Top 5 Customer Service Tips

A happy customer will likely return. This is a widely accepted wisdom in the modern retail industry. This is why good customer service is considered so important.

That being said, there are thousands of articles online about providing good customer service. So we went through a metric ton of them and cherry picked what we thought was the best advice among them all.

This is our list of top 5 customer service tips.

1. Empathy, Patience, and Consistency

The first tip that we have was usually listed number one in most lists we saw.

It deals with showing customers empathy regarding their needs, patience while they make their decisions or explain themselves, and consistency with both of these.

Most customers want to be listened to. They don’t care for technical jargon or colloquialisms being thrown their way. They also hate it when sales executives throw product features at them instead of listening to their concerns.

Customers would much rather be heard and be asked simple questions about what they need. So encourage your staff to practice empathy and patience to become good listeners. It will give them the tools they need to guarantee customer satisfaction.

2. Positive Language

This next one took a bit of reading before we got it. According to a lot of the articles out there, you should apparently encourage your staff to use positive language when speaking.

To see what positive and negative language is, let’s take a look at an example. If a customer asks for a product that is sold out, negative language would be saying that you DON’T have it or you CAN’T get it. Conversely, positive language would be saying you WILL get it soon.

Using affirmative and positive language can help create positive associations in the minds of customers. They will see things as “possible” instead of “impossible”, which makes them more likely to stick around and make purchases.

So encourage your staff to make a conscious effort to use positive language. The results may surprise you.

3. Consider Customer Complaints

The next tip is that your staff should give credence to a customer’s complaints. Often, the root of their issue is hidden under many words. In fact, great feedback might be hidden behind their words.

While this absolutely does not mean encouraging your staff to take abuse from your customers, this does mean that they should take time to hear out genuine grievances, especially if they or your store is at fault.

No one is perfect so taking customer complaints seriously and hearing them out can go a long way towards mending bridges with the customer.

4. Reduce Response Times

One of the ways you can leave a positive impression on the minds of your customers is to reduce the time it takes to respond to them. Whether it is digital correspondence or physical interaction, the sooner you attend to their needs, the better they feel.

First, let’s talk about digital correspondence. Reducing the time taken to respond to emails or messages is a very good way to leave a positive impact on your customers. Luckily, due to the nature of digital correspondence, you can automate this to some degree.

Things like prepared replies or automatic responses can go a long way towards reducing response time.

Next, physical interaction. The key point here is to encourage your staff to find a way to be available to the customers in your store when they need it. One way to do this is by ensuring that there is always a customer service representative within reach inside the shop.

Either way, a reduction in response time is a reduction in customer dissatisfaction.

5. Unify your Team

Last but certainly not least, it is important to unify your customer service team. Let’s look at some of the reasons why.

A unified team will be able to work together and cover each other’s weaknesses. They will be able to achieve greater results together than if working against each other.

Creating a competitive environment at work is one thing, but if it results in your team turning on each other, it will cause chaos. No productive work can be done if your staff are constantly working against each other.

So make sure you do your part to unify the team. Whether it is team building sessions or avoiding pitting them against each other through bonuses, make sure that they are on the same side; the store’s.

And there you have it! Our selection of the top five customer service tips. We hope you found them helpful or interesting, if not both.

While we have you for a minute, why not take a look at our easy-to-learn, easy-to-use, cloud-based POS system, Ewity?

Ewity comes with a cavalcade of features to help you and your staff manage your store. From flexible inventory systems to integrating existing software to data analytics, Ewity has it all.

If you’re interest in learning more, why not visit our website and see what Ewity can offer you?