GUEST BLOG: Five ways marketers can avoid poor customer service

By Lisa Bollins, author, Receptional

Nowadays, more and more consumers are turning to social media to complain about brands where they have had an unsatisfactory experience.

In person or telephone customer service should be a main component of any business, but recently it has been on the decline.

Customers that complain on social media are often referred to as ‘toxic’, as they are not simply giving bad feedback to a brand, but are also actively harming a brand’s reputation by using their social media feeds.

One of the biggest reasons for people leaving negative feedback is because a brand has let them down. ICM conducted a survey on customer service and discovered that 53% of their respondents said that they felt brands had let them down, and 35% said that they leave negative comments so that other followers know about the poor service.

So how can marketers avoid situations like this and, ultimately, poor customer service?

1. Keep your promises

Everything you promise to the customer is everything that your business stands for, or doesn’t stand for. If you break the promise you give to your customers, you’re going to break the trust you have with them and many customers won’t do business with someone they no longer trust.

For example, if you tell a customer that their order will be with them by a certain date, then you should ensure that it reaches them by that date. If a commitment cannot be met for reasons out of your control, instead of making excuses or passing the blame, apologise to your customer and then ensure you go above and beyond to update them on their order and make sure that they leave happy.

2. Respond to customer complaints quickly

Customer service ultimately comes down to one simple thing; how you make your customer feel. If your customer feels unhappy, or under-valued, they’ll make sure you know about it.

Whether you deal with customers in person, by phone, email or social media, the one key rule of good customer service is to follow up when a customer contacts you. Delays in replying to your customers, or even ignoring your customers, can give the impression that they aren’t important to you.

Social media has become an increasingly popular route for companies to deal with customer complaints, and many companies have even set up dedicated social media accounts just to help their customers.

A customer service account can be used to quickly turn the customer’s query into a positive experience, avoiding it developing into bad customer service.

3. Follow up after issues are resolved

Once customer service issues have been resolved, you shouldn’t just leave it at that. You should demonstrate how important the customer is to you by following the issue up with them.

Following up gives you the opportunity to not only ensure that the previous issue was fully resolved, but to also halt any other potential issues.

Customers that complain on social media are often referred to as ‘toxic’, as they are not simply giving bad feedback to a brand, but are also actively harming a brand’s reputation by using their social media feeds

More importantly, it replaces the last experience where the customer wasn’t happy, with an experience that is completely positive because we often remember what happened to us last and you want your customer’s last experience to be the positive. Anyone or any business can make a mistake; the important thing is how it is dealt with.

4. Record your customer interactions

If you monitor your customer queries through phone calls, using call recording is a great tool to gain valuable insight into how your customer service representative’s deal with the calls they make and receive.

There are a variety of call recording companies and offerings, such as the software from Mediahawk, which allows you to listen to your inbound calls. This ensures that your team are making the most of every sales opportunity and are improving customer service; it also allows more personalised staff training. Of course, not every business needs to record customer calls, but the benefits of call recordings can be considerable, even for small businesses, and the costs are kept low.

By maintaining a database of call recordings, you can also compare how your team communicates with customers today, compared to how they previously communicated with them.

The differences can show where you’ve improved, as well as highlighting areas you still need to work on. As well as being able to maintain a database of call recordings, you can also listen in on how your team members are performing, ensure that they are providing quality customer service and help to resolve any issues if any of your customer service representatives are under-performing

5. Use two-way communication

As previously mentioned, it’s essential that you take your customers’ feedback seriously and apply any feedback you receive. What’s the point of listening if you’re not going to act on that feedback? Make sure that it’s clear that you want your customers’ feedback and that your business truly values them.

Lisa Bollins

A great way of getting your customers’ feedback is through email. For example, once a customer has placed an order you can send them updates on their order. One good example is from Photobox, who initially sent me a confirmation once I’d made my order, another to tell me they were putting it together and then a final one once my order was on its way to me.

By keeping me up-to-date on the process I knew how to contact them if there was any problems and I felt valued as a customer. Another example could be sending a customer an email a few weeks after they’ve received their order to see how the experience was for them.

This way you’re showing your customers that you care about them by staying in touch and you’re able to solve their problems should they be experiencing any.

Photo: NEC Corporation of America