Are You Really Listening to Your Customers?

The difference between good and great customer service may easily boil down to how well representatives and managers listen to their clients. Many issue simple customer service tips for listening, but a comprehensive overview of how and why to listen can help you gauge if your team is truly paying the right amount of attention to many common opportunities. Understanding how to listen when customers make suggestions, file complaints, or engage with your business through social media provides your team with the ability to handle many situations and get involved with continual improvement.

Customer suggestions may range from simple quips about the time it takes to reach a representative to detailed propositions on how the company could address specific issues. A few customer service tips can help your team develop the customer service skills necessary to recognize a valid suggestion and take action. Train employees to listen for key clues that may indicate a suggestion. Customers may lead with a question that is really a suggestion. Many clients may work in similar fields themselves and may provide customer service tips that could help streamline your team's processes as well as make things easier for clients in general.

The ability to identify and immediately address complaints is one of the hallmarks of good customer service. Many companies focus on developing customer service skills related to retention and pleasing customers, but unless representatives are truly listening to complaints, changes may be slow coming or nonexistent. One of the key customer service tips in this category involves the creation of a suggestions and complaints process for representatives. Good customer service agents should be able to quickly identify key areas ripe for change and send this information to managers and executives. This type of feedback can be invaluable for continual improvement.

Listening goes far beyond the period when the customer is actually on the phone line. Social media has rapidly become a force in customer service, and a few customer service tips can help you engage customers in this arena while building better relationships with your networks as a whole. Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, handles all of his personal social media interactions. He has staffed Virgin America with social media experts who handle corporate social media functions. Learning how to listen for complaints and suggestions in the social media world can give your business an edge in the marketplace.

When customers call your company, they seek the attention of agents who truly care about their relationship with the business. Complaints, suggestions, and seemingly off-handed comments in public social media venues can give you invaluable feedback about your market and products. Providing your agents with the customer service tips and training they need to succeed, along with tools for addressing or passing along concerns, can help ensure that your company provides great service in almost any situation.

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