2021 is just around the corner, and with many businesses having struggled through much of 2020, you may be looking for ways to set yourself apart from your competition. Customer service, for many industries, is a foregone conclusion and can often make an otherwise top-notch business blend in with its competitors.
If you want to stand out this annum, then check out our 5 New Years’ resolutions to improve customer service.
1. Make Better First Impressions
Often times, customer service fails at the initial point of contact. Whether this is a secretary, an answering service, or a call straight to the business owner, this is your customer’s first interaction with your business. If you’re not careful, it could be their last.
Focus on making better first impressions. From answering phone calls to greeting customers at the door all the way to getting them to the right customer service representative, technician, or manager, do your best to impress.
2. Prioritize Excellent Customer Service
If first impressions weren’t enough to work with, make your business a customer service-first environment. Forget about profits, employees, and work balance and focus on the customers themselves.
One thing that’s for sure is that excellent customer service will be 100% rewarded. Not only will you improve your customer experience but you’ll get positive feedback and reviews, repeated customers, and a stronger customer base.
3. Gather Real Feedback
Online reviews and word of mouth experience from your employees are valuable things to your business’s customer service and can give you extremely useful feedback.
Unfortunately, getting internal feedback and positive reviews only tells part of the story. Make it a point in 2021 to actually reach out to customers and get their personal feedback. You’ll find that customers feel more welcome and are more than happy to give you honest, real feedback.
4. Leverage Interaction and Messaging Management
More and more customers are text-friendly, and many of them are more likely and more willing to communicate via text message or online messaging platforms than ever before. For that reason, make your business text and messenger friendly by using either a software service or dedicating a computer or phone line to message customers.
Consider leveraging an all-in-one interaction and messaging system to better communicate with your customers, gather more feedback, and gain more reviews online. Podium is one of the leaders in online reputation management and messaging. With messaging software, you’ll find that your business is more streamlined and welcoming to new customers.
5. Create a Customer-Focused Team Atmosphere
One way that customer-focused initiatives die is when there isn’t a complete team effort from the management all the way down the business. Often times, managers make decisions with customers at the heart, but the rest of the employees either don’t catch on or are left in the dust.
For that reason, if you want to make customer service a priority in 2021, it needs to start from the top and be a 100% team effort. At first, changing cultures can be difficult, but with enough diligence, strong decision making, and a team-first approach, you can succeed in creating an environment focused on excellent customer service.
