There’s no way you can keep up with the Joneses’ if you don’t adopt a Responsive Approach. Creating an agile approach to your customer service efforts is critical to enforce change at the drop of a hat.
-Daniela Puzzo
Customer service is an extremely dynamic field, and if you’re going to do a great job providing it, it means that “keeping up with the Joneses” is an absolute necessity. What we mean here is keeping up with the newest trends, technologies, and innovations—not merely for the sake of being trendy itself, but because brands fail when they don’t adapt to changes in the customer service field.
With that in mind, we encourage you to ask yourself: Are you happy and confident about the customer support your brand provides, and even more importantly, are you doing it better than your competitor? If you answered “no” to either or both of these questions, then we have some practical tips for how you can more easily adopt a “yes”!
Educate yourself.
Knowledge is power! Make sure to read up on the latest and greatest customer service practices as often as you can. LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media platforms are excellent sources of information, particularly the accounts of customer service thought leaders. Other great knowledge bases include Zendesk, Helpscout, and Parature. Being armed with the information of what’s effective today saves you a ton of time, money, and resources in trying to figure it all out yourself tomorrow!
Get feedback from the source.
This is to say, always be listening to what your customers are saying about your customer service regime! After all, they are the ones who are most affected by the practices you employ in your business. Deloitte reports that 55% of businesses report that call monitoring is their #1 customer feedback source. Other highly effective ways to collect this data include surveys, customer interviews, and social listening—All of which involve simply hearing what your customers have to say.
Respond to feedback proactively.
Show your customers that their feedback is of great value to you by changing in the ways they feel you need improvement. After all, the best customer service bases in the game do this, and there’s just no way you can keep up with your industry without being willing to listen and adapt as necessary.
The thoughts and feelings of your customer—especially the ones who may be frustrated or critical—are at the core of how to keep them happy, and happy customers equal a thriving company.
