10 tips to improve customer service communication

Customer service communication can play a huge role in how customers perceive your brand. 

For example, here are two ways to let a customer know that an item is out of stock:

“I’m sorry, this particular dress isn’t in stock and won’t be in for another two weeks.” 

Or

“You can have the dress in two weeks, and if you’d like, I can place an order for you now, so you get it as soon as it’s back in stock.”

The meaning is the same, but in the second example, there’s a sense that you’re going the extra mile for the customer while closing a deal. It’s all a matter of how the message is communicated.

Not surprisingly, communication is the bread and butter of customer service, as every interaction between your company and your customer is one step closer to building a better customer relationship.

What is customer service communication?

This refers to the exchange of information between a customer and a company while resolving customer needs. From email responses to social media updates and phone calls, there are many different ways to communicate with your customers and offer assistance.

Excellent customer service communication requires skills like speaking and writing clearly, effectively, efficiently, and politely. You need to employ empathetic listening when you’re communicating with customers. Remember, communication is a two-way street.

Why are communication skills important in customer service?

A single bad experience can affect how your customers perceive your brand. In fact, one-third of consumers say they would consider switching companies after just one instance of bad customer service. Being able to convey a message effectively is critical to offering excellent customer support.

Listening to the customer, being patient, displaying empathy, and understanding the issue or problem are skills that help you communicate effectively with the customer and are a must-have while working in customer support.

What are the factors that impact customer service communication?

Good communication and effective customer service are intertwined. Several factors can impact how you communicate with customers and deliver customer service. 

(1) Convenience

Giving your customers the freedom to choose their preferred communication channel is part of providing an excellent customer experience. Be present on the channels your customers use the most to ensure quick resolutions to customer questions. For example, if your customers belong to a younger demographic, you might want to consider offering customer support through your social media and mobile-first messaging channels such as WhatsApp and LINE. According to Microsoft research, 54% of consumers worldwide favor brands that respond to customer service questions or complaints on social media.

(2) Personalization

While scripts help your customer service team with general direction, personalizing communication is what great customer service is about. If your customer service representatives can relate to the customers’ needs, they will feel heard from the beginning. When customers contact customer support, they are looking for someone who can understand their issue and help with a quick resolution.

Let’s assume your company sells luxury products, you’d want your reps to treat customers like VIPs. You can do this by viewing previous customer service interactions across channels and accessing their order history to learn about the customer’s issue.

By gathering context beforehand, you can give the customer the impression that you know exactly what they are going to talk about. This can help you offer fast, context-rich, personalized assistance that is nothing short of VIP treatment, which will ultimately lead to increased customer satisfaction. 

(3) Consistency

Excellent customer service communication is consistent across channels and customer interactions. It means that the service experience doesn’t change depending on who offers support. For example, when customer support reps communicate with your customers, you want them to use consistent tone and language and refer to unified customer records to ensure that customers don’t experience any friction in their experience.  

It’s best to ensure that your brand voice shines through in all interactions. Brands also need to be consistent in the vocabulary they use across all channels, and reps should have the skills to use it precisely during interactions. 

(4) Feedback responses

Each interaction with your customer is an opportunity to collect valuable data about how your customers feel about your brand. According to Microsoft, 89% of customers view brands favorably if they proactively invite and welcome customer feedback [2]. You can use the given information to learn more about your customers' likes and dislikes, consider improving your product, and tailor more effective communication. Additionally, collecting customer feedback tells your customers that you care, helping you strengthen relationships.

10 ways to improve customer service communication

Enhancing and developing better customer service communication skills should be part of your overall customer service strategy. Here are 10 areas to focus on to improve your customer communication.

1. Practice patience and empathy

Show that you care for your customers even if they share their frustration. Some customers need that extra word of assurance or a higher level of engagement to feel satisfied with the outcome. Also, being patient allows you the time to figure out the root cause of the problem and how to provide an effective solution instead of closing the loop in a hurry.

2. Communicate clearly and concisely

Develop command over your language and product knowledge to inspire trust in your customers. Clarity requires you to break down complexities into easily digestible concepts for your customers. For example, while they don’t need to know the nitty-gritty of what caused a bug, you may need to explain what really happened in simpler terms. 

Clear communication prevents customer frustration by ensuring that there are no miscommunications. Successful customer support reps can explain what’s going on in simple terms that don’t leave customers wondering or confused. Check out the Reddit forum “Explain Like I’m Five” for great examples of how this works in practice.

Ensure that you use positive language when communicating with customers. Positive language means telling your customers what you can do for them rather than what you can’t.

For example, instead of saying, “That’s not something I deal with. Jessica is in charge of billing, and she’s not here right now,” say something like, “I understand. Please let me find that out for you and get back to you as soon as I have this information.”

