29 ways to consistently deliver exceptional customer service

In industries saturated with competitors selling similar products, exceptional customer interactions are critical for standing out. If you’re not constantly looking for opportunities to improve your customer service and cater to their needs, your customer relationships will likely deteriorate over time.

One of the methods we use to keep our customer support team on their toes and our company culture on track is a customer service tip of the day. In this post, we’d like to share our best customer service tips with you so you can give your support team a crash course on how to improve customer service and increase customer satisfaction.

What is good customer service?

Good customer service is the lifeblood of any successful business – it goes beyond resolving issues and answering questions by creating an experience that leaves customers feeling valued and heard. Customer service efforts should involve understanding and meeting customer expectations, often before they even have to ask. This proactive approach turns casual customers into loyal advocates and makes them more likely to return and recommend your services to others.

Good customer service also means being accessible and responsive across multiple platforms. Whether it’s a phone call, an email, a social media message, or a chat on your website, being responsive is critical. Customers expect timely and effective responses, no matter how they reach out. This availability provides convenience for the customer and demonstrates your commitment to being there for them, reinforcing a positive image of your brand.

Finally, good customer service is about personalization and empathy. Customers want to feel like they are more than just a number. Personalized interactions, where service representatives know the customer’s history and preferences, can significantly enhance the customer experience. Coupled with empathy, which involves understanding and addressing the customer's feelings and perspectives, personalization can transform a routine service encounter into a memorable and positive experience.

What are the benefits of good customer service?

The benefits of good customer service go beyond just the immediate resolution of issues; they are the building blocks for long-term business success. First and foremost, great customer service fosters trust and loyalty. Customers who consistently receive high-quality customer service are likelier to stick with your brand, even in the face of competition or price changes. This loyalty turns satisfied customers into brand ambassadors willing to share their positive experiences with others, effectively providing free word-of-mouth advertising.

Another significant benefit of good customer service is enhanced brand reputation. Online reviews and social media comments can make or break a business, meaning positive customer service experiences are invaluable. Each satisfied customer becomes a testament to your brand's commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. This can lead to a better online and offline reputation, attracting new customers and opening up new markets that might have been inaccessible.

Good customer service also leads to valuable customer insights. Businesses can gather feedback and learn about customer expectations and preferences through meaningful interactions with their customers. This information is crucial for continuous improvement and innovation. Understanding and acting on customer feedback helps businesses improve their customer service skills, products, and services, leading to better offerings and a more targeted approach.

What are the principles of good customer service?

1. Understanding customer expectations: The foundation of good customer service lies in understanding what your customers need and expect from you. In other words, you should be able to address their stated requests and anticipate their unspoken needs. It involves active listening, asking the right questions, and showing genuine interest in their concerns. Truly understanding your customers allows you to provide solutions that exceed their expectations and foster a sense of trust and reliability in your brand.

2. Responsiveness and accessibility: In today's fast-paced world, customers expect quick and easy access to support. Responsiveness is one of the many critical customer service best practices. This includes the speed of your replies and the availability of your support across various channels. No matter the medium, being readily accessible and providing timely assistance is crucial. It shows customers that their time is valued and that you want to provide them with the help they need when needed.

3. Empathy and personalization: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When it comes to improving customer service skills, this means putting yourself in the customer's shoes and addressing their issues with care and understanding. Coupled with personalized services that cover the individual needs and preferences of each customer, empathy can transform a routine interaction into a memorable experience. Personalization shows customers you recognize them as individuals, which can significantly enhance their satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.

4. Consistency and reliability: Consistency in service quality is vital. Customers should receive the same high customer service every time they interact with your brand. This consistency builds trust and confidence in your services. Reliability also plays a key role, as customers need to feel confident that you will deliver on your promises and be there for them when they need you. Consistency and reliability are the cornerstones of a trustworthy brand, leading to stronger customer relationships.

5. Continuous improvement and adaptation: The customer service landscape is constantly evolving, and so should your approach. You should continuously learn from interactions, feedback, and market trends to improve your customer service skills. This principle involves regularly reviewing and updating your service policies, training your staff, and adopting new technologies or methodologies to improve the customer experience. Being adaptable and open to change demonstrates a commitment to excellence and a desire to serve your customers in the best possible way.

Tips to improve customer service

This next section will dive into 29 customer service best practices.

Understand your customer

1. Know your customers

There is absolutely no substitute for knowing who your customers are, why they invested in your product, and what they love or hate about your company. Enable your customer support team to leverage helpdesk software that helps them easily record, analyze, and infer from customer conversations. So whenever your customers contact your support team, they can have meaningful and personalized interactions.

