Craig MiddletonOne thing that nearly every sales team needs to prioritize is constantly improving their customer service skills. Of course, every team understands that its customer service is the voice and face for its clients. As such, inappropriate handling of clients isn’t acceptable as it can damage the reputation of a company.
While small businesses expect to provide excellent customer service, only a handful of them train their workers to do the same. The first impression of a potential customer depends on their interaction with the customer service team.
The customer service that an organization offers can break or build its relationship with its clients. Of course, companies depend on their sales teams to deliver effective and phenomenal customers services. The following are tips to train workers on handling customers and offering exceptional customer service.
1. Build a Culture of Positive and Open Communication Within Your Team
Your sales team interacts with different personalities every day, subjecting them to a certain negativity level. Addressing complaints from unpleasant and unhappy customers can sometimes take its toll. Whether it is simple words of encouragement or explaining the achievements of the company, members of the sales staff should take time to create a positive mood and work on their customer service skills. Regular team meetings can go a long way, especially ones where employees can learn from each other as well as from team leads and managers.
2. Demonstrate Positive Behavior from the Top to the Bottom
Of course, every organization is out there to create an IT staffing culture that cultivates growth and cohesion. As such, company owners and their managers should demonstrate the behavior they want their workers to pass on to their existing and potential clients. You might also need to hold workers accountable and communicate the overall expectations of the company. This can best be accomplished through frequent and open communication via memos, messages, meetings, etc. Excellent customer services are a derivative of workers that are provided with clear expectations and regulations.
3. Recognize Outstanding Achievements and Services to Promote Improvements
Managers might need to take time to recognize their customer service teams for exceptional services such as years of service, perfect attendance, and outstanding services. Some suggestions include offering top performers free lunch, casual dress days, or paid time off for their achievements. Likewise, human resource managers might need to encourage low performers to up their game and match the performance of top talent.
4. Encourage Involvement with Clients to Drive Innovation
Organizations should think of their workers as the ears and eyes of their operations. Of course, your sales team are the first people that potential customers will probably meet, meaning that your front-line workers will notice when clients aren’t happy with their services. Similarly, unhappy front-line workers will affect the overall feel of customers. Interaction of sales teams with clients can help identify areas of opportunity. As such, workers might need to take time to request suggestions and feedback from customers and use that information for the implementation of procedures and policies to improve their business operations.
5. Track Customer Feedback to Identify New Opportunities
Companies can use resources such as surveys and interviews to measure the satisfaction of their customers. Customers are interested in excellent products as well as outstanding customer service. Some of the useful tools that companies can use to measure the level of satisfaction of their customers are surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys are also a platform for sales teams to identify new market opportunities.
6. Interact with Workers in a Positive and Encouraging Manner
Many companies have their valuable assets hidden behind cubicle walls. While the boss may not have an abundance of interaction with their workers, sending them messages of appreciation and acknowledgment can go a long way to improve their relationship. Some of the ways to promote communication with workers include focus groups, where senior managers open the floor for the suggestion and share information with their workers. Team meetings allow time for workers to communicate and interact with each other. It also will enable workers to coordinate and cooperate to overcome various obstacles that they encounter in their daily life. Senior managers might also need to spend time with their workers to observe how they work. That creates an opportunity for top managers to put themselves in the positions of their subordinate and identify their areas of strength and weakness better.
This is a guest contribution by Craig Middleton of Treetop Real Estate . Interested in contributing to the CloserIQ blog? Check out our guidelines here.
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