25 Simple Tips to Maintain Good Customer Relationships

Introduction

• Building strong relationships in every aspect of life is an important factor to success. • Building and maintaining customer relations can at times feel tiring and even harsh, but the rewards can be big. • A personal contact, whether built over weeks, months or years, leads to positive word-of-mouth, improved sales, additional connections (references), job security and satisfaction.

Tips to Build Customer Relations

PersonalizationSmile While TalkingGive Proper TrainingListen to the ClientCalmly Handle Angry ClientPay AttentionUnderstand the ProblemBe ApologeticBuild Good Relations with Customers

Be Adaptable, Flexible & VersatileHave a Tone of Urgency Don’t Rush to ConclusionsShow Your InterestKnow Your Product ProperlyBe RespectfulSet Positive Tone for the CallStay FocusedDon’t Speak on Irrelevant Topic

Don’t Make AssumptionsBehave Properly on CallDon’t Take Things PersonallyReduce the On-Hold TimeMake 2-Way CommunicationUse Feedbacks ProperlyFulfill Customer Needs

Tips to Build Customer Relations

1. Personalization

• Address your customer by the name. • When you address a customer by their name, it makes them feel like a person and instantly warms them up to you. • The name should be sufficient to give you with whatsoever information you require.

2. Smile While Talking

• Smile while talking to your customers. • Because when you smile, your customers can sense it in your voice. • Your voice sounds cheerful and you come across as someone who is pleased to help the customers. • Even if your customer is calling you up with an infuriated voice, a smile can calm them down.

3. Give Proper Training

• Call center agents are trained for a lot of things. • They are trained to manage customers and the systems at their disposal such as the call center management software. • Another thing they are also trained for being capable to understand the customer’s view. • Empathy is one skill that you need to hone. • When your customers call you up to tell you about their troubles, the last thing they want is a hint of pity in your voice. • They would rather you understood their position and worked accordingly.

4. Listen to the Client

• When your customers call you, they are bound to come with a list of things they think they prioritize. • This is when your listening abilities come in use. • You need to listen and recognize your customers’ priorities and share them too. • You need to understand what the customer is trying to say and work with them, not over them. • That always makes the customer feel significant.

5. Calmly Handle Angry Client

• Mostly when customers call up customer support, they are in deep mess and need your help. • They are likely to be frantic, if not furious and frustrated. • In that case, you need to let your customer rant and ramble on for as long as they want. • Until your customers are able to truly get it out, they wouldn’t be ready to accept anything you have to offer. • Once you think that your customer is done, you can carry on to the solutions. • A good listener is always valued.

6. Pay Attention

• When your customer stops speaking, repeat what you heard – without being unnecessary. • You wouldn’t be repeating the whole time since that would be wasting valuable time. • Instead, you just give the notion that you were really listening and that you are alert and want to be sure.

7. Understand the Problem

• Your customer’s problem is your problem. • Do not treat your customers as different beings. • Empathy and compassion are the keys to good customer service. • Accept your customer’s problem as your own and approach it the way you would if you were in their place.

8. Be Apologetic

• Apologize for any failings. • It doesn’t matter how furious your customer is; a plain “sorry” could melt their hearts and make them more receptive to what you have to say.• Don’t try to defend your company or prove yourself right – that may annoy them further.

9. Build Good Relations with Customers

• When it comes to building a close bond with your customers, you really do not need to have anything in common with your customers. • You are the customer service agent – how the dialogue turns out is in your hands. • If you have the best skills as far as communication is concerned, you wouldn’t have to fret about having things in common with your customer.

10. Be Adaptable, Flexible & Versatile

• A good customer care agents is adaptable, flexible and versatile. • As a skilled customer care agent, you should be able to adapt to the circumstances. • Complex situations may occur at any moment – however, it is your duty to approach the problem as it comes, adapt to it and come up with meaningful solutions. • This is a skill that you develop over time.