2. Ask your customers questions for better clarity

Make sure you understand what your customers are trying to communicate and clarify whether they understand exactly what you’re saying. You don’t want your customers to think they’re getting 25% off when they get 25% more products.

3. Make collecting customer feedback easy

The key to improving your customer service and growing your business is learning about the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences your customers have faced. Even though you might have accounted for every customer issue as part of your customer service experience strategy, you may face difficulty streamlining the workflow. The best thing your customer support agents can do is create multiple touchpoints along the customer journey to encourage customer feedback.

Train your customer service team

4. Imbibe the right customer service best practices 

You must be familiar with the old saying “The customer’s always right”. The best customer service reps who have received training along this philosophy develop the ability to swallow their pride and accept blame or negative customer feedback. They are adept at handling unreasonable customers in an empathetic way. Remember, delivering exceptional customer service is your primary goal. If a customer is completely absurd, just be human and let them know that you’re doing your best.

5. Practice empathy, patience, and consistency

Your customers might have many questions, some are just chatty, and others may be annoyed. Your customer support team must be prepared to empathize with your customers and offer the same level of service every time. Well-trained customer service agents are better at building customer relationships and generating high customer loyalty. You may refer to the complete guide to customer service training to onboard your customer service employees.

6. Use the CARP method

Customer service teams need to remain consistent with their tone and the processes they practice. A great way to do both is using the CARP method:

• Control the situation

• Acknowledge the dilemma

• Refocus the conversation

• Problem-solving agents ensure happy customers

7. Customer service is a continuous learning process

Every customer is unique, and every customer interaction is different. To handle surprises, a customer service rep should be able to sense the customer’s mood, offer a workaround to address new challenges and be willing to keep learning and upskilling. Don’t forget to share the ultimate guide to customer service skills with your customer service team.

8. Your work ethic = Good customer service for all

Customers will appreciate a customer service representative who closes the loop only when the customer’s problem has been solved. However, a customer service agent is responsible for all your customers. They can’t spend too much time handling one customer while others wait for their concerns to be addressed. A customer service rep must stay focused to achieve the right balance and do justice to all your customers.

9. Use customer service templates

Keep your standards and response times low. You do no need to reinvent the wheel for every primary and common question. Build scalable templates so you can respond to these inquiries with ease and professionalism.

Improve communication skills

10. Choose the right tools

Having the right helpdesk software allows you to integrate with multiple tools and bridge the gap between your customer service team and your customers. Your customer service reps can easily engage with your customers on a platform of their choice with an open and flexible customer service software, and effortlessly collaborate across teams to resolve customer issues in no time.

11. Be real

When you speak or write to your customers, be personable, casual, and most importantly, friendly. Don’t use an overly formal tone to treat customers like a number on your log. We have noticed that many companies have customer service teams that have been trained to be formal, and they seem as if you’re interacting with a programmed robot. Have a real conversation with your customers.

12. Practice active listening

Utilizing proactive customer service skills and active listening go hand in hand. When you use active listening, your customers feel heard. Your support agents must ensure customers understand and trust them by clarifying and rephrasing what they say. Agents can appease angry customers by empathizing with them and reflecting their feelings by saying, “I’m sorry, I can see why that is upsetting” or “That is a problem, and I understand what you’re saying”. Gestures like these make a customer feel valued for their feedback.

13. Practice clear communication

How you communicate with your customers is integral to your business. Positive language, coherent speech, and tone of communication affect your customer’s perception of your brand. Train your customer support reps to be careful with their interactions. Watch out for passive-aggressive language, and avoid slang, colloquialisms, or technical jargon. Keep it simple so your customers understand exactly what is being communicated.

14. Use positive language

Here’s an example of negative language in a customer support setting: “I can’t get you an upgrade until next month. Our service is back-ordered and unavailable right now.” Now, let’s do a quick comparison. Here’s an example of positive language in a customer support setting: “That upgrade will be available next month. I can put in an order for you right now and make sure your account is upgraded as soon as it’s released!” See the difference?

Note: Use positive language, stay cheerful, and always end a conversation after you if the customer is satisfied with the interaction.

15. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know”

Your customers rely on your support team for transparent communication. This requires your team members to know your product inside out and stay updated so they can offer a proactive approach to meet customer expectations. Your support team should know who they can contact for a suitable answer. There might be instances when your support agent doesn’t have an answer to the query raised. Remember: It is okay to tell your customers, “I don’t know”, as long as you follow up with the “But I’ll surely find out”. Customers will appreciate your honesty and your efforts to find the right answer.

16. Admit your mistakes

Humans make mistakes. Remember, when your support team focuses on being human and empathizing with their customers, they should also understand that it’s okay if they make a mistake despite being careful. Admitting that you messed up builds trust and restores your customer’s confidence in your service. It also allows a company to control the situation, re-focus the customer’s attention, and fix the problem.

