A large part of providing great customer service is just being available when your customers need you. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to be available all the time and do whatever it is you do at the same time. Luckily, there are ways around it using technology and by outsourcing to provide your customers with better service.
If you’re planning on outsourcing your customer service, there are a few things to consider:
The “voice” of your business
Make sure that anyone who is performing customer service for your business understands, and is able to, speak in the voice of your business. That means they need to understand:
- Tone – how you speak to your customers. Are you warm and super friendly, informal, formal, strictly business, very professional and so on.
- Language – simple things like do you refer to “I” or “we”. Do you have a preference to a greeting or closing statement that you want used. Also, make sure that anyone performing customer service for your business is fluent in the language most of your customers speak.
The customer expectations
If you’re outsourcing customer service you need to be very clear about customer expectations. If customers are told they’ll have a response within a certain time, make sure that whoever you’re outsourcing to will respond within that time period. There’s no point in outsourcing customer service to someone who is told to only check for messages once a day. You could do that yourself, and adding an intermediary just makes it longer before customers will get an answer.
The same applies for the type of answer they’ll get. At least initially, your Virtual Assistant will only be able to answer basic questions and pass more complicated questions to you. If you have a very personal relationship with your customers, they may find suddenly having someone else answering their queries makes them feel neglected. So it’s important to make time to introduce your Virtual Assistant to your clients as the person they’ll get when they pick up the phone, send an email, letter, DM, social media contact, chat etc.
Channels to use
A Virtual Assistant can help with customer service through many contact points. Some of the ways a Virtual Assistant can help are:
- Telephone: A Virtual Receptionist can answer your calls; transfer the ones that are truly urgent; answer frequently asked questions; make bookings and appointments in your calendar and pass on any messages that you need to answer, but not immediately.
- Email: A Virtual Assistant can monitor your customer service email account and respond to any regular questions and forward more complicated queries for you to answer.
- Chat: A Virtual Assistant can take a shift on your chat app, and help customers with simple queries and make appointments for you to talk through any more complicated issues with your customers
- Social media: A Virtual Assistant can respond immediately to any social shout out and if necessary, direct your customers to another contact method for you to follow up.
By making good use of technology and outsourcing you can provide an excellent level of service for your customers with a minimum of fuss. Outsourcing to different time zones means you can provide 24/7 service if that works for your customers and your business. Better service for customers means complaints are dealt with promptly and with full attention. As a result, customers have a better opinion of your business and are more likely to be advocates.
