Don’t Believe These Myths About Customer Service

Don’t Believe These Myths About Customer Service

Great customer service is an essential ingredient for running a successful business. If you are having trouble keeping up with answering all of your customers’ calls or providing them with technical support, you may want to consider outsourcing your calls to an answering service. To highlight the importance of providing your customers with live customer support, here is a look at three commonly held myths about customer service.

Myth: Customer service only requires that basic demands are met

A business may be more likely to fail if its workers are only focused on meeting the basic demands of their customers. In order to achieve terrific customer service, you will need to make sure that you go above and beyond to ensure that your customers feel great about their experience when they work with your company. By following up with your services and offering additional support, you can make sure that your customers are satisfied.

Myth: Lack of negative feedback equals great customer service

As the owner or manager of a business, it is important to pay attention to all of the feedback that you get from your customers. However, just because you are not getting a high volume of negative reviews, you should not assume that your customer service is up to par. Instead, you should always focus on receiving glowing reviews and recommendations.

Myth: Customer service policies should be strictly followed

While it is important to have customer service policies and rules in place for your workers, you may disappoint your customers if these guidelines need to be rigidly followed. Providing your workers with some flexibility will allow them to keep your customers happy.
If you are in need of a live answering service near Tucson, be sure to get in touch with Contact One. The employees at our call center will make sure that all of your customers are completely satisfied with our services. For more information about how our services can benefit your business, call us at (800) 278-3347.

How Bad Customer Service Experiences Can Impact Your Business

How Bad Customer Service Experiences Can Impact Your Business

Customer Service

Customer service is more important today than it ever has been before, thanks to the widespread availability of customer opinions and testimonies online. A bad customer service experience can turn a customer off to your business, and he or she might tell others as well. If you don’t want to spend your time on damage control, read on to see how bad customer service experiences can impact your business.

Loss of Repeat Customers

Even customers who have been loyal to your business for years are not under any obligation to continue offering you patronage, so you should be sure to treat them with respect. A bad customer experience can sway customers to try out other options rather than work with you, which is the opposite of what you want for your business. Consider hiring customer service professionals to keep everyone happy.

Tarnished Reputation

A single customer who has a bad service experience and decides to move away from your business may be enough of a hit; unfortunately, news of the unpleasant experience can spread quickly. A dissatisfied customer may post on social media about the experience, and this is even more dangerous if the person is particularly upset. This takes away from the reputation of your company and can directly reflect in your sales.

Damage Control

It’s never a good idea to let a bad customer service experience go. Instead, you should do what you can to make up for it and keep your customers. Constantly catching up on damage control will take your attention away from other responsibilities, however, and it can add unnecessary stress. Work with customer service professionals to make sure all of your patrons are happy with the way they are treated.

You don’t want to let your customers down, and you won’t have to when you work with Contact One. We are an answering service serving California and many other areas, and customer service is one of our many specialties. Please don’t hesitate to call us at 1 (800) 278-3347 for more on our services.

Why Customer Service Matters

Why Customer Service Matters

Answering Service / Call Center Support/ Blog/ Customer Service/ Receptionist Services

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Customers expect to be taken care of and treated with respect and dignity when they call a customer service representative. A quality customer service professional will handle customers’ problems in a timely and respectable fashion. Your customer service department may also notice which types of issues tend to pop up most frequently. Here is a closer look at why customer service matters.

Solve Problems Efficiently

When a customer has a problem with any given product or service that he or she has paid for, the customer service department will typically be the one to contact. Remember that if you want your customers to give you their business again in the future, you need to take care of any problems they may be dealing with now. Customer service aims to solve these problems and ensure that your patrons have a positive experience working with your company.

Treat Customers with Respect

Customers, customer service representatives, and managers are all people, and everyone deserves to be treated respectfully. Your customer service team needs to make sure that each individual gets a chance to explain his or her case to a receptive representative. Some customers will be calm and collected throughout the entire process, while others will get worked up; it’s important that your team keeps its cool and handles every situation in a dignified manner.

Recognize Common Issues

Your customer service department can actually provide some helpful insight for your business. If certain types of issues tend to pop up more than others, you can find a way to place greater emphasis on the problem area. Paying attention to these trends can make your business more welcoming and even more profitable.

If you’re looking to step up your customer service department, please feel free to call Contact One at 1-800-278-3347. Our call center specializes in disaster preparedness and secure messaging in addition to everyday customer service. You can learn much more about us by visiting our website today.

Utilizing an Answering Service to Help with Your 24/7 Customer Response

Utilizing an Answering Service to Help with Your 24/7 Customer Response

Answering Service / Call Center Support/ Blog/ Customer Service

serving-customers

You never want to miss an important call, but you can’t be at work all the time; this is where an answering service or call center can help. This type of service keeps your customers happy while saving you money, time, and energy. Read on to see how 24/7 customer service from a call center can help your business.

Increase Convenience for Customers

Just about every working adult in today’s society has a busy schedule, and it can be difficult to juggle all of your tasks and responsibilities. A customer service system that operates 24 hours per day will cater to any type of schedule imaginable. This will allow people who work nights to get the assistance they need, even if it’s not during business hours.

