is more than solving a customer’s problems and closing tickets. Today, customer service means delivering proactive and immediate support to customers anytime on the channel of their choice — phone, email, text, chat, and more with the help of customer service software.
Customer service is so important that it is now considered a strategic function for organizations across industries. In fact, 85% of service leaders say their org is expected to contribute more revenue this year.
In one word: retention. Happier customers are more likely to continue doing business with you. This helps your bottom line. It’s less expensive to keep current customers than to attract new ones.
Customer service is also a differentiator that sets your brand apart from competitors that offer similar products or services. Service teams not only answer questions; they personalize each customer experience. In fact, 88% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
Meanwhile, subpar customer experiences contribute to churn. Eighty percent of shoppers will abandon a retailer after three bad experiences, for example. Great customer service is important for your brand reputation, too. After all, customers are quick to share negative experiences with the masses online.
Read the Salesforce “State of Service” report for an in-depth look at the findings.
With loyalty on the line, service leaders need to master the art of great customer service. These seven best practices will help you use the right technology, help your team, and meet ever-changing customer expectations.
1. Connect customer service to the broader organization
Eighty-five percent of customers expect consistent interactions across departments. It doesn’t matter whether the customer is on self-service channels or chatting with a sales rep. Customers want continuity — not redirects to a different team or having to repeat information.
The key is to connect service to your customer relationship management (CRM) system. This will give you a complete view of a customer’s interactions with your company. When a customer reaches out, the agent has all relevant data on a single screen — demographics, order history, preferences, and more — so they know how to help. And they'll know who to pull in from another department to help resolve the issue, if need be.
2. Offer support on every channel
Today, great customer service happens everywhere — email, social media, text, and, of course, the phone. No matter the channel, customers want fast, convenient, and high-quality support. Here are the channels every service leader needs to scale support:
3. Strike the perfect balance between quality and speed
Sixty-eight percent of agents say it’s difficult to balance speed and quality. Omni-channel routing directs cases to the right agent and gives managers a bird’s eye view of contact center activity. This ensures that agents are on the right cases based on their skills and availability.
Another way to help agents meet expectations for fast support is through automation. Automated workflows guide agents through the steps to complete an action. You can repurpose these workflows on your self-service channels to help customers complete a process on their own, too. For example, you can walk a customer through the steps to initiate a return.
4. Train Agents On Soft And Hard Skills
Agents today must actively listen, exhibit empathy, showcase product knowledge, and deliver a personalized experience to every customer, all while resolving cases quickly.
It’s important to provide ongoing training to support agents in their more complex roles. Focus on development of both hard and soft skills including:
5. Act as one team
Although agents often work one-on-one with customers, they still need a sense of professional support and camaraderie. Maintain open lines of communication and collaboration. This is especially important with a remote workforce. Daily standups are an easy way to keep everyone connected and united.
Encourage collaboration to solve complex cases by adopting case swarming. This approach brings agents and skilled experts together to work through complex cases. Teams log the steps to solve the case for the next time it comes up. As a bonus, junior employees and new hires gain new skills they otherwise would not have been exposed to.
6. Turn customer service into a revenue driver
Once the agent solves the issue at hand, they can take the relationship further by upselling and cross-selling. AI can help: It analyzes the customer’s data — such as past orders and likelihood to buy — to recommend relevant products or services to the customer.
Beyond adding incremental revenue, customer service can support your business strategy. Agents glean customer insights and feedback every day. Consider inviting your service team to present customer feedback at company meetings. These insights can yield great product innovations or improvements.
7. Change up how you measure success
Handle time is an important metric, but it doesn’t tell you the whole story. Analyze a range of customer service metrics to better understand the customer and their relationship with your company overall.
Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
Even though the definition of customer service has changed over time, the sentiment remains the same: It’s the magic behind customer loyalty. Your service team understands the customer in a way that no other department can. They have the power to make customers feel special and understood while meeting their expectations. That’s a win for your team and your entire organization.