Every week, there’s some great articles out there on customer support and the overall customer experience. Most of us working on support teams tend to be busy helping customers so we don’t have a chance to go scouring the web for them.
To fix that, our team here will make sure you’ve got the best articles from the past week. Weekends are perfect for reading so it’s a good chance to see what might have been missed in the past week.
If you’ve got any articles or links that we’ve missed, make sure to let us know in the comments.
Grab that cup of coffee and dig in!
1. Five phrases that boost customer service
Simple tweaks to the way we say things can produce powerful results. I’m not the only one talking about it.
2. Don’t leave Twitter in the hands of fired employees
Dumb move but one that people make with bad results every time.
One of the most entertaining tweets that came through before HMV took back the account and deleted the offending tweets: “Just overheard our marketing director (he’s staying, folks) ask ‘How do I shut down Twitter?’”
3. On squeaky wheel customers
Every company has those customers that want a little extra attention. How do you handle them?
Make customers feel special, especially squeaky wheels. If they believe they deserve extra attention, offer it. Don’t resist them. Rather, surprise them with an unexpected call about a ticket, or contact an executive about a problem and let them know you’re working hard on their behalf. When they realize they have the attention they need when they need it, they won’t demand it the same way. In fact, they might put their energies toward telling others your customer service is excellent.
4. Have empathy and don’t be a dick
It’s refreshing to see other companies not being so stoic in their writing and values. Can you imagine seeing something like this as a poster inside a call center? Yeah, me neither.
Sometimes the best way to say something is the best way to say something. In an industry saturated with “We care” promises (that aren’t always kept), we needed language to represent our genuine commitment to understanding our customers. When a customer has a frustration, you can’t understand their pain unless you respect them first. You can’t solve their problem if you’re not dedicated to working with them. It wasn’t enough to just have empathy – we believed you couldn’t be a dick either.
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