Save Money on Operating

Keeping the lights on isn’t free, but turning your customers down could prove to be costly. An answering service will be able to take care of your customers’ needs at any time of the day or night. This means you won’t have to keep your business open longer than it needs to be just in case someone comes in to have a problem dealt with.

Don’t Worry About Hiring

Hiring new employees can be challenging in a few different ways; interviews, drug tests, background checks, and training all add up in terms of time, money, and manpower. When you use an answering service for your customer service department, you will not need to worry about these elements. Instead, you can focus on your immediate responsibilities and save some of your resources.

Are you interested in utilizing an answering service to ensure that your business runs as smoothly as possible? Feel free to get in touch with the team at Contact One or visit our website. We are happy to offer after hours support, medical answering, and more. Give us a call at 1-800-278-3347 for more information about us.

Measuring Your Customer Service Effectiveness

Measuring Your Customer Service Effectiveness

Customer Service

178083075 Focusing on your customer service efforts can help you improve the way you do business. Spending too much time on services that do not improve your customer relations could be bad for your company, though, which is why it is important to see how they are benefiting or hindering you. Keep reading to find out how you can measure the effectiveness of your customer service efforts.

Record Your Calls
Recording your phone calls gives you an easy way to check on your answering services and to make sure they are helping your company. Keep notes on how your customer service representatives handle their calls and how they can make improvements. You can also use the recording to determine whether or not your customers seem happy with the efforts of your staff.

Ask the Customers
Sending out surveys is a great way to ask your customers if they are happy with the services they receive and if they have any suggestions about how you can improve. You can use the surveys to ask them about a variety of different experiences to measure their level of satisfaction. Sending out surveys gives you a new way to interact with your customers and to hear their opinions on the way you currently run your business.

Utilize Social Media
Setting up social media pages for your company makes it easier than ever to talk to your customers. When you take advantage of websites like Facebook and Twitter, your customers can instantly talk to you about what they like and what they dislike about your company. Social media also makes it easier for your staff to respond directly to these comments.

Contact One Call Center wants to help you improve the way your company handles customer service. Whether you need some assistance answering phones or taking orders, our reliable team members give you the communication help you need to ensure that you can interact with your clients on a more personal level. To learn more, visit us online or call 1-800-278-3347.

Improving Your Customers’ Experiences

Improving Your Customers’ Experiences

Blog/ Customer Service

Your final product may be highly impressive and your staff may be incredibly skilled, but this becomes meaningless if your business lacks good customer service. It may seem obvious, but many managers overlook the importance of improving or maintaining high quality customer service. Meanwhile, your customer service team is the face of your company and your customers will define their experience with your product based on their interactions with your customer support systems.

Manage your customers’ needs.
The first step in any customer service plan is to ensure your team has the right skills for your customer base. For example, you need to secure services that provide empathy, patience, and consistency. Some people who call will be very irritable while others will have a multitude of questions. Your customer service center needs to be equipped to handle all types of personalities.

Ensure clear communication.
When it comes to customer communication, you need to make sure your customers completely understand your message. You don’t want your customers to be mistaken about the price or product they are receiving because of ambiguity in communication. However, your customer service representatives should use authentically positive language and maintain a positive attitude in every interaction. Most importantly, your representative should never leave a conversation without understanding your customer’s needs.

Prioritize good time management.
Even though customer service representatives should work through each problem, they also need to be able to manage time spent with each customer. Failing to allocate time appropriately will lead to customers waiting while only one customer’s needs are met. What your customers are ultimately searching for is knowledge of your product or service. Make sure your representatives are equipped to field the most common questions about your product. However, if questions become too technical, your representatives need to be honest about their extent of knowledge.

Call 1-800-278-3347 to learn about the answering services available through Contact One Call Center. Even though we are based in Tucson, we provide after hours support and customer service to businesses across the country. In addition, each one of our representatives is bilingual.

Serving Your Customers: The Basics

Serving Your Customers: The Basics

Blog/ Customer Service/ Professional Services/ Small Business

A good product is not enough to attract customers and keep them interested. Customer service is also essential for maintaining a strong and successful business. Give your small business the boost it needs by following these customer service basics:

Be Patient
Patience isn’t just a virtue; it is essential when it comes to quality customer service! Customers often feel confused or frustrated when they contact a company to ask a question or voice a complaint. Being patient is important for helping customers feel comfortable and making sure they can express their thoughts thoroughly. If you are patient when dealing with customer service interactions, customers will see you as professional and courteous.

Be Friendly
Friendliness and patience tend to go hand-in-hand, which is great because both are very important for providing good service to your customers. Training employees to stay friendly during every customer interaction will help your company maintain a kind and professional reputation. Being friendly will encourage customers to keep coming back and can even change customers’ minds if they have had a negative experience.

Be Understanding
Customers want to know that the companies they buy from care about them and not just their money. Being understanding during customer interactions is one of the best ways to ensure customers that you care about their opinions and want them to be happy with your product or service. If customers are frustrated or annoyed when they contact you, try to understand their point of view so you can provide the right solution.

