To increase revenues, keep these 4 customer service facts in mind

By Jasmine Williams

When it comes to leveraging your customer service department into a sales-generating team, there are some important facts to keep in mind as you’re moving forward. Today, the emphasis of the consumer business relationship is placed more on the quality of the customer experience than on the product or service itself. This quality is an overarching gauge for whether or not a consumer wishes to purchase an item. This ranking system begins and ends with customer service.

Implement technology

Using technology is the first step to creating an effective customer service environment. Developing a social media presence that is known for being interactive and helpful is crucial. Consumers want to know companies care about their feedback. The most efficient way to interact with feedback is through the comment section on your social media profile.

Interacting with both positive and negative reviews is paramount to your success. Returning praise with compliments, incentives and even lighthearted humor is an excellent way to show your consumers that you care.

However, returning bad reviews with the same level of friendliness matters. This friendliness must be sincere. Do not simply buy your consumers off with a free gift. When you interact with the negative review, hear the problem your customer had and explain to them the steps you’ve taken to right this wrong.

Education matters

In addition to practicing good customer relations on social media, another way to improve consumer engagement is through creative content. Creative content is how a brand sets itself apart from others within their niche.

Creating blog posts, YouTube videos and infographics that aim to inform instead of sell shows consumers that the company cares about the consumer’s education. This allows the company to establish themselves as an authority on the topic while informing consumers about all of their options.

Here’s a great example of how this is executed:

There are numerous Bluetooth headphones available, but most don’t go very deep into the topic of how much radiation they give off. You can make a difference by informing those buyers who would otherwise skip wireless headphones that there are alternatives for them too.

Instead of just pushing your solution, always offer alternatives. This gives power to the consumer to feel they are making an informed decision when it comes time to purchase. Not only will this solidify in the customer’s mind that they made the right choice by going with you, but it will improve customer loyalty. Because of the customer service technique of using creative content, your consumer knows your brand to be authoritative and reliable. This leads to sales.

Customer service is more than sales; it’s about people

When your customer service representatives are interacting with people over the phone, this can often feel clinical and unsettling for both parties. However, the most important thing to remember when interacting with a consumer is that they are a person too.

If the consumer is frustrated over the phone, the typical human response is to respond with frustration. However, genuinely making an effort to solve a person’s problem and to listen to their complaint is the first step to de-escalating a less than ideal interaction.

What a customer service representative is dealing with a complaint, their primary goal should be to improve the consumer’s mood, and thus bring the conversation around to a positive conversation about making a sale. By being compassionate, but sensitive to the mood of the conversation, customer service representatives have the power to demonstrate to their consumers that they, too, are people. In many cases, this will de-escalate the situation and allow for reconciliation to begin. At this point, the consumer may even engage in purchasing.

Active listening helps

The quickest way to implement the previous fact is through the process of active listening, which allows the consumer to voice their opinion uninterrupted.

Do not try to insert facts. Do not cut them off.

Rather let them vent their frustration and listen for their key objectives. At that point the customer service representative should turn around and say, “It seems to me you feel like X because of X, Y, Z. Is that correct?“

The customer service representative should then affirm the consumer’s feelings, but not agree with them. Use a phrase like, “I totally appreciate where you’re coming from. Let me help you by addressing your key concerns.“ Then the customer service representative can go into the facts that alleviate the consumer’s frustration and concerns.

As this dialogue is wrapping up, the customer service representative needs to be sensitive to the fact that the consumer may not be completely at ease. If a consumer is not convinced of what the customer service representative had to say, the representative should use a phrase like, “I’m so sorry. Perhaps I didn’t explain this fully. Will you let me go over this with you one more time just so that I can make sure you have all the information that you need?”

Phrases like these allow the consumer to feel heard and feel as though they have power. However, phrases and questions like these allow the customer service representative to drive the conversation in the direction the company needs it to go.

Overall, using social media and practicing consumer-centric conversation skills will help companies and customer service representatives to connect with their consumers. This connection fosters both positive relationships and helps recover those relationships which may have been begun with a negative experience. Implementing these facts in your customer service strategy will certainly help make your team stronger.

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Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today’s business and marketing. When she’s not being all serious and busy, she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, and delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Contact her @JazzyWilliams88

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