what does it mean to be customer oriented

4 customer service-oriented examples

March two, 2020

When it comes to edifice a lasting, competition-proof concern, customer service is the proper noun of the game.

Accenture estimates that United states of america companies accept lost out on an incredible $1.6 trillion because of customers switching equally a effect of poor customer service.

And when customers are dissatisfied, the news spreads a lot faster. American Express found that the average happy customer shares a skillful experience with about 11 people, while an aroused customer shares their bad feel with 15.

This shows how important it is to brand sure you're meeting (and hopefully exceeding) your customers' expectations.

In this post, nosotros'll look at:

• What it means to be customer service oriented
• four ways to get more than customer service oriented
• Real-world examples of customer service oriented companies

Allow's get going.

What does information technology mean to be customer service oriented?

Being customer service oriented is about more than just knowing how to put out a fire quickly. It's a proactive (every bit opposed to reactive) take on making—and keeping—your customers happy. Part of this formula ways agreement your customers well enough to anticipate their needs.

The nautical chart above does a expert task of illustrating iii levels of client service orientation:

• Level 1 is purely reactive and not particularly involved in working ane-on-one with customers to solve their issues.
• Level two is more engaged with customers, working with them and ensuring that strong relationships are built along the way.
• Level three is proactive, ensuring that all bug are handled while doing your own research to try and make sure that futurity bug are minimized to the best of your abilities.

Part of being a Level 3 customer service oriented business is always listening and asking questions. These businesses use repeatable systems to make efficient employ of strategies and processes that accept proved to be successful in the past. This keeps them focused on what works and reduces time, budget, and effort wasted on what doesn't.

Pro-tip: You could also leverage feedback tactics like surveys and interviews to regularly check in with customers, which can help you gather customer feedback on how yous're doing. Let'due south dive into a few more ways to become more client service oriented.

4 ways to become more than customer service oriented

Now that you lot know the what and why, let's swoop into how to actually be more than customer service oriented!

i. Understand customer attitudes through social listening

Social listening tools like Sprout Social and Mention tin help you lot track what people are maxim about your company online. These tools work past setting up alerts whenever your brand is mentioned, so you can see what people are maxim as they're proverb it.

For example, international hotel chain Hilton uses social listening to go along a positive conversation about their brand while making sure that every customer query is addressed. This screenshot from Awario shows Hilton's total mentions, and how many are positive versus negative.

In improver to tracking mentions of your company, using a tool like this tin assistance you reply faster to unhappy customers. When this customer tweeted nigh their bad experience, Hilton was quick to achieve out and offering a solution:

In addition to handling customer service queries, social listening will also give you an opportunity to show your brand's personality, even when your audience wasn't specifically asking for help or expecting a direct response.

Like in this case from 5 Points University, where the business organisation creatively appreciates a customer for training at their workout facility:

two. Communicate with empathy and understanding

You lot know that erstwhile saying: "The customer is always correct." We all know that isn't always truthful, but the of import takeaway is how the client feels when they walk abroad.

Ideally, they should feel that they were understood and listened to, and that you resolved the situation in a way they deem fair.

This is where it helps to accept a team that'south well-versed in expressing empathy and seeing things from the customer's viewpoint.

You tin utilise "empathy statements" in your customer service grooming and scripts to brand sure that all of your team members are displaying empathy in every customer service come across—especially with upset or dissatisfied customers.

Here are some examples of empathy statements:

• "I empathize why y'all're feeling…"
• "I realize that it's frustrating when…"
• "I'one thousand so lamentable to hear that you're feeling…"
• "I tin can imagine that it'due south disruptive to…"

Statements like these permit the customer know that they're not alone, and that your support team has a strong understanding of their upshot and how information technology's impacting them.

This emotional validation helps to foster stronger trust and openness to your team's proposed solution.

Pro-tip: If you're speaking with an aroused or riled-up client, exist sure to allow them fully vent their frustrations before starting with empathy statements.

3. Track every customer service encounter

There are a number of benefits of keeping runway of your customer service conversations, including:

• Having all your customers' information in the same place for quick and easy reference
• Building stronger relationships past showing customers that you lot know (and care about) their history with your brand
• Having the power to spot patterns and trends in amass information, such as number of complaints originating from each channel, tin can help you with making major client service related decisions

You tin use a spreadsheet to exercise this, but the faster and more convenient way is to use a CRM.

Whenever one of your customer service reps has an upcoming call, they can just pull upwardly the customer's record in the CRM to go a quick conference on their by engagement with the brand.

Pro-tip: Mentioning a past conversation tin can help testify customers that you care about their overall experience with your company. For example, at the stop of a call, you might say, "I'thou glad we could help, Alicia. I also see that you had an consequence with pulling monthly reports a few weeks ago. Do you accept whatsoever more questions about that that I can help with, or are you good to go?"

