4 Customer Service Practices a Good Outsourcing Company Should Use

Good customer service can be difficult to achieve. Customer service representatives go through extensive and ongoing training to hone their skills, and it is not something that comes easily to everyone. Just like meditation and yoga, customer service is a practice that representatives and companies of quality are constantly engaging in. The good news is that there are active steps customer service companies can take to make sure that customer satisfaction stays high.

Here are four customer service practices a good outsourcing company should use in order to improve the outcomes and satisfaction scores within their caller base:

1)    Active listening. Most people who call a customer service number are not having a good experience with a product or a service. Nine times out of ten, they have already tried to troubleshoot on their own and have not gotten anywhere with it. Tensions can be high, and sometimes a caller is just looking to vent their frustrations. It is important for a good customer service outsourcing company to train their representatives on active listening. If a disgruntled customer feels heard and understood, it can go a long way in diffusing the entire situation right from the start.

2)    Personalization. No one likes feeling as if they are talking to a machine. It is important for customer support reps to quickly build rapport with their callers, in order to reassure them that they do in fact, have an empathetic human on the other end of the line. A quick way to create rapport is through personalization. A friendly tone, the use of the callers name, and a well timed joke here and there help to make the entire customer service interaction feel more personal to everyone.

3)    Data collection. A good customer support representative should be constantly collecting data from their caller. Note-taking is a great way to achieve this. As the call progresses, the customer service rep may need to call upon something the caller previously mentioned. Instead of asking a caller to re-describe their problem or repeat themselves, it is better if the rep has the information right in front of them in their own notes. This will both make the call more efficient, and will make the caller feel as if they are really being listened to and understood.

4)    Managing expectations. As tempting as it can be to promise a caller that their problem is 100% solvable, the failure to deliver on a promise like that will make the situation worse for everyone. It is vitally important for a customer support rep to manage caller expectations. Promises and guarantees should never be made. Instead, a customer support rep should pledge to do ‘everything in their power’ to solve a problem, and nothing more. Promising positive outcomes is a slippery slope that leads to disappointed callers more often than it does not.

As a top-tier customer service outsourcing company, (v)WeCare puts all of these practices to work every single day. Call today to discuss getting the (v)WeCare customer support team up and running for your customers.