Online customer service and customer service, in general, has never been just about answering questions. It has always been important to provide the customer with a more personal customer service experience.
You would say it is easy to do that when the customer is in front of you, but not so much online. And we would not agree. There are things each and every customer service agent can do to make even the online customer service far more personal.
Simply using the right tools and skills will provide your customers with an amazing customer experience. And they would want to go through it again and again. This is a proven recipe for success! Here is what it is.
Greetings
Even if you don’t get to see your customers’ faces, you can still greet them properly. Your agents can be extremely polite and cheerful even in writing. There is quite a difference between “What do you want?” and “Hi, how can I help you today?”, right?
So using positive and cheerful phrases will help a lot. Your customer will feel much more prone to cooperate and continue with the conversation in a positive way. So, nice and cheerful greetings are a good start.
Show Emotions
It is not easy to show emotions in text and even more difficult to make sure that the other person understands what you meant. A study from 2005 shows that only in 56% of the cases, people identified the emotion in the text correctly.
Even with these results, there are helpful tools like emojis, that can transmit the emotion a little bit better. Using emojis during a chat with a customer is something that can be seen as nice and cheerful. And it can pass over part of the emotion the agent wants to direct. One should be careful with them, however, and make sure not to overuse them as well.
Use Names
If you are provided with the customer’s name, it is always best to use it. This will help you provide far more personal customer service. What’s more personal than the person’s name?
This is one of the most important things for each one of us. And being used by the agent you are talking to, makes a great difference. So next time you have the name of your customer, make sure to take advantage to increase customer satisfaction.
Include Video
Who is to say that online customer service cannot be as personal as one in person? With the video chat option, you are able to see your customers. And they are able to see you.
This is highly helpful for more personalized customer service. You can ask your customer’s name, they can hear your tone of voice and they can also see the smile on your face. And you can show them things! This is a great tool for providing an amazing customer experience.
The Omnichannel Way
Most of the companies are available on many different channels. This is where their customers are. So it is very smart to be where they are. But it is not only important to have different social media accounts and have different contact channels. If you have them all, that’s great, but what’s even better is to go the omnichannel way.
This means not only having many channels but also being absolutely the same on all of them. You need to make sure that your brand is transmitted the same way in all of your channels. And most importantly – customers will have the same excellent experience on all of them. The omnichannel is the best way of providing a seamless and personal customer service experience.
Goodbyes
It is another small thing, just the one we started with, but with great importance as well. Saying goodbye and the way you say it is also crucial. It should, of course, be cheerful, include the name of the person with some nice wishes for the rest of the day, week, weekend, etc.
One more thing – always invite your customers to come back! Make sure you let them know you are always available for them. And they are welcome to contact you again at any time! This will be the last boost of the conversation. And it will make your customers feel valued and important.
These are some of the ways you can make your customer service more personal. The combination of them all is of course the best way to go. And you can find these tools in one place – right here!
To start providing exceptional customer service right away, click here!
