Looking after your customers properly is one of the most important parts of any business. It is clear to see that success in your brand relies heavily on your team’s ability to handle customer care and keep your clients happy. While marketing tools like an NPS calculator and tracking metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are great ways of monitoring customer satisfaction, having the right team in place with the right skills is crucial. These monitoring methods are not worth much if your business lacks the ability to keep customers happy.
The team you have at the forefront of your business must be able to deliver the best possible service and care for your clients in a way that keeps them coming back for more. Good customer care can be the difference between a customer being a detractor or a promotor of your brand. In this guide, we look at the five customer care skills your team needs to know.
1. Expressing empathy
Empathy is easily one of the most important skills that customer service team members need to have. It means your team can understand exactly how your customers are feeling and that they have the capacity to see things from your client’s point of view. Empathy is the foundation of customer care and if your team lacks it then you can expect to see negative customer feedback and unsatisfied consumers. Luckily, empathy is a skill that can be developed over time with the right atmosphere and training package. When you encourage your customer care team to focus on empathy, they can ensure your clients feel understood, supported, and respected.
2. Using positive language
Your customer care team must have an optimistic mindset in order to keep everyone happy and find the best solution to problems that come their way. This is all about looking for what going well in a situation as opposed to focusing on the negative, and then aligning your language. Using positive language in marketing collateral is second nature, but supporting this with the same approach from customer care can double down on the message. This is a skill that requires your employees to consider the situation and put a positive spin on what they say to customers. For example, instead of saying ‘it’s against our policy to provide that’, rephrase this to ‘I understand you would like XYZ, but instead let’s try ABC’.
3. Keeping things simple
The last thing customers want when they pick up the phone is to hear lots of complicated messaging from your customer care team. This can happen when a customer care professional tries to explain a situation from the business’s point of view instead of from the consumer’s view. Developing the skill of simplicity is a great tool for customer care teams and can help keep your clients on the same page. Simplicity is so important in marketing and the same goes for customer-facing employees. Remember the key rule that less is more and help your customer care teams to cut down on the jargon, use shorter sentences and simple words. If you can find the balance between keeping things simple without distorting the task at hand, then you can remove doubt from your customer’s mind and empower them to be in control of their own solution.
4. Cultivating curiosity
Curious people will ask better questions and be in a better position to solve more complex issues through a deeper understanding. Your customer care team needs to have the skills to be curious and inquisitive in order to get to the root of the customer problem. Encourage your teams to ask lots of questions, investigate and learn from every customer they speak to. This can help them to provide better solutions and build customer relationships.
5. Actively listening
It might sound obvious that your customer care team needs to know how to listen, but it is something that so many businesses often get wrong. Your employees must have the skills to actively listen and be attentive to customers both on the phone and in person. This means holding eye contact, eliminating distractions, and devoting themselves to any issues being brought to their attention. In a busy call centre or office, complete attentiveness isn’t always easy. Your customer care team needs to be able to focus completely on the client they are helping. Failing to actively listen and pay attention to customers can leave them disgruntled at a time where situations may already be intense.
These five customer care skills can help your team to better assist your clients and keep them satisfied with your brand. Adopting these skills alongside a good customer feedback strategy can help to eliminate any issues within your business and ensure consumers are happy time and time again.