You can get a lot of great ideas from listening to customers.
A few years ago, I met a client for coffee. She had sent her entire team through my Delivering Next Level Service training program and the results were looking good. Still, my client was worried.
“I want to keep my team sharp by continuously reinforcing the skills they learned in training,” she said. “My challenge is I don’t always know how to do that. I wish I had an easy way to remind them… and to remind me.”
We brainstormed a little until we hit upon a simple solution.
I created an automated system that emailed one customer service tip per week to each person on her team. My client would get the email too so she could follow-up with them.
My Customer Service Tip of the Week email is now available to anyone. Here are five ways you can use it to boost your team’s customer service:
#1 Team Meeting Topics
Many customer service teams have regular meetings. You can use the Customer Service Tip of the Week to generate discussion topics to share with the team.
Let’s say the current tip was Use Positive Body Language.
You could lead a discussion with your team to brainstorm ways that body language can positively impact your customers. Then, at the next team meeting, you could ask for people to share success stories and challenges they experienced when being mindful of the body language they displayed.
#2 Address A Specific Need
You can also use the tips to address a specific need. My Customer Service Idea Bank page allows you to search for tips by category or keyword.
For example, you could search the Solving Problems category to come up with a list of tips that were useful for working with upset customers.
Clicking Solving Problems will bring up a list of tips in that category. You could then select three to five tips that were really applicable and share them with your team.
#3 Generate New Ideas
The tips are designed to be reminders, but many of the tips contain helpful new ideas that your team can use to elevate their service.
For instance, the Five Question Technique is a terrific way to build rapport with customers while simultaneously identifying additional ways to serve. Best of all, even introverts can use this technique to become skilled conversationalists.
#4 Reinforce Training
The tips were originally designed to reinforce concepts taught in my customer service training programs. The reminders help participants retain what they learn long after they attend the training.
These reminders work well whether you’re team attended one of my onsite training courses, live webinars, or even took one of my courses on Lynda.com. The reminders can also be used to reinforce other training programs because many are so general in nature.
#5 Feed Your Curiosity
Some people just want to know the most cutting edge ideas in customer service. That’s why most of my weekly tips contain a link to a blog post or a helpful resource.
One of my recent tips was Tell The Truth. The email contained a link to a bonus blog post that detailed how a service failure and a lie created a customer service uproar that briefly grabbed national headlines.
Sign-up
You can use the form below to sign-up for my Customer Service Tip of the Week email. Or, pass this blog post on to your team and have them sign-up too.
