Top 10 ways to improve customer satisfaction. You're going to want to get
a pen and paper out for this and start making a list and be thinking about how
you can actually implement these in your business.
First things first, here's the first one. Use the customers name whether you're on
the phone, whether you're in person. A person's name is the most important word
in any language in the whole world. It's the most important thing a person can
hear. So be cognizant. Be aware of the customers name and use it as often as is
appropriate in your conversations. You don't want to like attack their name on
the end of every sentence of course. Using the customer's name is going to
create a relationship of trust between you and your customer and it lets them
know that you're really interested in who they are and what problems you're
solving. Be genuine. Be real and be authentic. Here's what I mean by that.
If I am at the top of my game. I'm going to give the customer everything I've got.
I've also had instances where I am set up to do a mentoring appointment or a
coaching appointment with someone and I am not at the top of my game.
For my customers benefit, I'm going to call my customer ahead of time
and say, "I've had some things that have taken away my hundred percent and I'm
not able to deliver that for you right now. In order to give you the best that
I'm capable of, I'm actually going to reschedule our appointment to a point
where I can give you everything that you came to offer." So be authentic, be genuine
with people. Be real. Share with them you know what what's going on in your world
if that's necessary, but don't be fake. You don't give promises that you can't
fulfill on. Don't say that you can do things that you can't actually do. Don't
over promise and under deliver. Be genuine with what you can do. Be genuine
to what you can offer and be a real person. Whether you're communicating like
this, where it's a camera and you and me or whether it's face-to-face. We're
actually able to breathe in each other's airspace. Be real, genuine, authentic
human being. I mean as a customer, you know this. You know what it's like to
deal with people who are fake or a disingenuous and who you know over
promise and under deliver. So don't be that guy. Be a real genuine solutions
provider. Number 3 - I call this - "the buck stops here." People hate it when they
are diverted or handed off to another rep, in another rep or email this person
or email this person. That's your job. If you're looking to
improve customer satisfaction, you're the one to take the initiative even if you
don't have the answers right on hand, you're the one that says okay, I don't
have the answer to this right now, but what I'm going to do is email this
person or call this person and get the information and I will be responsible
for getting that problem solved and I will be responsible for giving that
solution to you. The buck stops here. don't send your customers off to five or
fifty or two even different places to find the solutions. You be the solutions
provider and take responsibility for getting that to them.
Number 4 - "Don't take complaints personally." Now this is like a mind hack,
right? This is something that goes on in your brain. When you have customers that
are going to question the satisfaction, you know they're coming with a
complaint, you can take that personally if you want to, but it's not going to get
you anywhere good. Your customers complaints, don't mean anything about you
even if they say it does. Yeah there's maybe some things that you can improve
on in your charisma or your person ability with the customer but if the
customer is coming with a complaint they're really coming with the complaint
about their experience with your company not you. And if you take it personally,
that means you can easily get defensive. Don't waste your time with that because
the customers not going to be improved in their customer satisfaction by you
being defensive. So don't take it personally. Just consider how you can
solve the customers problem. Number 5 - make sure everyone in your company
that's going to be interacting with customers has the same training, that
they all treat your customers like the customer is the rock star. Your customer
experience needs uniformity. It means no matter who's the customer is going to
call, their experience should be stellar no matter what. I know that no matter who
I talked to over at Apple, I'm going to have an exceptional customer experience
because their training is so universal across the board. I know whoever I talked
to at Amazon if I ever need to call or chat or email them with a customer
complaint that my experience is going to be universal across the board. Your
customer should never feel like they need to go to a higher up
or a manager to get their problem solved because they need to be treated equally
across the board no matter who they're talking to.
Number 6 - focus on what you can do instead of focusing on what you can't.
that means if you have a call with the customer and they've got some problem
that you don't know how to solve share with them what is possible.
