Guide for Providing a Good Customer Service: 5 Steps

Interacting with customers has always been a major part of sales and marketing.

What a customer needs- being aware of this is the basis of any organization. The more the customers’ needs are fulfilled, the more they would avail for the products sold by the company. With the advancement of technology, the last decade has witnessed a constant increase in a digitized and virtual mode of communication when providing customer service. 

Even in 2021, when most of the global marketplace has made its mark on social media platforms and conducts all customer engagement there only, a large fraction of people still consider when the sales team communicates with them over the phone. Hence, it can undoubtedly be stated that customer service over the phone has managed to maintain its relevance in 2021. So, the question that pertains is how to give good customer service but before that let’s understand what a good customer service is?

What is Good Customer Service?

There is no singular discrete way to define what good customer service is. According to a recent online survey, it has been concluded that 96% of global customers lean more towards telephonic conversion when communicating with a customer service executive. Simply, it can be said that the goal of providing good customer service is to have good relationships with the concerned customers. 

Even if the methods and means of providing good customer service vary from one organization to another, the goal is the same as mentioned before. Roughly as per the definition, a commercial telephonic conversation where the customer service employee or team provides the customer on the other end of the line with the information they require. 

Good customer service serves as the backbone of organizations whose smooth operation plays a pivotal role in increasing sales. Such telephonic conversations ensure thorough, informative, and assertive communication with the customer and ensure that the customer has all the information they need. This, in turn, has a positive impact on the organization and boosts the process of turning potential customers into buyers. 

The reason behind providing customer service on phone

A professional telephonic conversation with a customer aims to keep them engaged and provide a familiar and friendly atmosphere. However, it is to be kept in mind that personal and professional telephonic conversations are very different. 

The latter requires professional training and executives to abide by certain rules and etiquettes while conversing with a potential buyer or a customer. 

These include answering the call immediately, the maximum delay being three rings, opening with a polite word of greeting, listening intently to the customer, et cetera. These are mentioned in more detail later in this blog. 

Why is a phone conversation important?

Customer service essential for building trust among your organization’s target audience. A phone conversation boosts customer engagement, and the smooth mode of communication helps to strengthen the trust. But why is customers’ trust so important? 

The story that best explains it dates back to 1975 when a man purchased four snow tires from a shop and intended to return them a few weeks later. However, much to his dismay, the shop was replaced with a Nordstrom store with nothing to do with tires. Keen on returning his purchase, he went into the shop and demanded a refund. 

Nordstrom not only accepted the tires but also paid the man the amount of refund he demanded. As much as this story makes people go “Whoa!”, the incident went on to become a legendary story and is widely regarded as a master example of customer service.

 The cost of four tires, which the company cut off from its purchasing treasury, paid off with 19,50,000 search results on Google in 2021. As an inevitable result, the company’s sales margin has increased in the years following the incident. 

The story is self-explanatory on why customer service is so important. As for providing customer service over the phone, a precise phone call keeps the conversation short and formal and provides all the information a customer might need and answers to the questions a customer might have.

Also, from an empathetic perspective, many people choose telephonic conversation because they crave human interaction, which is, hands down, way better than digitized customer service. Also, having a conversational tone helps to engage better with the customers.

Other than this, customer service teams often have all the personal details of their customers and potential buyers. Therefore, it helps provide a much more personalized customer service that focuses mainly on the customers’ individual and unique problems. 

Good customer service ensures a polite tone during engaging with the customers, so professional training is given to the executives entrusted with the job. If, at any point, the customer feels violated or disrespected, it has a bad effect on the entire organization. 

All these pointers prove nothing but how important customer service in general and customer service over the phone is immensely important for a company. Sellers and buyers always exist in codependency- if the latter has even the slightest dissatisfaction, that can’t be good for the former. 

Pros and cons of providing customer service over the phone:

46% of global customers use telephonic conversation to interact with customer service providers, while 80% of global customers prefer the same. Despite this high demand, customer service over the phone has its very own pros and cons. 

The pros are:

• Understanding the customers’ needs via telephone is much easier.
• Any type of queries can be solved over the telephone. 
• Phones are easily accessible and a daily life essential. Almost every individual has a smartphone or a standard phone, increasing the organization’s customer service reach. 
• Customer support executives can get detailed feedback via phone and maintain a database to provide more personalized and focused customer service calls.
• High-quality phone calls can increase brand reach and customer satisfaction.
• Employees can promote various products or services on the phone, as conversations are more convenient than advertisements for promotional purposes. 
• Good quality customer service via phone can enhance customer loyalty and accelerate the sales process. 

Providing customer service over the phone has its disadvantages as well. These are:

• Call quality may get affected if a proper network isn’t available.
• Conversing with only one customer at a time is allowed. Taking multiple calls at the same time is counted as a violation of company policy. 
• Any rude or disrespectful behavior from a customer service provider might cost the organization a potential buyer. This might happen intentionally or unintentionally, but the price remains the same. This not only keeps customers’ queries unfulfilled but might also break their trust. 
• Lack of knowledge of customer support executives or not declining politely if the answer to a customer’s query is unknown can create more problems. 
• To provide customer service over the phone is expensive as it requires good network set-up, computer and phone equipment, and a large number of employees. Keeping the system up and running requires a lot of tech support and has the risk of breaking down more often than not. 

