Customers drive businesses and keep them alive. In order to retain customers, it is vital for a business to maintain a high and consistent level of customer service. There are several key features to a quality service experience that customers look for, and with this ultimate customer service guide, businesses can understand what best practices are on trend to adapt to.
Customer-facing employees, such as customer service agents and representatives, must possess a specific set of skills tailored toward customer care in order to retain customer loyalty and, consequently, revenue.
Communication skills
Communication skills are imperative to being an effective and successful service agent. Agents need to listen to the customer to fully understand and assess the issue, and know how to adjust their communication style based on the customer’s chosen communication channel. Customer service agents must also be organized and keep track of all relevant information in order to arrive at a detail-oriented approach to finding resolutions. Being organized saves time for both the agent and customer, as the agent will be able to efficiently and effectively tackle any issue.
Collaboration skills
Collaboration skills are also important to success. Agents will need to work with each other, various departments, and customers. Like any strong team, it is necessary to maintain positive relationships with colleagues in order to promote a healthy work environment and focus on the tasks at hand. Agents need to work with customers to arrive at solutions that have a positive outcome for both the customer and the business.
Tech tools and resources
Streamlining an omnichannel customer service setup into one unified space with a help desk allows the service team to provide effective customer support while being fully aware of the context of the issue at hand. With all customer communications in one place and accessible at any time by an agent, they can keep track of ongoing conversations and reduce the need for customers to repeat themselves whenever they make contact.
With the Helpdesk, canned responses related to Frequently Asked Questions can be created and used by agents to respond to customers. Not every customer issue is as simple as a copy-paste response, but agents can build on a response by adding in case-specific details to the existing stock response, saving time for both themselves and the customer.
When agents have access to tools to enable them to deliver an exceptional customer experience, they become more confident, give better performance, and are more satisfied. Bright Pattern’s advanced omnichannel call center software will result in lower operational costs, higher agent productivity, lower turnover rates, and less time and resources spent on recruitment and training.
Bright Pattern understands these needs and offers a solution to provide a premier agent and customer service experience. Their Zendesk call center integration unites industry-leading CRM solutions with the most advanced contact center software on the market. Bright Pattern understands the need to deliver on customer expectations for a personalized experience by hosting a powerful omnichannel contact center platform that can access the rich data kept in Zendesk. This call center solution greatly increases agent productivity because it allows agents to discover more about the customers they engage with and use the collected data in new ways.
Zendesk call center integration supports search, identification, screen pop functionality, and even creates items based on interaction data. The unified omnichannel Agent Desktop makes it convenient for agents to manage all communication channels, and integrates with Zendesk to create flexibility in toggling between communication channels. Also noteworthy, Zendesk features artificial intelligence and bot solutions, giving both agents and customers strengthened automation to increase resolution speed and improve the customer experience.
Customers and customer service agents are vital to the success of any business. Use this guide to ensure your agents are equipped with the proper skills and tools to help them succeed in providing your customers an optimal customer service experience.