Customer Service - Don't get it wrong now

We now live in a world where criticism can publicly hit the masses in minutes and gratitude rarely does. Where feedback is fast becoming the reason new clients will buy your products and choose your services.

So why now, more than ever before, would you not do everything to get it right.

I have worked in customer services for nearing twenty years and things are changing. Some of us can go with it and others will struggle. But when a massive multi-billion pound international mobile phone company gets it wrong you can't help but wonder what the future holds for customer service.

Here are some top tips to help you avoid the biggest pitfalls of my experiences today:

1. Make sure you're technology meets the expectations of your customers

A phone company you'd imagine would have a great phone system for starters. You don't expect to be passed from one advisor to another and the phone system keep passing you back to the beginning again. It shouts incapable and builds distrust.

2. Make sure staff know processes!

It helps them understand what needs to happen. At a company that has multiple departments each dealing with different things, you need people to know how it all transits from one to another. It just does not work if they only know their bit.

3. Make sure your staff know your products

If you are offering a new service, make sure your staff know all about it or at the very minimum know who to contact when in need of advice or support. They should have the information at their fingertips and your customer should not be able to find out more than your staff can.

4. Make notes preventing customers repeating themselves

Our world is technical and all call centres have a system at their fingertips to record every conversation they have, so use it. Don't make your customer have to repeat themselves time and time again and not get anywhere, it gets you a really bad review.

You talk to the person you are handing over too, the customer will appreciate not having to start again and they feel like you are a connected service of staff that can communicate.

5. No harm in sorry

If you don't know the answer go and find out. There is no harm in saying 'I'm sorry, I don't know' and everyone respects 'but I will find out for you'. Our culture is getting lazier and efficiency is getting mixed up with doing a good job.

These are just a few of the most important abilities your customer service team need to demonstrate. If you can't do good customer service, you might end up not being able to do anything.