17. Always close conversations correctly

Every conversation you close with a customer should end with you saying “Is there anything else I can do for you today? I’m happy to help!” and your customer saying, “Yes, I’m all set!” loud and clear. Correctly closing a conversation shows the customer three vital things:

• You care about getting things right

• You’re willing to keep going until you get things right

• The customer is the one who decides what “right” is

18. Follow up after a problem is solved

Follow up with your customers to ensure their issues have been resolved properly and that they were satisfied with the service. A quick phone call, a good support email, or even a feedback survey is a great way to let them know you value your customer’s time and are always on their side.

Keep tabs on your customer service metrics

19. Monitor performance metrics for your team.

Don’t rely on “It feels like we spend a lot of time addressing this issue” when customer data can easily eliminate the guesswork. All you need to do is track the frequency of issues and the average handle time, and it will give you the insights you need to improve your business.

20. Solve problems the first time around.

One of the best ways to keep customers happy and be seen as a company that provides outstanding service is to practice first-contact resolution. In other words, solve your customers’ problems the first time they contact you. There’s nothing your customers will appreciate more than getting their issues addressed the first time around.

21. Make sure your customer service team is happy

Your customers and your customer service team’s happiness is equally important. Make sure you keep tabs on how your customer service team feels about their working conditions, compensation, opportunities for career advancement, training, available tools, resources, and their peers. Normalize collecting and receiving employee feedback so you can set benchmarks, revise goals, and track performance metrics.

Personalize your customer experience

22. Revisit your customer experience strategy

Bad customer service at any point in the customer journey can hamper your relationship. To improve customer service, we suggest you pay critical attention to key touchpoints: customer trial periods, customer signups, customer onboarding, etc. Your support team needs a complete view of the customer journey, or you risk bad experiences getting in the way of your business. If they discover a lapse in services, they need to escalate such issues with the management team to fix them.

23. Be accessible

When your support team works day in and day out to add a personal touch to customer interactions, you should understand that 50% of this effort refers to being available. You have to make it easy for your customers to reach you when in need. You might be part of a digital-first business, but you should try to meet your customers in person or offer a video call for face-to-face interactions. Remember, the more you are accessible via phone, chat, text, or email, the more trust you’ll build.

24. Be where your customers are

Make sure your support team has the requisite customer data to craft a personalized customer journey. Be present wherever your customers are. Respond to customer concerns and posts on social media (LinkedIn/ Facebook/ Twitter/ Reviews). Don’t forget to showcase pictures and bios of your support team on your website. Show your customers that your company has real people working to cater to their needs.

25. Create a customer community

A great way to make your customers feel valued is to invite them to a community centered on your product or services. Your customer service team can initiate this by bringing your customers together for webinars, interactive sessions, social media forums, trade shows, and conventions. These forums can also serve as a two-way learning experience for you and your customers.

26. Add a personal touch to show you’re human

We are sure your support agents are doing their best to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently. However, you should encourage them to identify common ground and shared interests with the customers. They can leverage insights from a real-time dashboard of the right CRM Software and personalize the customer journey. This would help them resolve conflicts more easily and promote customer loyalty.

27. Self-service: Help customers help themselves

Good customer service should always be available, even if you aren’t. Chatbots, FAQs, and Knowledge Bases are a great way to make resources available to your customers without getting involved personally. Make sure you offer a self-service helpdesk with screenshots, videos, and formatted layouts so your customers can choose from these resources at their convenience and avail your services better.

28. Appreciate your customers

Take the time to thank your customers for their faith in you and your services. This is the kind of gesture that builds rock-solid customer relationships. Customer appreciation goes a long way. Special discounts and a preview of new features for your loyal customers will continue to be a win-win strategy by helping you improve customer retention and promote customer loyalty.

29. Remember that customer service is everyone’s job

Everyone in your company should understand the customers’ pain points. When your whole company is involved in ensuring an excellent customer service experience, each team finds a faster way to make amends and drive your business forward. It’s simple, yet often overlooked. For companies that are just getting started, we recommend you just talk to your customers. Here’s a quick guide that might help.

Conclusion

Here are the steps you can take to improve your customer experience while utilizing the customer service tips outlined above. 

• Start by choosing the exemplary customer service software for your customer service team. 

• Follow up by analyzing your customer interactions and constantly monitoring your customer complaints. 

• Understand how your customer feels by interpreting their feedback. 

• Personalize your customer service experience and go the extra mile to ensure happy customers. 

• Don’t forget to keep tabs on your real-time metrics so your customer service agents can constantly make amends and deliver better customer service. 

This approach will give your loyal customers more reasons to keep coming back for more and help you acquire new customers on the go.