If you’re currently in the middle of planning for the year don’t forget your customer service plan. Even if you know your customer service is pretty good there are some things you can add to your customer service plan.
Here’s my list of 5 things that should be included in your customer service strategy this year if they’re not already a part of it:
Social Media
It doesn’t really matter how you feel about social media, your customers are probably already there and if you’re not listening, you’re missing a huge opportunity to connect; to help; and to have quality discussions with your customers. Don’t rely on your marketing staff to handle your social media, get customer service in the mix too and come up with guidelines on who handles what. Find the channels that your clients are on and get active.
A FAQ on your website
You probably think you don’t need this, or you don’t get asked enough questions to make it worthwhile. You’re probably wrong, and you’ll never really know how many clients check out your website and move on to the competition when they can’t find the information they want straight away. So make a point of collecting all the questions you’re asked. Then make a FAQ for the people who won’t ask the question.
Integrate linking between your online presences
Link your accounts and make sure your clients can find your presence on the major social media networks easily. And make sure that everything links back to your website. You want to make it as easy as possible for your clients to find you everywhere. For example, I use the username SharynMunroVA pretty much everywhere except Twitter. Which is only because it’s hard enough retweeting my stuff now because my username is too long – two more characters would only make it worse. My twitter profile does link back to my website which has a link to my about.me profile, which has links to all my online profiles.
Have a feedback mechanism and review process
To make next year’s customer service planning easier. And to give you a heads up to any urgent changes that need to be made during the year. A solid feedback mechanism is necessary. Of course, once you’re getting that feedback, there’s no point if nobody is actually reviewing it. Develop levels for actions so that whoever gets the feedback knows what they can respond to; what they should pass to a supervisor for response; and what needs an escalation to an immediate review of policy and procedure.
Guidelines for quick action
If you’re going to get your customer service staff on social media and you want to use them to delight your customers. You need to create policies for quick action. If you haven’t already seen it, read Peter Shankmans post about the Mortons Steakhouse delighting him with their awesome response to a joking tweet from him. Obviously you can’t (and really don’t want to) do this sort of thing every time you get a social mention from a customer. But… if it’s a high profile client who unwittingly gives you an opportunity to delight; a new client who is having a really bad experience; or anyone in between. Give your staff the ability to act quickly. And who know what is and isn’t OK creates a massive opportunity to delight customers. Then you not only end up with lifelong supporters and brand ambassadors. You’ll have the opportunity to delight their friends, followers and family.
So that’s it, 5 areas you can work on to make this year a resounding customer service success. If you already have all of these, review and tweak to make sure you’re getting the best results.