11. Have a Tone of Urgency

• While speaking to your customers, ensure you have a tone of urgency in your voice. Show your excitement and eagerness. • That matches their mood and also reassures them that you’ve paid due attention. • While you move to the solution part of it, calm down and start speaking in a calmer manner. • That has a reassuring effect on the customer as well.

12. Don’t Rush to Conclusions

• It is observed in Customer care agents, once they listen to the problem of the customer; they rush to give answers from the available options. • No matter what your customer tells you, build a good rapport first. • The call center software solutions that you install must have features such as Notes, Remarks, Call Recording, and tracking of historical interactions.• This helps the agent to reel in your customer and create a solid base for a relationship. • Only after having done that, should you move on to the solutions.

13. Show Your Interest

• Do not generalize your customers or treat them only in a professional way.• Show that you are personally interested in them. • Customers have been vocal about how they feel like one of the many faces in a crowd – having no value or importance whatsoever. • Show that you are truly interested in your clients and make them feel wanted and special.

14. Know Your Product Properly

• Before dealing with customers, you are required to be familiar with your product. • Stepping into the field unprepared is not advised when you are in the customer care industry. • Know your product and the services you offer thoroughly. • That way, when your customers call you up about a particular problem, you know what they’re talking about.

15. Be Respectful

• Be respectful towards your customers; treat them with respect not just because they are your customers and you are expected to serve them but as a fellow human being. • They are calling you up with their problems because they trust you to help them. • Treat them with the respect they deserve.

16. Set Positive Tone for the Call

• Start the call with something positive and optimistic. • That sets the tone for the rest of call. • Start the call with a cheerful manner – that would brighten up the mood of your customer too. • Haven’t you heard the saying that positivity is projected?

17. Stay Focused

• Stay focused throughout the call. • It is quite easy to zone out or get distracted while speaking to your customers; this is more so in the case of long phone calls of after a hard day’s work. • No matter how hard it is, you need to stay focused and actually listen to what the customer has to say. • Otherwise, you might miss out on something important and that could further infuriate the customer. • Paying close attention would help you in coming up with solutions.

18. Don’t Speak on Irrelevant Topic

• Don’t get chatty with all customers. • Customers who are already furious do not want to get into a friendly conversation. • They want you to know they are displeased and expect you to fix it as soon as possible. • Chatting them up might worsen the situation. • As a customer care rep, you are expected to understand intonation and sense the tone of the customer who calls you up.

19. Don’t Make Assumptions

• Do not make assumptions. • Customers haven’t called you up and waited so long to hear something like, “I guess...” • If you want to prevent your customers from hanging up, be sure and confident of what you say. • Don’t give off the impression that you do not know the answer and that you are merely groping about in the dark.

20. Behave Properly on Call

• While it is perfectly all right to be jovial and cheery throughout the call, inappropriate humor is uncalled for. • No one likes sarcasm, especially if they are in trouble. • Similarly, an inappropriate joke may result in a complaint and a black mark to your name. • Behave professionally with the customers on call.

21. Don’t Take Things Personally

• If you are working as a customer care agent, you are going to have at least one tough call a day and challenging customers galore. • Do not linger on the bad calls and let it ruin the rest of the calls for you.

22. Reduce the On-Hold Time

• Don’t keep your customers waiting. • If your call volumes have increased and you are unable to handle a particular customer, use cloud call center software solutions that are suited to handle such peaks and have features like giving customers the option to wait or expect a call back.

23. Make 2-Way Communication

• Maintain open lines of communication with your customers. • Your customer relationship should be a two way street. • Both the customer care agent and the customer should be able to express their points of view clearly. • No one party should try to override the other.

24. Use Feedbacks Properly

• Take the opinions of your customers into account. • Customers want their feedback to be validated. • If they have some complaints, look into it. • Empty promises of you fixing it will not suffice. • Since you are taking feedback, make sure you do something about it.

25. Fulfill Customer Needs

• Let us take a look at the various stages in customer loyalty. • Suspect Prospect First time customer Repeat customer Client advocate. • Once you have a clear idea of each stage, you should be able to satisfy your customers better and retain them as well.

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