How to give Good Customer Service over the phone? 

Delivering customer service on the phone is quite different from delivering the same in person.

This is why the agents on the phone are required to maintain expertise in the tone, mood, and pacing.

A few answers to how to give good customer service over the phone are:

1. Acknowledging the customer:

It is very important to listen to the customer throughout the call as well as address the problems and acknowledge the comments made by them.

Solely knowing the name of the customers is not enough. 

The customer is satisfied, and content at the end of the call is the most significant element that matters.

2. Being a deliberate listener:

Most of the agents are used to speaking the same things over and over again. This is why It is important to listen to their customers and not automatically assume that they already know the problem and the way to resolve it.

By mindfully and actively listening, the problems could be easily recognized and solved as they are raised.

3. Avoid keeping customers in queue:

Well, no one is patient enough to like waiting. Happiness is getting your issue solved as soon as possible.

This is again something which should be taken care of, that is, not to keep the customers waiting.

The calls should be answered as quickly as possible with the minimum holding time. It is also essential to inform the clients of how long it could take them to resolve their problems, and they would be required to be on hold.

4. Being affirmative, upbeat, and confident:

As already mentioned, it is very important to avoid being monotonous by repeating the same things to every client and rather patiently listening to the problems and positively finding the right solution to them. 

The agents should then confidently deliver their solutions.

5. Being apologetic and empathetic:

In most scenarios, it might not be the agents’ fault and rather the company itself. In these circumstances, it is very crucial to maintain calm and composure. 

It might also require apologizing on behalf of the company, which should be done without feeling that you are above an apology.

Phone conversation étiquettes:

Business communication is still largely dependent on phone conversations despite the growth of online chat media.

This calls for the need of having good phone conversation etiquette. 

• Make sure to not keep the customer waiting by picking the call as soon as possible.
• Starting the phone conversion with polite greetings and by introducing yourself.
• Be happy and confident.
• Again, ending the conversation with greetings.

√ The agent should make sure that the background is quiet.

√ The customer should get positive vibes reflecting confidence and professionalism.

√ It should be made sure and kept in mind that the customer ends the call on a happy and satisfied note.

limecall and its topnotch customer service over the phone:

Limecall helps generate and convert potential consumers into qualified sales calls. It does this with call hunt, voice mechanization, and call planning.

Planning and setting of exact working time:

Setting up fixed business hours can ensure that the leads are being catered to.

Doing this makes the task so much easier and efficient as the working hour would be displayed on the channels. If you are not available or for some reason or the other, no revert has been made; the reason would be made clear instead of just walking away.

Building and creating channels for better catering to multiple inquiries

As the business increases and expands, the chances of one kind of query being raised increases. These could be complaints or common questions. Common questions include the pricing and features.

To cater to such questions and queries, a better alternative than to keep the prospect waiting is to create multiple channels so that the query could be routed and resolved instantly in the right direction.

This attracts leads and helps in providing a better customer experience.

Quality service:

It is not enough to make a hundred calls per day or more to increase the lead count. Quality processes are required to increase the lead count and do better. Even a small number of prospects would then make a large difference and impact the business.

Therefore, it is necessary to make complete focus on the lead you are working on, may the number be small, rather than focusing on all of them together and failing to cater to them completely and therefore losing potential leads.

Here are a few features which would convince you why you should use limecall:-

• Provides live web calling, call recording, and call routing features.
• Consumers can use unlimited phone numbers with free international calls.
• The feature of call forwarding and call transferring.
• Other features may include a customizable call widget, call-back request, and multiple digital channels.

Conclusion:

Finally, we have the answer to how to give good customer service.

Good customer service ensures good support, assistance, and advice to their customers before, during, and after purchasing a commodity or service.

A customer’s satisfaction and gratification is the most important aspect.

 A customer’s journey should be closely monitored, and every care required should be taken into account at each step.

Good customer service is the nerve of any company, business, or commercial organization. Hence, good customer service over the phone can roughly be defined as a commercial telephonic conversation where the customer service employee or team provides the customer with the information they require on the other end of the line.

The numeral benefits that limecall provides instantly draw attention.

A few of them are:

• Helps in improving sales by accelerating customer services.
• Provides instant solutions and caters to the needs of its customers.
• Allows the customers to interact and know the face behind the website.
• The feature where a call-back option replaces the hold time has again helped to improve the experience.

Apart from these and many more, Limecall provides a free plan and team plan features and no requirement for credit cards. What else is even required?!

Here’s what you can do next?

• Get Limecall and level up your customer service
• Here’s a guide to help you master cold calling in B2B
• If you find these tips useful, do share them with your friends