When someone reaches out to your customer service team, more often than not, they’re experiencing some sort of issue. As a result, the business is already at a disadvantage during the interaction. Even if the problem can be solved, the customer often goes into the exchange with low expectations based on a past negative experience with either your business or elsewhere. Regardless of the inquiry’s potential outcome, the one thing you don’t want to do is to amplify those negative feelings and further harm your customer relationship.

Instead, you want to resolve the issue quickly, efficiently and without committing one of the four most common customer service faux pas.

  • Play the blame game. If there is a problem-related in any way to your business, you must take responsibility for it. Customers do not want to hear about your supplier or an internal IT issue. They want you to apologize for their troubles and fix the issue as quickly as possible. If it’s a serious problem, they will also want you to go above and beyond to rectify the issue and even as far as reimbursing them for their troubles.
  • Inattentive representative. Extending the customer’s wait time – whether as a result of interruptions from colleagues or long holds – will only increase their frustration. A good service agent will stay on the line while working to resolve the customer’s issue. No, agents do not have to have every answer in hand. Instead, they can lean on available technology to make their jobs easier and the customer experience seamless. For instance, wireless headsets allow representatives to move around an office to consult colleagues or retrieve files, without putting customers on hold.
  • Where’s the right person? Many businesses have implemented bots to serve as the first level of customer service. Or, at a more basic level, uploaded frequent questions and answers to the website. The key to these automated or self-service tools working efficiently is to ensure the customer can always find the answers to their questions. Nothing will irritate a customer more than being directed from one page to another or being transferred from one department to another on the phone, and still not getting the help needed. Whatever tool you use should be incredibly intuitive for the customer and help them find the answer they need – not give them the runaround!
  • No follow-up. A customer called or emailed an inquiry to your company. A representative addressed the issue and then all communication stops. Seems like an open and shut case, and the customer should be happy. Wrong! A thorough and top notch service experience includes the main interaction between the customer and representative, and a follow-up to the customer to ensure all of their concerns have been handled properly. This follow-up will typically go unanswered, but it’s the extra step needed to show the customer that your company is invested in them.

While these faux pas are easy to make, they’re also easy to correct once your agents know what to avoid. The first step is giving customer service the attention it deserves as part of your overall business strategy. If it’s treated as an afterthought then the quality of service will always be subpar. To ensure your service meets and exceeds expectations well into the future, implement routine service evaluations so you can identify where the missteps take place and create goals to course correct.

Always remember, a happy customer leads to a happy business.