I mean don't use the word can't over the phone. Think about how this sounds, "I'm
sorry, I can't do that. I'm sorry I don't know how to do that. I'm sorry my company
can't do that." Think about how that feels just check in with your energy on that
versus this - "here's what I can do. here's what we can do for you. here's a couple
options which one would you like?, here's one that we can do, like here's what I
can do is I can talk to my manager." Let me talk to them and I will get back to
you. I mean again you're not passing off your customer to that manager/ You are
taking the initiative and spelling out what is possible. When you focus your
energy on what is possible, that's where the solutions will come into play and
that's where your customer satisfaction will actually go up. Number 7
that being said focusing on what you can do, you cannot over-promised and
under-delivered. Do not tell your clients that you can do
something that you're actually not capable of doing. So this is going to set
up your expectations for your client. If you share with your client that you
really want to solve their problem, really want to retain them as a
client, you really want to make sure their answers get to them. You run
the risk of over-promising. If you look for example, promise that you can do
something in two weeks when you know it's going to take three, don't set
yourself up for an unrealistic expectation. If you know it's going to take
three weeks, tell your customer it could take three weeks. It could take four
weeks. I will get that to you as soon as I possibly can. I'll even put a rush
order on it. Expect it no less than or no more than
three weeks. Make sure that you're setting up the proper expectations. One
of the biggest problems that you'll run into with customer service is just
setting at up unrealistic expectations. If your customers knows and the one to
expect you can over deliver, if maybe you get your product and problem solved
within two weeks, that's an over delivery because you're shaving
week off the expectation. But don't set your expectations to the point where you
can't fulfill on them. Number 8 - apologize if it's needed.
This is where you get to eat some humble pie. Eat some crow, whatever you want to
call it. Your customer is coming to you with a complaint, apologize on behalf of
your company. Again don't take it personally, it's not necessarily about
you but offer your customer an apology. "I'm sorry that that happened to you, I'm
sorry that whatever it is" And be detailed in the apology. "I apologize that
this didn't come when expected let me find the solution to that problem for
you." When you are able to offer a sincere apology to your customer, that helps them
know that they're a valued customer and that their complaint was actually heard.
It also lets them know that whatever you're apologizing for isn't the
run-of-the-mill. It's not the standard for your business. So be willing to eat a
little bit of humble pie and apologize on behalf of you and for behalf of your
company for whatever your customer is complaining for. Number 9 - I call this
"stacking your solutions." So this is when we add value upon value of upon value
for our client. So if you have something... again remember that you want don't want
to over promise and under deliver but stack the value for your client. I love
doing this with my clients. You know I had a client come to me the other day
and say, "you know I'm having a problem with how this is changing with
how this program is changing." I say, "great will you actually be willing to compose
an email for me and tell me about all the things that you're struggling with
in this particular program." And she said, "yes I'd be happy to do that." There's a
reason that I do that because I want everything documented. I want it
documented for me and I want to document it for them. What actually happened when
I invited that email to come to my email box, is that the
customer after we had talked, we talked to about for 20 minutes or so analyzing
the problem I took the time to listen to this customer and this customer came to
me a few days later and I said, "hey I haven't seen the email, did you ever end
up sending that?" And she said, "no." I said, "oh why was that?" she said, "well it's
because I realized I had a lot more to to complain about then actually needed
solutions and I just needed you to hear me and hear what I had to say." and I say,
"great, is there anything else I can do to help? and she said, "not that I can think
of." And here's where I started stacking the
solutions. And I said, "let me see where I can add more value to your experience.
Would it be beneficial for you to have some one-on-one sessions with me? Now can
I deliver on that? Absolutely. And did we set up times? Yeah. We're in the process
of doing that as we speak in fact with several of our clients were offering
that added bonus." So stack the solutions. If you can offer
extra value and over-deliver it. This is your opportunity to do that. Number 10 -
follow up. Especially if your customer is having a positive experience. Now usually
we'd say, "yeah follow up if they're having a negative
experience." Yes you're going to want to follow up there, that's absolutely given.
But once you've provided the solutions to your customers, take the time to
really show that you are invested in them and that you care about them by
following up after the solution has been delivered. Send a text to them, send an
email to them, ask them how that solution is working for them, if there's anything
else that you can do to improve their customer experience. It really elevates
their experience with you and will elevate the feedback win and if it's
time for them to give that to you. When you follow up no matter what. Whether you
follow up if the solution hasn't been handled or especially if it has, in both
cases again the fortune is in the follow-up. It's an opportunity for you to
collect testimonials and there's an opportunity for you to get referrals or
perhaps solve a problem should another one arise. Those 10 steps are absolutely
critical to your customer satisfaction. If you follow each of those 10 steps you
have all of your bases covered. Now this is just my top 10 ways to
improve customer satisfaction. If you're in business for yourself and you have
tips and tricks of the trade or even if you have questions on how you can
even more improve your customer satisfaction, drop in the comments below.
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