When it comes to business, I think we can all agree that nothing matters more than your customers. Whether you sell cars or pizza, customers are the foundation of your business making customer service more important than ever.
How Can Your Business Achieve Excellent Customer Service?
Having engaged and willing employees are first in line when it comes to achieving excellent and consistent customer service within your business. If you have staff that knows the product, is friendly and is committed to providing superior customer service you have completed 90% of the battle. Now, add accountability to the mix. When you combine product knowledge, empowered employees and accountability, your business’ customer service will be taken to the next level.
How To Incorporate Accountability to Improve Customer Service
According to Saleforce.com, 78% of consumers have ended a business relationship due to bad service. Salesforce.com also reported that if you give a customer poor service but you resolve it, 70% of those will continue to do business with you. This is a great example of how accountability plays a major role in your company’s customer service. To avoid dissatisfied customers and to increase the rate of returning customers, you need to make sure that your employees are holding themselves accountable (even if an issue wasn’t their fault), taking action, and not just passing the issue to the next department. No one wants to hear excuses for why their issues or concerns can’t be solved and most certainly, and no one (even yourself) wants to feel like their business is not valued.
The quickest way to introduce accountability into your business is to set clear goals and expectations. After all, you can’t hold someone accountable if they don’t know what customer success means to your business. You can start by defining success, company philosophy and goals. When you compile these three items, you can effectively create and document processes for your teams. Creating these processes could take some time but in the end, will serve as a backbone in the culture of accountability. Now that you have new processes, it is important to train your teams on how to achieve superior customer service. Laying out clear expectations for employees will allow you to hold your teams accountable for their actions.
Instead of giving customers the cold shoulder or standard response, your employees can now feel confident enough to respond with empathy and work towards a customized solution. Holding employees accountable and providing the right training will without a doubt set your overall customer service experience up for success, give your business a competitive advantage, and most importantly, happy and satisfied customers!