A young lady contacted a mobile phone company she recently subscribed with. She had some questions about purchasing their latest mobile phone and couldn’t find the answers easily online. She decided to give her mobile phone company a call. Their phone menu was a pain to get through as expected. But after a few minutes of shouting and cursing at the phone menu and waiting on hold for 20 seconds, she was transferred to a human voice, finally!
She recounts another lady answered on the other line and she sounded very friendly and happy to talk to her. The customer care agent asked her how she was, even asked her about the weather and then asked how she could help her. The lady customer told the representative her purpose and asked some questions about the phone which she was planning to buy. The representative obviously knew majority of the answers, her replies were quite friendly. The customer service experience was good, she said.
Almost all of us have tried calling a customer service of a certain company once in our lives. We call them to ask assistance, directions, to complain or even inquire the schedule of the latest movie hit in town. Did you ever notice the way these customer service people speak? The tone of their voices? You can even sense if they are smiling when they talk. Of course, you can easily recognize if a person is happy or interested when he or she got a call from you. It is the number one rule in Customer Service, to be as friendly as much as possible to the person on the other line on the phone.
Being warm and friendly to your customers should be the most important component when you are in a call center industry or in a business to business environment. Being friendly builds better rapport with your customers. It makes or breaks a company so to speak.
However, having a friendly customer service support is not enough to increase the sales or demands of the
products or services your company offers. Product knowledge is also a key ingredient to get the nod of your customers. It is essential that before you sell a product, you must know all about it, inside and out. You wouldn't want to be in a position that you will be caught straight in the face without an answer if your customer has a specific question. Put yourself in your customer's shoe, what would you think if you were interested in buying a product and asked questions about it but the one you're dealing with could not answer the simplest question of the product. You would probably lose your faith in it.
To know your product better, remember to obtain as much information as you possibly can. Educate yourself with the features and benefits your product offers. Read constantly about the project as it may have updates or some changes you should know about.
Another way to really know your product is to actually use them personally if its feasible. When you answer a question to a customer, the customer can tell how much you believe in the product and you have confidence in it because you sounded you have actually tried it. Remember that the more you know your product, the easier it is to sell.
Having the two A's in the customer service is beneficial in the growth and success of a business. A combination of a good Attitude on dealing with your customers while providing them the appropriate Aptitude about your product will certainly boost the sales of the product and can retain the most important component of a company, the customers.
As it turned out, the customer service experience of the lady mentioned above was good. She purchased the latest mobile phone she was inquiring about and told her friends about the great service she got from the company. All it took was a friendly customer service representative that knew what she was talking about.