How Do You Improve a Customer’s Experience of Your Services?
January 19, 2021 | Read: 9 minutes
How do you improve customer service experience?
Answer: you refine every touchpoint to create world-class customer journeys!
Adjusting every touchpoint might sound like it will take a lot of work, but I know you’re not here so you can add time-consuming tasks to your already busy workload!
Fortunately, you’ll be relieved to read that the steps you can take are pretty straightforward, and in this post we’ll keep it focused on a few helpful (but impactful) tips.
With that in mind, let’s look at how a few adjustments can help you deliver successful experiences to your customers and allow them to enjoy excellent journeys.
You need to shift perspective
Making changes isn’t just about learning how to use a new tool. It’s also about your state of mind.
After all, it can be easy to think about how technology will affect your staff without thinking about the impact on your customers, too.
Any changes that impact how your business is run will inevitably affect your customers. It’ll help to make sure that you’re still able to appeal to customers with whatever changes you’re bringing in.
To improve your customer service experience, try putting yourself in their shoes.
For example, we can talk for days about how an online booking portal will save your administrative staff time, and effort, and help you win more work. But how will it impact your customers?
Make sure you’re adding the solution that works for them, as well as you.
Solutions should be easy for your customers to use and straightforward to integrate for your team. When done well, it means you can eliminate points of friction so that everyone benefits. Customers will react positively, which can boost sales, and your staff can work more efficiently, too!
Keep in mind that:
“Loyal customers will keep coming back to support your business. In fact, 84% of companies that make an effort to improve their customer experience strategy say that they have boosted their revenue.”
CX Lead.
Not only that, but:
“87% of customers, who believe that they had a great experience […] say they are likely to purchase from that same company.”
CX Lead.
Think about your own experience of using different services. Whether it’s booking a hotel, ordering food, or simply shopping online. Some experiences are so easy, you barely think about them.
That’s no accident.
These experiences are successful because companies like Amazon and Uber have optimised processes so well, that customers now expect them everywhere. It never hurts to see what the best in the business are doing, and replicating that to work for you.
Improve customer service experience by reshaping your journeys
Let’s stick with the booking portal idea for a moment! It’s a great way for customers to make a straightforward inquiry, and, if set up well, you can even empower customers to move through the full booking journey on their own, with no office staff required.
Is it a 1-Click Booking? Not exactly: more like 3 clicks (which is still amazing!) but certainly no phone calls are necessary. As stated though, you’ll have to consider a few other things when it comes to implementing the actual portal, such as:
- Where are you placing the portal on your website? (Is it on your homepage?)
- How are you linking to the portal? (Is it easy to find?)
- How does it look on the page? (Are there distractions/colour choices that make it unclear?)
- What does the content say? (i.e. Is it easy to understand its purpose?)
These factors all impact how a customer interacts with your business. Keeping the information clear, easy to find, and concise will help customers find the solution they’re after; it’s a great strategy to establish trust from the get-go.
Of course, you also want customers to have a convenient way of solving more complex issues, so if your portal can’t help, you should provide another easy way for them to contact you, i.e. by phone or email. Just because you’re using a great new tool like a booking portal, it doesn’t mean other solutions should be ignored or forgotten!
Improve customer service experiences for everyone:
Simple as these things may seem, you can think of it like preventive maintenance for your own business, with clear options designed to help customers and prevent problems.
If they’re having to make multiple frustrating phone calls, going round and round to get the information they need, then you’re going to have a bad time. Instead, put key info front and centre.
After all, the customer experience declines when they have to click on 10 links to get basic information, or if they can’t find what they want at all because your menus or site structure are confusing. It’s important to get these touchpoints right, no matter the size of your business, especially if you’re still trying to make winning first impressions.
They count.
It may sound simplistic, but as before, think about your own experiences; if a website doesn’t look good on mobile, or is difficult to navigate, you’d go back to looking for one that’s nicer to use, too, right? (!)
This is part of an issue where you need to think about what might put off someone from converting from a curious observer to a paying customer.
Having the technology is only half the battle: it needs to be implemented and implemented well so that the right way to use it is obvious, regardless of your customer’s preferred method of contact.
Doing this will help you to improve your customer service experience tremendously.
Empower staff to do more, easily
When it comes to other interactions, you want to make sure that your staff are in the best position possible to interact with your customers. Interactions may be going increasingly digital, but face-to-face will always play a big role in field service work, and no one’s people skills should be neglected.
Whether they’re working online at home, out in the field, or in the office, everyone in your business should know the best way to get their respective jobs time. This is where you software comes into its own:
- Set standards (set job descriptions),
- Use workflows (benefit from automation)
- Benefit from reminders (improve diary management)
- Make gathering data easy (enjoy easy data entry)
With these solutions in place and with the right technology, your software can enhance your employees’ work and prevent them from becoming disorganised.
Software helps them communicate faster, smarter, and more efficiently by reducing manual input, as well as human error.
After all, speedy responses make a customer feel important and increase their confidence in your business’s capabilities. If your staff are able to deal with issues faster because the information is readily available, actionable, and syncs up in real-time, then everyone stands to benefit from these seemingly simple adjustments.
Spread the word and generate reviews
Of course, while it’s nice to know you’re making a difference and helping people have more enjoyable experiences, you likely want more than a warm fuzzy feeling, right?
While these changes will yield a variety of benefits for you to enjoy, like easier bookings, improved engagement, and better data collection, what’s even better is when they help attract other customers. How? From online reviews, naturally!
While customers may feel compelled to leave an excellent review at the end of your service, it’s true that in many cases, without being nudged, most will just pay their bill and carry on with their lives.
That’s no bad thing and it may even lead them to become a repeat customer, but there’s definitely more they can do. After all, if they’re happy to use your services again, then they’re exactly the kind of people that you want to hear singing your praises!
Repeat business and the potential for new customers? What’s not to like?
By asking your satisfied customers to leave a review of your services, you increase the chances that other people will feel confident that your service can do the same for them, too.
Your word is good, no doubt about it, but the word of other customers can go a long way to inspiring new ones to pursue their own journeys with you. If even one person reads a review that says it was “easy to book”, “communication was clear” and that it all ended with “incredible work” then you’re likely to reap more rewards sooner or later.
Get started improving your customer service experience!
We’ve already small but essential changes that can go a long way to provide your customers with great value. However, we’re not done yet!
You’ll not want to miss out on Success in the Field, a Commusoft web series where we dive deeper into the value of remarkable customer journeys. Watch Jason, Jack, and special guests share knowledge as they guide you on how to grow your business and take customers on world-class journeys:
Only want to focus on stepping up of your customer service experience? No problem! Simply click below to download your free copy of our Customer Service Cheat Sheet!
