Your front line employees are well-trained and at-the-ready. Your customers have the Internet and time to devote to researching you. So who’s smarter?
Most customers think they are: 70% believe when they research products and services they know more than the contact center agent who is helping them, a new BT and Avaya survey found.
As many as 85% of customers think they’re put on hold just because the employee doesn’t know what to say in response to their questions or dilemmas.
This lack of credibility can seriously hurt customer satisfaction.
What to practice
But front line service professionals and other customer-facing employees can build customers’ confidence in them and their companies from the get-go with these practices.
- Drop your creds. Customer service pros should be proud to mention why they’re qualified to help customers early in conversations. The gesture won’t take much time, and it’ll set the conversations off on the right foot. After customers explain their issues or ask questions, reps can say something like, “In my 12 years of experience here, I’ve heard that and I know what we can do for you” or “I’m an expert on this subject.”
- Refer to what customers know — and the little more you know. Reps should acknowledge that customers are educated. Then they should flatter them for their knowledge and offer them more. For instance, “You might have seen on our website that the Model D is rated highest in our industry. So you might be interested to know that it won the prestigious Classic Cup Award last week, which confirmed that it is the safest model for your needs.”
- Know where to find more information. Customer-facing employees don’t have to know everything (even customers don’t know that much). But they need to know where to find everything. Training sessions should focus on resources and how to best use them so reps can gather answers and solutions even faster.
