Customer service plays a pivotal role in the success of a business.
So, keeping a check on your team’s customer service skills is very important. If not, there’s a high possibility that your potential customer might end up dissatisfied, frustrated and leave to never return.
If you’re running a call centre service, you better buckle up and keep in mind that the Customer is King.
Here are a few things you can do if your customer executive mishandles a complaint.
1. A Trained Support Team
A comprehensive training to impart customer service executives with customer service skills can go a long way in retaining potential clients. This will build a strong support team that the business can rely on for customer satisfaction as well.
By building an executive base with a robust knowledge of how to manage and interact with potential clients, the complaints that come in the way of the business can be managed efficiently.
You can also create specialised teams within the customer service department to handle specific queries so that the customers are given access to the right experts.
2. Use AI and Automation
If your customer’s concern is the long wait time, then AI and automation can come to your rescue!
Implementing an automated call-back system will help customers figure out if the executive is available for a call.
With the advent of conversational AI, you can now reduce the load on phone lines. This solves the issue of limited availability!
3. Offer Omnichannel Support
While there are several ins and outs of omnichannel customer service, one key perk is that it can mitigate the negative impact of a bad customer interaction.
Considered to be the future of customer service and support, omnichannel support enables your customer base to reach you through multiple channels – call centres, emails, social media, and more!
Providing multiple communication options reduces the burden on a single customer service executive. It, therefore, increases customer satisfaction and builds a successful business by taking customer experience to the next level!
4. Regular Review Meetings
Regular review meetings for customer service executives can tone down the number of customer interactions that go haywire.
This helps the executive identify mistakes, discuss possible solutions and thus remain proactive.
Such meetings also lay the groundwork for cultivating a customer-centric culture in the business. It sheds light on the recurring problems and identifies areas for improvement. This eventually leads to a reduction in unnecessary friction points between the customers and the customer executives.
Moreover, this complaint management review system can provide the customer support team with insight that helps them attract more customers.
5. Strict Escalation Rules
Rude behaviour from customer executives is sure to drive away potential customers. While we can keep complaints from spreading, it is always better to implement a regular monitoring system for interactions that ensures that such behaviour isn’t promoted.
As a business owner, you can always start by asking your agent to resolve the issue faster with an apology if needed. You can also reassign the problem to a different customer support executive with more expertise in the area where the client requires assistance.
Apart from that, the business can choose to organise a soft skills training programme for the customer service team so that they learn empathy and the nuances of communicating with patience.
Conclusion
There is so much your business can do when a customer service executive mishandles a complaint.
But if you do not want to find yourself at the end of that rope, acting wisely and patiently is also super crucial.
Remember, in such situations your goal is not merely damage control. When you win back an angry customer they stay loyal to your business forever and advocate for your brand strongly.
Also Read: Optimizing Customer Service With AI-Powered Language Tools