Be Informative
It is important to be able to provide answers to your customers’ questions. Even with the other basics, your customers will not be satisfied unless you can help them get the information they need. Make sure your employees are knowledgeable and can find the information that your customers request.

Contact One Call Center can help you provide the best customer service possible! Let us handle secure messaging and after-hours support so your team can focus on the business. Learn more by calling us at 1-800-278-3347.

Small Business Success Story: Hillcrest Media Group

Small Business Success Story: Hillcrest Media Group

Blog/ Customer Service/ Small Business

Some businesses go with the flow. Others create their own flow. If your small business is looking for new ways to obtain success, you can look to today’s successful small businesses for guidance. Read about Hillcrest Media Group to get started.

What is Hillcrest Media Group?
Hillcrest Media Group is a publishing company that offers an assortment of helpful services to authors and collaborators. Unlike other publishers that take more than their fair share of profits, Hillcrest Media Group puts the author first to ensure a smooth and successful publishing process. This company also helps authors find the right marketing strategies to attract buyers and get their books out there to the readers!

Who Started Hillcrest Media Group?
Mark Levine gained interest in the publishing world after publishing his own book about self-publishing! After seeing the success and realizing there was a spot in the market for a publisher that cares more about authors than making money, Levine started Mill City Press back in 2006. Eventually, Mill City Press became the starting point for a larger company known as Hillcrest Media Group.

How Did It Become Successful?
By offering something totally different from the competition, Hillcrest Media Group was able to become a pioneer of a totally new style of service! Authors no longer had to pay a fee just to get their book published only to share profits with their publishers—now they could work with Hillcrest Media Group and get the profits they deserved.

How Can This Story Help Your Business?
Excellent customer service is part of the reason why Hillcrest Media Group is so successful. Keeping your customer in mind and making sure they get what they need and want can help your business become more successful! Contact One Call Center can help you handle your customer service responsibilities so you can focus on other elements of success. We specialize in call center services as well as secure messaging, chats, and more. Take a look at our website or call us at 1-800-278-3347 to learn more.

Customer Service Don’ts for E-Commerce

Customer Service Don’ts for E-Commerce

Blog/ Customer Service/ Small Business

E-commerce makes it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it! This technology also helps businesses reach out to more customers in more places. Make the most of your e-commerce by learning about these customer service don’ts:

Not Keeping Your Promises
It is easy to attract customers with promises of free shipping, easy returns, and other important elements. Unfortunately, a lot of companies take advantage of the level of ease by making false promises to customers. If you offer certain perks and do not follow through, customers will not return and will likely make others aware of their negative experiences. Do not make any e-commerce promises that you cannot keep!

Only Offering Phone Service
Phone calls are a great away to get in contact with a business, but they are not the only way! Today’s customers are constantly busy and constantly on-the-go. That is why they want a variety of ways contact your business when they have questions or concerns. It is important to offer answering services as well as online chat services to make it as easy as possible for customers to get in contact with you.

Taking Too Much Time to Respond
How long does it typically take you to respond to customer questions or concerns? If you are not responding as quickly as possible, you might be losing customers! With mobile sites and online services, timeliness is more important than ever. Customers make decisions and purchases quickly, so responding quickly will make you more appealing and give you a better chance of success.

Using Generic Responses
Your customers want to feel heard and respected. They do not want to feel like they are talking to a robot. But that is exactly how they will feel if you keep offering generic responses for each question or concern. Take the time to carefully read comments from customers so you can respond appropriately and show that their voices are being heard.

Contact One Call Center can help you avoid these don’ts with our excellent customer service help! Call us at 1-800-278-3347 for more information about our after-hours support and call center services.

The Importance of Leaving No Call Unanswered

The Importance of Leaving No Call Unanswered

Blog/ Customer Service/ Small Business

In the business world, customer service is essential to your company’s success. It is important to give your customers easy access to help when they need it. Keep reading to find out why you should improve your call centers to ensure that every call is answered.

Dealing with Customer Complaints
If a customer is upset about your products or services and they cannot get ahold of anyone in your company, it will only upset them more. Increasing your call center and answering service efforts ensures that these customers can find someone to talk to when they have an issue so you and your staff can work toward finding a solution.

Offering New Services
Improving your call center efforts helps you spread the word about new services that your company is offering. If a customer calls in to your business and always manages to find a real person with whom to talk, it gives you the opportunity to talk about new features and services that might interest them. Take advantage of customer calls by using them to inform your client base about important updates for your company and the services you offer.

Improving Your Company Image
If your customers can always get through to someone at your company, it gives them a better impression of your business. Whether they are calling with a complaint or a question, the ability to talk to a real person helps them gain confidence in your business and your customer service efforts. This might inspire them to help tell other people about your impressive customer relations, which could earn you some new business.

Take advantage of Contact One Call Center’s unique answering and secure messaging services to help your company keep your customers happy. If you want to avoid unanswered calls, our call center can help. We offer live receptionists, bilingual support, and after-hours support. Check out our website or call 1-800-278-3347 to learn more about our call center services.