It’s no secret that exceptional customer service is a competitive advantage and driver of long-term business growth. Satisfied customers buy more, and Gartner found that nearly 65% of new sales come from existing customers. Additionally, the National Business Research Institute found that companies with excellent customer service have an opportunity to increase sales by 20% or more year over year than those that don’t.
Organizations are faced with increasing pressure to meet and exceed all-time-high levels of customer satisfaction and achieve new levels of performance. And, while many organizations recognize the importance of excellent customer service, the path to providing it isn’t always clear. Fortunately, there are a number of customer service improvement strategies that leaders can use to drive customer satisfaction and reach business goals. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at 5 ways to improve customer service performance.
Measure what matters
Customer service leaders can’t create a customer service improvement plan until they understand their team’s current level of performance. This is why it’s so important for leaders to identify and track clear metrics and KPIs. For this data to be valuable, leaders need to look beyond operational metrics like average call time and the number of calls in the queue because they don’t exactly correlate to performance. Instead, it’s best to measure metrics that focus on the customer. These include customer satisfaction (CSAT) and customer effort (CES) scores, first reply times, and churn stats. These make it easier to see how individual agents and entire teams are performing against customer expectations and help leaders identify areas for improvement.
Review customer feedback
After reviewing agent and team metrics, it’s time to review customer feedback. To effectively do this, it’s important for your customer survey to include the right types of questions. First, it should contain clear and concise yes or no questions and rating scales that will help you calculate CSAT and net promoter scores. It should also incorporate open-ended questions that give your customers the opportunity to provide details on their experience. This makes it easy to review specific interactions where an experience may not have lived up to a customer’s expectations. Then, you can create an action plan to improve customer satisfaction that focuses on these key areas.
Prioritize continuous training
High-quality customer service includes correct answers, fast resolutions, and effortless assistance. It’s critical to enable agents with the skills and knowledge they need in order to provide this level of service time and time again. However, agents often feel unprepared for their jobs after they complete onboarding and as the business changes over time. That’s why agents need continuous training that guides them in their moment of need and ensures their skills are top-notch, even as the business changes. Ongoing training is also a great way to help agents develop proficiencies around new products, company initiatives, and market changes so they can provide ample support over time. Conner Burt, Seismic’s VP of Growth Initiatives, wrote a blog post on how to make continuous agent-first training possible — check it out here.
Incorporate skills assessments
Once agents complete training, it’s crucial to ensure that they understand — and can apply — the newly learned information and skills to their roles. Customer service skill assessments analyze an agent’s current skill level, highlight areas where they excel, and uncover opportunities for additional development. Customer service leaders can assess skills through the quality-assurance process or during a formal performance review. Agents can also complete self-assessments and then work with their manager to build an actionable, personalized plan for improved performance.
Equip everyone for the moments that matter
Customer service leaders can’t expect every agent to know everything all of the time. Instead, agents need to be empowered to quickly find the information and answers they need, right when they need it. But unfortunately, HubSpot found that agents spend too much time searching for the information they need and less time helping customers. To overcome this challenge, customer service teams need one source of truth that provides agents with fast, accurate information. By bringing this knowledge right into an agent’s stream of work, they can solve a customer’s problem quickly and improve service quality.
Great customer service performance starts with Seismic
If you’re trying to figure out how to improve customer service performance — we’re here to help. Customer service and call center teams use Seismic to learn new information, assess and practice important skills, and deliver personalized coaching. The results? Confident and knowledgeable agents who provide excellent customer service and drive business growth. Learn more and get a demo today.
