Customer service is no longer a differential, in fact, it has become a prerequisite for companies that wish to be successful. There are countless advantages that high-quality customer service can offer.

We can mention, for example:

• An increase in customer retention,
• More aftersales satisfaction,
• Growth of word of mouth about your company,
• Acknowledgment of your brand’s authority.

In the end, all of these advantages take your business in the same direction: higher revenue. And in order to achieve this goal, we know that more than a good product or service, your business needs to offer a good overall experience to customers.

And guess what is key to making the buyers experience as best as possible? If you said quality customer service, you guessed right;

Therefore, if you want to know how to improve your relationship with customers, keep reading and we’ll tell you everything to help you in your business.

Why is customer service quality so important?

Imagine a customer who purchased your digital product and has questions about the content of a lesson. They leave a comment in the members’ area, write on your social media and even sends you an email.

This customer was enjoying the content of your product, but since they didn’t receive a reply about their questions, they begin to consider if they should, in fact, continue with the course.

From then on, there are several possible decisions to be made. And believe me, none of them will be positive for your business.

Your customer might ask for a refund and affect your income, for example. Have you thought about that? A simple question, that either you or a qualified team could answer in less than five minutes, directly affects your business.

With this example alone, you can notice how the quality of customer service is important. And we can mention other consequences of not replying to customers’ questions.

Therefore, quality customer service means taking care of your clients and giving this important part of your business the attention it deserves.

In addition, customer service is essential to retain your customers and make them value your business even more.

Odds are customers who are satisfied with differentiated customer service will make more future purchases, tell their friends how good your business is and might even become fans of your brand.

Now that you’ve understood the importance of maintaining the quality of your customer service, we’re going to provide you with tips on how to keep your customers satisfied and how to measure this.

What you can do to improve the quality of your customer service.

Dissatisfied customers are everything your business does not need and we’ve already told you why. But how do you prevent this from happening?

First of all, you need to keep in mind that, at some point, you’ll have a customer service demand on your channels.

It is virtually impossible for a company to have satisfied customers all the time. Or better yet, that the buyers of your product will never need to contact your company.

The more you sell and the more people using your product and service there are, the more people with questions or needing help you should expect. So this is why you need to be ready to meet this demand.

The first thing you need to be ready is to understand the following: supporting your customers is nothing short of crucial.

Here are four tips to improve the quality of your customer service:

1- Customer empathy

The word empathy is now trending. And that is great. In spite of this, its meaning still causes confusion.

The dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of others”.

This definition should be the essence of good customer service. More than this, it’s the best way to improve your customers’ experience with the product or service you offer.

When someone tries to contact your company, it’s because that person needs help. Regardless of the question or complaint, your reply will be more assertive when you understand your customer’s pain.

In addition, being empathetic with your customer will allow you to analyze your buyers’ demand more carefully. Consequently, this will increase satisfaction with your customer service.

It’s also an excellent opportunity to get more information about your buyer’s persona. Even so, you can get ideas about content for your social media or blog.

2- Customer mapping and understanding contacts

In order to put this tip into practice, we suggest that you ask yourself the following question: What are the channels that my customers use to contact my company?

There are currently many communication channels that people use. Without much research, we can think of:

• Email;
• Phone;
• WhatsApp;
• Telegram;
• Social media, etc.

Since there are many channels and each one has its own particularity, the first step is to define which one is the official channel between you and your customers.

In order to define this, consider which one makes the most sense for your business.

For example:

If your product or service requires a more immediate reply, WhatsApp will be the best channel, since it offers the possibility of meeting your buyer’s demand actively and will make them more satisfied.

When choosing your official contact channel, consider opting for the most scalable one. In other words, the official contact point with your buyers has to be the one that you can provide support more efficiently.

Oh, and when you define your official support contact channel, this doesn’t mean that you should forget the other channels.

We suggest that you monitor all channels – especially social media -, and direct buyers to your official channel. This facilitates the organization of your customer service and will increase its quality.

3- Surprise your customers

As we already know, dissatisfied customers will emerge.

Let’s imagine that a customer sends an email to your support and is quite dissatisfied with your digital product.

They claim that they are unable to login in the members’ area of the product and, because they are upset, they imply that the content is “deceitful”. Now It’s time to calm down and take a deep breath.

For this type of situation, it’s important and necessary to be very careful in deciding how to respond. In order to turn this customer into a fan of your brand, you need to surprise him.

Therefore, these cases deserve special attention.

In your reply, you need to offer a solution – a tutorial might help-, and how about offering a gift to relieve the situation?

In the case of a digital product, you can offer a discount for a future purchase or even additional material related to what was purchased.

This is one way to surprise your customer, don’t you agree?

In addition to solving the problem, you have demonstrated that you care and this will probably make your buyer feel special.

4- Request and analyze customer service feedback

In order to improve the quality of your customer service, you’ll need feedback from your customers.

Feedback about the customer service received by customers will provide many insights to optimize your support’s performance.

For example, you’ll be able to analyze:

• The best tone for your replies;
• Which demands or problems dissatisfy customers the most;
• What is the overall score of your customer service;
• If you have a support team, the employees that stand out.

Currently, most systems developed for customer service automatically send the feedback form. If you still don’t use any type of automation, you can create a form and send it manually whenever you conclude a customer service.

How to measure the quality of your customer service.

The best way of thinking about and implementing improvements in your company is based on data. With customer service it’s no different.

There are two metrics that must routinely be on your radar:

1. Response time, and
2. Satisfaction score.

And how do I know the ideal rate for each of these metrics?

Usually, companies search for general data in their market niche. So the suggestion is to benchmark in order to establish the success numbers for your metrics.

The important thing here is to know what and how you’re going to measure the metrics in order to reach the goal of improving customer service quality.

For more information on this subject, you can read this post that presents further details about how our customer support works here at Hotmart.