IT Customer Service 101: How to Deliver Client Satisfaction

Satisfied clients are your best source of repeat business and new business. That seems so obvious, but what can you do to ensure your clients are satisfied? It’s more than just good customer service. Good customer service is the minimum requirement for client satisfaction, so what else do you need to do?

6 Tips to Ensure Your Business or Department is Creating Satisfied Clients

1. Good customer service. This should go without saying, but without good customer service, nothing else you do will matter. Even if you have a unique high-quality product or service, if your customer service is bad your clients will go to great lengths to avoid working with you on a long-term basis. That’s why customer research is so important.
2. Customer research. Yes, this includes those surveys that many of us loathe, but if you’re serious about understanding your customers, it’s more than just sending out a Survey Monkey link. There are two broad forms of research. One is quantitative where you conduct surveys with various types of structured questions and answers. This is the most familiar type of research and it allows you to view empirical data, including trends. It’s helpful, but it can be difficult to get people to participate due to the volume of requests they get to fill out surveys. It’s also impersonal and may not reveal important information about how your clients feel about your company or department. The other form is qualitative in which you gather ideas about what your clients think of you. The best-known form of qualitative research is a focus group where you gather a small group of your clients in a meeting room and a facillitator engages them in discussions about your company or department. You might watch the discussion from behind a one-way mirror.
3. Customer communication. When customers communicate with you, communicate back! That’s really customer service 101. When they don’t hear back from you, they create their own story about why they haven’t heard anything and it’s never good. When they leave a review, respond. When they make a comment on social media, respond. When they send you an email, a text, or even a voice message, respond. When your customer or coworker gives you feedback, respond.
4. Always be improving. What can you do better today than you did yesterday. Take a moment at the beginning of your day to reflect on what you can do today to improve on yesterday’s work. Maybe it’s something technical, such as learning some new software tool. Maybe it’s something to do with your relationships with the people at work. Regardless, always be improving.
5. Offer multi-channel interaction including support and communication. Some people like to text, others prefer email. Some people like an old-school phone call, others prefer chat. If you want a satisfied customer, use the communication channel they prefer.
6. Remove friction. Put yourself through the customer experience. Be your own secret shopper. How many steps do you have to complete for simple (or what should be simple) interactions with your organization.

Customer Service That Wows

Here’s what Kelli Durkin, VP of Customer Service at Chewy, an internet firm renowned for its exceptional customer service, said in a Forbes interview about serving customers, “My goal is wowing the customer from the minute they call us. Our customer service reps have good energy and staff is excited to delight the customer. We service customers 24/7 across phone, email, chat and social — holidays and weekends. I encourage the team to think about what they can do to “wow” the customer.” Can you say that about your company or your department? Can you say that about yourself?

You want satisfied customers? Take good care of them, put yourself in their position, get to know them, focus on being as good as you possibly can be, and make it easy for them to work with you. And, by the way, this is true whether you’re a business owner, an entire IT department, or an entry-level technician just starting your career.

Next Level IT Customer Service Training

Enroll your team now in Compassionate Geek IT online customer service training so they can work together, get things done, and take care of customers.