Why service is the key to winning at the customer experience

When you face tough competition for new sales and customer loyalty, bring in the big guns. 

We’re not talking about Bill in the C-suite. You need Hannah and Nate from Customer Service. Here’s why.

Almost two-thirds of companies believe what happens between employees in the contact center and customers is their competitive advantage, a Deloitte global survey found.

The customer experience can be won or lost when the phone rings, an email arrives, a social media message is posted or an online chat starts. If the responses to those go well, customers consider their experience good and will buy again.

One major key to winning in those situations is accuracy. In the same Deloitte survey, 82% of companies said that accuracy and quality of information are the most important part of the customer experience. While connecting with customers on a personal level builds rapport, in the end, customers will be most satisfied when they’ve received the right answers and solutions.

5 ways to ensure accuracy trumps

Here are five ways you can ensure more experiences result in accurate solutions so your customer service remains a competitive advantage:

1. Keep it consistent. Customers will be confused if one service pro calls a product component an “outlet” and another calls it a “plugin,” or if an answer on your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page refers to a “widget” and a blog says the same item is a “C device.” You need a consistent voice across your knowledge base. That doesn’t mean one person needs to write it all. But it does mean you’ll want to maintain and update a style and language guide.
2. Update documents and training when you update products. FAQs, blogs and knowledge bases aren’t worth much if they aren’t accurate. Neither is customer service employees’ advice if they don’t know and relay the most up-to-date information. Make it part of someone’s job to review your training and written materials to be sure it represents the newest information on your products. Be part of product update teams and ask the designers and engineers to keep you apprised of changes, and train the service team before the changes are rolled out. Sure, it takes time upfront, but it saves time when customers get accurate information and don’t have to call back several times.
3. Get more visual. Include images when you can when giving customers advice. Add visuals to self-help pages and your knowledge base. Create YouTube videos on common fixes. Customer service pros can still give verbal solutions, but they can enhance those by referring customers to the videos or photos.
4. Link to the information. Some customers are hungry for more information, customized solutions or in-depth understanding. You don’t have to provide it all at once, but you can help them get everything they crave by linking to related articles or blogs.
5. Audit it. Get regular feedback from the people using your knowledge resources the most: customer service pros. Find out what they use, believe and share the most. If possible, check your analytics to see what content is seldom accessed to see if it should be updated for accuracy or retired for lack of need/use.