4. Become a master of time

Spending time with your customers makes them feel appreciated and ultimately leads to a better client service feel.

Even so, giving too much time to one customer can make others feel neglected (imagine a customer being put on hold for an 60 minutes because yous're and then focused on serving another client'southward particularly tricky problem).

So, manage your fourth dimension. To make every customer experience valued and satisfied with the support they go, you'll need to decide how much time to dedicate to each one.

Here are some time-management tricks you can apply to serve customers better.

Create a daily schedule

Scheduling tasks directly into your work day helps you lot finish everything on time and provides structure to your solar day.

For case, you could dedicate specific hours to replying to emails, brainstorming solutions for technical issues, and answering phone calls:

Focus on how you lot can help, not on how yous can't

You should take got a playbook that lists several different ways to assistance your customer. However, there'due south no guarantee you'll be able to address 100% of the issues that come your way perfectly.

And so, don't dwell on a problem if you lot really can't offer a solution: instead, focus on what you can practise (for instance, you could escalate the upshot to someone with the correct knowledge). Otherwise, you could waste hours on nonexistent solutions, and end upwards wasting both the customer's and your time.

Exist smart with customer service

There are but too many platforms online where customers tin can accomplish out to you with concerns or questions:

• Your social media feed
• Online forums that you're a part of
• The comments sections of your blog
• Your Google My Business page
• And so on...

To effort and answer on all those channels past yourself would be a nightmare. And if you're like most small businesses, it's not exactly viable to fix automated chatbots individually on every platform being used past your customers.

A client service tool like Zendesk would exist useful for this:

Examples of client service oriented companies—and lessons can nosotros learn from them

Almost every business strives to be client service oriented, but a few special companies actually seem to get it; they dig deep into their customers' preferences and go to a higher place and beyond to fulfill their needs. Hither are some of the best that can serve as inspiration for your own customer satisfaction efforts.

1. Rick'south Electronics Boutique – Reaching customers where they are

Rick's Electronics Boutique is a great case of a small business concern offering convenience and timely service to customers.

If y'all utilise Rick'southward to install an appliance, y'all can be assured of proactive service that puts you first. Even if you lot get stuck at some stride, you know a single call will get you assistance in a thing of minutes:

The visitor too provides installation services at home, at your convenience, rather than making customers read a manual and spend hours getting the job done themselves. This translates into an fantabulous client experience, which people value and are even set up to pay a premium for.

2. Alen Air Purifiers – Seeing things from the customer's viewpoint

Some businesses become customer service oriented by making their customers feel similar family. They'll communicate with empathy and understanding, as well equally practise everything they tin can to come across customers' needs.

One case of this is Alen Air Purifiers, a visitor that articles purifiers designed to filter out particles from wildfire fume.

According to a story shared on Reddit, a family unit in California bought one of these purifiers to help filter the air in their residence and make it safer for their child, only they were told that the delivery was stuck in the UPS organisation considering of the wildfires.

Just before they knew it, VP of Sales and Client Relations at Alen Air Purifiers Mark Caddell reached out to them. Mark expressed his own concerns for people needing their items in California and fabricated a personal promise to get the product delivered. The side by side afternoon, he responded to ane of the family's texts with a photograph of an aeroplane fly: he was on his way to hand-deliver the purifier to them in California:

In extraordinary cases similar these, even small businesses tin can become beacons of great client service.

iii. Seamless – Pays attention to every advice

Seamless is an online platform for ordering meals from local restaurants. Customer service in the nutrient commitment industry is dependent upon several factors and when you lot add in fourth dimension frame and commute... it has the potential to become a nightmare.

To manage its customer service, Seamless has an agile Twitter account where people can vocalisation their concerns (and share their love). In one annotate, a customer told Seamless that he received white rice instead of brown in his order. He wasn't angry—he added: "Don't mind terribly, just FYI."

In response, the company requested for the customer'southward order number and then they can investigate information technology. In reply, the customer had this to say:

The takeaway is that yous should pay attention to every customer complaint. Left unaddressed, passive complaints can easily tarnish the overall impression of your customer service. And often, a simple acknowledgement that something went wrong and you're looking into information technology will go a long mode to print your customers.

Existence customer service oriented is the key to long-lasting success

In today's competitive marketplace, information technology's often non enough to rapidly respond to a customer—it takes a little more piece of work to make every customer a happy client. And if you want them to stay with yous long-term and refer your business to their friends and colleagues? Yep, that takes more piece of work still.

And so start now! Keep track of customer interactions and the amount of fourth dimension you spend with them—everything has an bear upon on your client service. And then, follow the tips mentioned in this commodity to make sure y'all're existence client service oriented at every touchpoint.

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