When it comes to providing effective customer service, respecting your customers is essential if you want to maintain a good relationship with them and make sure that they stay loyal to you and your company. But how can you do that, exactly? To help you get some ideas, here are 7 great ways to show respect to your customers.
1) Give them easy access
Customers don't want to jump through hoops in order to reach you and get assistance with their queries. They want – and deserve – to be directed towards help as soon as possible, so make sure that your system is efficient enough that it doesn't waste the customer's time.
You also need to make sure that, if they have a question, they reach the right person. For example, if someone has a technical problem, you should direct them towards a team member who can assist them with technical matters.
2) Acknowledge your mistakes
One of the best ways to show your customers that you respect them is to acknowledge your mistakes as early as possible and address them quickly. This is especially true if the customer hasn't discovered the mistake yet.
By acknowledging the mistake and letting customers know about it immediately, you're respecting their time and their investment. However, if the customer finds the mistake before you but you try to shift the blame, not only will you disrespect them, but you will lose their respect as well.
PhaseWare shared a really good example for this - and for the importance of owning up to your mistakes - on their blog.
3) Respond promptly
When a customer approaches you with a problem, always try to get back to them and deal with their issues as quickly as you can. If the problem can't be solved immediately, then try to give them a solid timeframe and get the issue resolved within that period.
Prompt responses and swift action tells the customer that you value their opinion and their time, which is one of the best ways of showing respect.
4) Keep your promises
One of the worst things you could do when it comes to customer service is not to keep your promises. Following from the previous point, if you've given a customer a timeframe to resolve a problem, make sure to fix it within that period.
If, for some reason, you know that it's not possible, contact them personally and let them know. Unless it's absolutely unavoidable, you need to make sure that your customers get what you promised them.
5) Make them feel special
Customers like to be pleasantly surprised once in a while, so one of the best ways of showing them respect and saying thank you for sticking with your company is to come up with interesting ways to reward their loyalty.
For example, if you have the customer's birthday in your database, you can surprise them with a discount or a personal greeting. Depending on what products or services you offer, you could also offer an express check-in for your long-time customers, or award special privileges to them, such as early access to big sales.
You don't need to make a grand gesture to make your customers feel special, small things can work well too. If you need some ideas, the Meyla blog has some really good recommendations.
6) Treat them the way you'd like to be treated
And last but not least, always treat your customers the way you would like to be treated. Even customer service workers are sometimes customers themselves, so think of how you would like to be treated by a company. If you've ever felt disrespected, try to think about why and make sure that you avoid making the same mistake with your own customers.
If you need some more tips, click here to have a look at my previous customer service blog articles.
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