4 Signs That Your Customer Service Needs a Revamp

 

Imagine it: Your company is growing and profits are steadily increasing. Things are looking up.

 

In an effort to keep support on a level with your growing customer base, you hire a customer service representative. 

 

Then something like this happens:

 

A customer calls in with a complaint. Your service wasn't effective or your product is faulty. Instead of hearing the customer out and trying to help, your short-tempered customer service rep blames the customer, spits out a four-letter word, and hangs up the phone. 

 

If you thought the key to business growth was stellar marketing and top-notch sales, it's time to take another look at your customer support.

 

While authority, social proof, and product reputation in the marketplace all factor into a buyer's decision-making process, customer service is key, too. In fact, it serves as the deciding factor in purchase decisions for as much of 62% of buyers in the U.S. And while a faulty product can be forgiven as a one-off problem, a bad customer service experience stains your entire brand—and, by extension, your entire product portfolio.

 

So let's take a close look signs your customer service may need an overhaul.

 

1. You receive negative—or no—feedback from customers

 

Gail Goodman from Entrepreneur put it best: “Knowing what’s being said about your company online allows you to see where you’re succeeding and where you need improvement.”

 

It's important to pay attention to all possible review sites where your company might be listed. Respond to feedback, both positive and negative. Pay special attention to negative feedback; a lot of online reviews are not about products, but about customer service. If you're seeing an increased number of posts about lack of or shoddy support, it's time to look internally at who is leading your customer service efforts and how they are structured. 

 

But what about no feedback at all? What if you're not getting emails, reviews, or anything from the outside to indicate how you're performing? 

 

Depending on your business, this can be a telltale sign that customers don't think their feedback will be worth it. They believe they won't be heard, or that their opinions won't matter to the decision-makers in the company.

 

This is definitely a problem, but here's how you fix it:

 

Be sure you make it clear that customer service your #1 priority to customers. Deploy FAQ and Help pages on your website with easy-to-find contact information, and put a name and face to those on your customer service team so that customers know they'll be reaching out to a person, not a bot.

 

Also, throughout the buying process, encourage both prospects and customers to send their feedback—through the website, by e-mail, through social media, or any other appropriate network. You want to make feedback EASY to give, not arduous.

 

Another tip: Incorporate live support chat software on your website. Even if you don't have an agent available to answer questions around the clock, the ability to "leave a message" makes it easy for your company to respond as soon as an agent is available. And if they are available in the moment, there's no waiting in line—all a customer has to do is type in a question and get an answer in a matter of minutes.

 

(Read more on the options available for live chat here.)