3. Active listening

Active listening ensures effective communication. Rather than passively hearing what a customer tells them, customer support reps need to pay attention to what customers say, understand their emotions, and try to come up with the best solution. If reps listen actively, they might understand the problem, and even if they are not able to give a solution immediately, it can help customers feel heard and acknowledged. Listen to your customers with attention to specific details, understand their problems’ magnitude, and identify internal areas of improvement.

4. Display emotional intelligence

Speak the customers’ language and acknowledge their issues by putting yourself in their shoes. Empathizing with your customer’s problem or frustration can go a long way–customers feel better when you’re honest and genuinely care about fixing their issue. 

Here’s an example of how to display emotional intelligence while dealing with an angry customer:

Customer: “I ordered it a month ago, and when I finally received it, it’s the wrong size! I’ve been on hold forever — you seriously treat customers this way?!”

Representative Response: “I’m so sorry you had to wait. From my understanding, you either need to exchange the product you received with the right size or return it for a refund. Do I understand this correctly?”

Other examples of emotional intelligence you can use during a conversation are: 

• “I understand what you are going through.”

• “I would be equally frustrated in your place.”

• “I want to help you.”

• “I can see why you’re frustrated.”

• “Thanks for bringing this to our attention!”

• “I completely understand why you’re asking for this.”

5. Be proactive in your approach

Going the extra mile with a customer is a fantastic way to delight them. Anticipating potential issues that your customers may face and providing a solution can save them a headache.

For instance, you can communicate foreseeable issues in advance via email or chat and offer help instantly when customers show visible signs of frustration using website widgets. You can also followup with a customer after the proactive communication. This approach will ensure that your customers stick to your brand.

6. Use data to know your customers better

Consider the following stat: Acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than retaining your current ones. Knowing this, it’s a no-brainer to find out why customers are leaving and focus on keeping them. Knowing who your customers are and what drives them to buy your product or request your service is crucial to business growth and success. Use data analytics for identifying customer groups, problem-solving, and troubleshooting.

7. Add creativity into the mix

Customer service can get very monotonous. So when the right opportunity presents itself, add some creativity to delight your customers. Creative responses, especially on social media, can get a positive response, even if it’s for solving a grievance. As long as you’re consistent with your brand, your customers will enjoy humor and creativity! 

However, use discretion when it comes to humor and creativity. There might be some situations, issues, or customers that would not appreciate a light-handed reply. To avoid mishaps, drawing out the lines of acceptable or unacceptable scenarios in which to allow a free hand, is critical.

8. Enable employee engagement

Support your customer service agents by enabling them to discuss their problems with experts who can relate to what they go through. This will encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration across the organization and present newer opportunities to delight customers. You may want to set up a time every week and encourage agents to convene and share know how or key learnings. 

It is important that your support team can easily communicate and help each other on a day-to-day basis. This can be done by choosing help desk software that comes with an in-built collaboration tool. For instance, the Freshdesk Omni enables agents to collaborate on the internal chat tool, which can be accessed right within the tool. Alternatively, you can also integrate communication software with your helpdesk software to facilitate smooth collaboration.

9. Ask for customer feedback and fine-tune your support

Customer feedback is one of the most important aspects of improving your customer experience. When a customer picks up the phone, sends you an email, or messages you on social media, they give you the chance to improve your product—don’t miss out. You can refine and improve your customer support by listening to what customers are saying. Therefore, an integral part of your communication strategy should be reaching out to customers and asking for their feedback.

10. Manage time efficiently

As the saying goes, “Time is money.” Tracking your time for different types of issues, committing to Service Level Agreements (SLAs), analyzing real-time scenarios that cause delays, and working on them are all part of improving your customer service communication. For example, assigning a resolution SLA with response times for when the ticket needs to be closed or resolved can ensure that the customer gets their issue resolved with quality responses and action, not just quick answers.

You can leverage workflow automation to save time spent on repetitive processes. For instance, instead of manually reviewing tickets to keep parameters up-to-date, you can set up an automation rule that automatically scans all your tickets every hour and automatically updates relevant properties.

Agent-facing AI and bots can also free up your time. With agent-facing copilots powered by Freshworks’ Freddy AI, you can run complex backend processes in a single click, get smart recommendations for responses, and connect resources to your conversation with the customer. The AI flags important social media mentions, automatically triages incoming conversations, and prevents thank you messages from reopening closed tickets, all of which are time-consuming activities when performed manually.

Customer service communication that works

The bottom line is that all communications have to meet customer expectations. A call to customer service is often the first human-to-human exchange between your customer and your brand. “For better or worse, that representative becomes your brand until that call ends,” says Matt Doyle from Forbes. After that, your customer and your company will communicate with one another, so you must develop the best skills possible to make your customer service communication a success.