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Why Customer Service is vital: Acorn explains
Wales’ leading recruitment and training agency Acorn is marking National Customer Service Week (October 5-11) by raising people’s awareness of the vital role it plays in business today.
The Newport based agency has mobilised its expert Customer Service Training Consultants to offer free advice to businesses and organisations including a list of Dos and Don’ts.
Helena Williams of the Acorn Group’s Learning and Development Division, said: “The objective of any service driven company must be to provide the highest standard of customer care possible.
That way if the customer is happy they will come back to you and they will recommend you to others. It is vitally important because retaining existing customers is easier than finding new ones. It costs up to six times more to win a new customer than to retain an existing one.
This process starts with understanding what customers want and the products or services you are offering. If you understand and communicate this suitably, customers will have the confidence in you and your business. This is especially important as most people consider doing business with a company because of a recommendation by a friend or colleague.
Dealing with complaints is an important part of customer service. Dissatisfied customers spread bad news which can undermine your business. The average person who has a bad-service experience tells at least nine others about it - bad news can undermine your business. But seven out of 10 customers will do business with you again if you sort out their problem and even more (95%) if the problem is resolved on the spot.
And don’t forget internal customers are just as important as external ones! They need to feel as valued and supported as an external client. This is especially important if the company / organisation is large or spread over a number of locations where colleagues are often ‘names on a distribution list’.
One other thing for businesses and organisations to consider; Acorn is accredited by the BS EN ISO 9001:2008. This quality standard recognises us for our quality of customer service and high levels of customer satisfaction. I can highly recommend it to anyone else who considers customer service to be an important part of their business.”
Here are some of the top tips for customer service put together from our expert training consultants:
10 Dos and Don’ts for excellent customer service.
DO - greet your customers in a friendly way
- try to build an immediate rapport
- people will buy from and recommend people they like
DO - listen to what your customers want
- take time to listen to what they have to say and be understanding
- identify their needs
DO - be open and honest
- don’t make promises you can’t keep
- if you can’t solve the problem immediately, say so and explain the process to follow - customers will tend to be more forgiving if you level with them
DO - know your products / services
- the more you know the more professional you and the company will be
- give the customer the best advice and the options available
- give your customer confidence
DO - get to know your customers better
- demonstrate that you are interested in helping them
- feed back any relevant information to other departments, which may help identify other areas of opportunity to improve the company’s products or services.
DO - check your understanding
- clarify the exact nature of the enquiry / complaint
- go through the points one by one and offer solutions there and then
- ensure the customer can get back to you at a later date if necessary
DON’T - pass customers around
- when there is a problem, deal with it first time with the minimum amount of hassle
- if you have to pass the enquiry on to another person explain why and ensure the customer is kept advised
DON’T - be elusive
- instead, make it easy for customers to get in touch with you ensure they have your contact details.
- find out how your customers prefer to get in touch with you and how and when they would like to be contacted by you
DON’T - be unclear
- explain simply what’s happening in plain, clear language; avoiding use of jargon
- be careful not to appear patronising or talking down to individuals
DON’T - avoid dealing with complaints
- instead, concentrate on the resolution; state what you can do, not what you can’t
- never lose your cool
- apologise when necessary
- don’t blame others
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