The Top Customer Service Trends of Successful Companies

It’s a good thing most articles are published digitally today. Otherwise, entire forests would have been cut down to provide paper for all of the stories that have been written about Amazon’s sterling customer-service reputation. Early in the company’s history, founder Jeff Bezos famously kept an empty chair in all of his meetings, to remind attendees of the most important person at the table: their customer. Today, Amazon places trained employees in that seat to serve as the voice of the customer in all of their decision-making discussions.

While many have analyzed Amazon’s secret CS sauce, other respected companies go so far as to offer educational programs to train participants in the ways of delighting one’s audience. Disney Institute and Zappos Insights share their proven strategies, but they come at a cost. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the key trends CS leaders are focusing on today.

Make Your Business Customer-Centric

Making your business revolve around your customers’ needs requires more than just paying lip service with old platitudes like “the customer is always right.” It’s a crucial task, and one with which many companies struggle endlessly. That’s why when a company consistently gets it right, you hear about it. For an e-commerce play like Amazon, that means providing ease-of-use that keeps customers satisfied:

• Personalized recommendations that alert visitors to items of interest, benefiting them and the company’s bottom line.
• Quick-’n-easy purchases. Amazon subscribes to the KISS approach (keep it simple, stupid). Their 1-Click purchasing and easy-to-use interface make shopping a breeze.
• Customer protection that ensures efficient delivery, easy returns, and a positive experience with third-party vendors.
• Respecting the power that today’s social networking customer wields and treating them appropriately.
• Providing loyalty incentives that customers want (in the case of Amazon Prime, it’s speedy shipping and exclusive content).
• Offering a flexible, generous return policy that doesn’t get stingy with the refunds! Make your customer’s interactions with you as stress-free as possible to avoid buyer’s remorse.

Interact With Your Customers

Amazon collects CS insights for its department leaders, packed in what they call WOCAS reports (“What Our Customers Are Saying”). This is a key tool that allows the company to understand whether their customers are happy. How else can you ensure your audience’s satisfaction and loyalty?

• Make sure your customer is heard. Train your support staff to understand your customers and their needs.
• Treat customer complaints with the respect they deserve. Listen to understand, treat the situation properly, and do your damnedamnedestdest to make it right.
• Mea culpa! If you’ve goofed, own it. Your customers will respect you more. Here’s proof.
• Keep your customers in the loop. Fixing a problem? Following up on an order? Whether the situation is golden or tarnished, keeping the customer informed of your plan of action or the progress of any purchase is crucial. Transparency drives trust.
• Simplify the communication process. Make it easy for customers to reach your support staff on whatever platform or device they’re using. Staff a team that speaks their language and is available when they need them. Don’t add to a frustrated customer’s burden by making them jump through hoops to reach you. Automation is great when used properly, but there are times when a human touch is necessary.

Make the Most of Social Media

Too many businesses view social media as a marketing tool without understanding its true potential… or possible pitfalls. To properly utilize social media, go beyond coupons and promos. Reach out to your customers; follow up with a Tweet asking how they found their orders. Go that extra step; social idea makes it so simple, why wouldn’t you?

• Don’t settle for one-way communication. Bombarding your followers with reminders of sales and new products without bothering to interact with them isn’t being social. It’s plastering up a billboard and hoping people can be bothered to stop and look.
• Make sure your customers are taken care of on social media. Don’t just answer basic Tier 1-style questions and leave it at that. Provide timely support while employing soft skills to understand customers’ concerns and offer valuable solutions.
• Proactively solicit comments from your audience. And encourage your employees to do the same! Zappos has made waves throughout its customer base with its employees’ tweets, posts, and blogs about the Zappos lifestyle. While entrusting your employees to interact on a social level has its risks, there’s definitive value in making your customers feel like they’re part of your culture.

Compete in an On-Demand World

We live in a society of instant gratification. Why wait for anything? Heck, most of us now get annoyed at the time we have to spend zipping through commercials on our DVRs, let alone sitting through them. We want it now!

How can you compete with the Amazon Primes of the world, with their fancy drones and their same-day delivery in big cities? Even foodies are getting their palates satisfied in record time, with delivery systems like UberEATS, AmazonFresh, Postmates, and restaurant delivery offerings from upstarts like Favor Delivery and Deliveroo.

While you may not be able to drone-ship your orders to Joe Schmo in Kokomo or provide same-day service to Tilly in Topeka, there are ways to keep up in this on-demand environment.

• Location-tracking updates. Keep customers up-to-date on the whereabouts of their orders. Knowing your package is en route and seeing its progress can hold off that gotta-have-it-now urge (to an extent).
• Distribution networks of local retailers. If what you’re selling isn’t exclusive to your storefront, look into strategic partnerships to provide more efficient delivery. Determine whether a cut in profits in order to improve customer satisfaction makes sense for you.

How has your company historically viewed and treated its customers? Do you see any suggestions that could be implemented by your team? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.