Can you imagine improving your customer service in just a week? Well, it has never been easier to do such a thing. Customer service technology has been developing rapidly, allowing you to make your support team’s efforts more productive, secure, and profitable than ever! You can’t count on long-term business prosperity if your churn rate is getting higher and higher, right?

Therefore, you should focus on providing an excellent customer experience (CX) that will not only guarantee your customers’ loyalty, but will also  turn them into your top-notch brand advocates.

Additionally, in the era of market saturation where the customer experience has become the strongest company asset, looking for efficient ways to improve your customer service should be on your to-do list regularly.

Deciding between numerous industry solutions is a stressful and extremely time-consuming job. You need to take into consideration best practices from key players, current social and tech trends, and any legal implications to adequately estimate your current possibilities. However, with shortcuts such as this Helpy guide on easy ways to improve customer service, you can significantly expedite your efforts.

Let’s check them out!

A. Are Customer Service and Customer Experience the Same?

At first glance, customer service and customer experience sound like two sides of the same coin. It’s no wonder that many people use these two concepts interchangeably! However, if you aim at providing superb customer support, it is critical to know the huge distinction between them. The difference is really all about perspective.

Customer experience is defined by how your customers’ perceive your brand. How they see your company or your offer immensely affects their loyalty and interactions with your brand. This perception is especially dependent on your customer support staff as they are at the frontline.

On the other hand, customer service is your company’s strategy on how to approach your customers and support them through the whole customer journey! It encompasses any support apps or websites you use, as well as the company’s policy on your agents’ behavior  and the security procedures that guarantee the legitimacy and safety of your support practices.

All customer service rules are based on the goal of providing a great customer experience to ultimately establish long-term customer relationships. In other words, the success of your customer experience completely depends on the achievements of your customer service strategy.

You should dream bigger! Your support shouldn’t end with a customer making a purchase; you should be there for them after the sale, too. That is the only way to provide an outstanding customer experience that leads to the continuous expansion of your customer base.

B. The Reasons to Improve Your Customer Service

Whether your revenue is lower than expected or you want to stay ahead of your competitors, finding ways to improve customer service is always a smart decision.

Here are a few relevant stats that emphasize why the improvement is necessary:

• 66% of marketing experts said that they’re competing primarily on the grounds of support.
• 70% of customers will refer to your product or service after having a positive CX.
• 56% of clients will advise their family members and friends to purchase from your company.
• Customers who had an outstanding experience with a brand spend 140% more than those with the poorest experience.
• 67% of customers stated that poor CX was the primary reason for agitation and switching to another brand.
• 83% of consumers revealed that brands known for providing remarkable customer experience have a positive impact on their decision to leave their previous providers.
• 75% of customers will do repeat business if your offer includes an excellent customer experience.
  

As you can see, the quality of your customer experience should be your top priority. Customers want to feel heard and appreciated, and it’s your job to meet those needs.

C. Top Ways to Improve Your Customer Service

The golden business rule is that “there is always room for improvement, ” especially if your aim is to have the largest market share. Due to the importance of CX for today’s businesses, let’s see the top ideas for improving your customer service today!

1. Track Your Customer Service KPIs

To better determine the success of your customer service and the quality of your customer experience, you need to analyze your efforts. This is a complete game-changer.

In order to analyze your support efforts, you should track the following key customer service KPIs:

• Total Tickets and Tickets Per Customer: By tracking the total tickets and tickets per customer numbers, you can gain an insight into your support team’s efficiency and the size of your customer base.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Long-term business expansion isn’t possible if you don’t track NPS. This customer service KPI helps you understand the likelihood that your customers will recommend your business to their family members, friends, and acquaintances.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Having CSAT in your analysis is crucial for estimating the quality of your customer experience as it shows how satisfied your customers are with your services.
• Employee Satisfaction Score (ESAT): Finding your ESAT number can help you better understand your CSAT score. Oftentimes, if your employee is dissatisfied it will affect the service they provide, resulting in an unhappy customer.
• First Response Time (FRT): Measuring your FRT can help you determine your lagtime in responding, which is unfavorable among customers. Once you know it you can reduce it, which will result in a higher CSAT.
  

2. Create Your Ideal Customer Profile

It’s impossible to deliver a customer experience that exceeds expectations if you don’t know your target audience. But it is not enough just to find them, you also need to create a buyer persona profile to determine the best way to serve your customers.

The key is to understand how they feel about your product or service, how it helps them make their lives better, and why they would suggest that others buy it. Without a developed profile of your ideal customer, your company won’t be able to provide desired solutions and your support reps will constantly need to guess how to talk to your customers.

This approach of using untargeted, ineffective communication techniques will cost you thousands of customers.

3. Benefit from Customer Service Technology

This is the century of digital natives; therefore, for businesses to thrive nowadays it is essential to employ the latest customer service tech solutions. Today’s customers expect to communicate with you easily through omnichannel support from customer service.

Tools such as AI -powered chatbot, live chat, and helpcenter, provide instant answers to allow customers to get back to their daily lives as soon as possible. They don’t want you to waste their time on waiting for a single response anymore.

The new technology includes:

• AI-chatbot: It can answer basic questions or in Carin case it can answer up to 90% of customers questions.
• Live chat: This chat also provides instant solutions, but it offers a more human touch than other options.
• Helpcenter: Knowledge base or Helpcenter is your web page dedicated to all potential customer questions. Here, your customers can search for an answer at any time.
  

There is no better way of showing your customers you care about their time than employing these fantastic helpdesk solutions!

4. Provide a Personalized Customer Experience

When someone says “personalized customer experience”, people often assume it’s enough to know the names of your customers.  The truth is that you need to go one step further and build your customers’ detailed profiles, including their names, purchasing histories, preferences, and current wishlist. You can assume that this requires storing a large amount of data. Luckily, there is a customer support software that can collect all of this info and store it in one consolidated place!

5. Use Secure Customer Service Technology

In a time when a cyberattack could be lurking around every corner, you need to make sure that your customer data is safe under a shield that guarantees maximum protection. This is especially relevant during these turbulent pandemic times.

The last thing you need is another threat to your business sustainability. Additionally, there are now data privacy regulations and policies that dictate how businesses collect, process, and store customer data on a global level. The major laws in this field are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the LGDP (also known as the Brazilian GDPR).

The GDPR mandates that every company doing business with EU residents follow privacy and security requirements to ensure that they have control over their data and the highest level of cybersecurity. California has the same goal, which is why its officials created the state-specific CCPA. LGDP is the Brazilian data privacy and protection law that replicates most of the GDPR requirements. Therefore, if you have business operations in the related territories, you need to comply with their associated laws. A customer support software can help you stay in compliance while also providing top-notch customer service!