Providing excellent customer service today is much like making a new friend, or dealing with an existing, valued partner—a real relationship is required. Customers evaluate a new business relationship based upon what they know about your background (company history), your unique personality (brand image), what you stand for (your mission) and how you treat them.

Customer Service Tips: How to Provide What’s Expected and More

Customers expect honesty, transparency, reliable expertise, fairness, sometimes altruism, and a guarantee. They also want you to care what they think, and ask what they want. If this sounds like a tall order, you’ll find that superior customer service is easier than it sounds—just follow our CS rules, all based on giving customers the respect and value they deserve.

Use these crucial customer service tips for winning over new (and staying in good graces with current) customers for business success and growth:

  1. Anticipate needs: Avoid many customer catastrophes by getting the customer experience right before launching products/services. Walk through use cases, making sure customers can easily accomplish key things they want/need to do. Make adjustments as you learn more about how customers use the product/website.  
  2. Train if necessary: Explain processes/train clients, to avoid frustration when using services/products. If they need extensive training, you should make your processes more straightforward. 
  3. Show empathy: Demonstrate understanding of how you might feel, if the frustrating event or disappointment happened to you. Don’t be defensive or find fault with the client. You can learn a lot from them. 
  4. Apologize for what happened: You can do this without admitting fault, using empathetic language. 
  5. Demonstrate ongoing respect and appreciation: Customers have many other choices for almost any service. Make sure they enjoy dealing with you. Speak in an upbeat manner and treat problems as a chance to refine products or processes. Provide incentives to repeat customers, ask them for feedback, and make them feel important. 
  6. Be congruent in person and at all touch points: Email communications, phone calls and language on the website should all be true to your brand and customer-first focus. 
  7. Help the customer win: Ensure the customer feels good about your company after all interactions. 
  8. Make it right: Activate your altruism, to exceed customer expectations.
  9. Be a valued resource: Provide expert advice on industry topics to build trust in your abilities.  
  10. Empower and value employees: Ensure that staff have a “bank” of good will to pass on to the customer, as a representative and integral part of your organization.  

Let Flex Capital provide the funding you need to offer superior customer service and grow your business. Contact Flex Capital today.