5 Tips for Delivering the Best Customer Service on the Phone

Your customer’s telephone experience determines whether you retain or lose that customer. The right answering service achieves consistent customer satisfaction and helps your business grow. Here are five key ways to improve customer satisfaction during telephone contact.

1. Listen

Active listening is one of the most powerful techniques to make sure each customer is satisfied. Be attentive, ask relevant questions to determine what the customer needs, and learn from the customer. Developing listening skills takes time and has a high payoff in improving customer satisfaction. Pay attention to the caller’s emotional state, issues, desires and concerns and repeat key information back to them so that they understand that they have been heard.

2. Project Empathy and Ability

A confident and caring manner in call answering goes a long way toward instilling customer confidence. Once you assure the customer that you understand the issue, proceed to resolve it. If it’s necessary to consult with someone else, let the customer know how long it will take and offer to call the customer back or allow the customer to hold.

3. Be Pleasant

Top customer service agents understand the importance of answering the phone with a smile and keeping a positive tone of voice. The only connection to the customer is through the voice, and a genuine smile comes through in the communication.

4. Employ Good Phone Manners

Treat your customers as valuable and value their time. It’s imperative to ask customers if they mind before transferring them or placing them on hold. Answer calls as soon as possible and keep wait times short. When the telephone experience shows customers that you respect them, they are much more likely to keep coming back.

5. Employ the 5 C’s

• Keep communication in customer service clear, complete, concise, concrete, and correct. Make simple statements in basic language. Give complete information in compact form. Be specific and give accurate facts. Allow the customer to ask questions and take the time to offer clarification. The communication is only successful if the customer understands the facts and has been given full information.
• AnswerHero consistently employs these five points of call answering communication. Our live call answering services will help you meet your customer service goals.