Customer Service Skills Knowledge Base and Frequently Asked Questions
In a nutshell, what do customers want, and what is "good customer service" for them?
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If you want customers to perceive that you are giving them good customer service, or excellent customer service, you need to understand them, and look at what you offer from their point of view. So, what do customers want?
Here's a brief list to stimulate your thinking, taken from Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling Any Situation, (Basics of Customer Service chapter)
Customers want:
- problem solved
- effort
- acknowledgement and understanding
- choices and options
- positive surprises
- consistency, reliability, and predictability
- value (not necessarily best price)
- reasonable simplicity
- speed
- confidentiality
- sense of importance
How do you measure up? if you are hitting all of these changes are your customers are loyal and see you as providing good customer service, or even excellent customer service.
Robert Bacal is the author of two books on customer service: Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling Any Situation, and Defusing Hostile Customers Workbook. Most of the questions and answers in the Customer Service Knowledgebase (which you are reading now) is based on the material in these books.