SEO Hosting Blog

Think that having a great product or service is enough to earn and maintain success? If you don’t back your offerings with great customer service, you could find it difficult to attract and retain customers. Treating your customers right can keep them coming back and even help you win them from your competitors.

That’s why it’s so important that you avoid these 5 major customer service mistakes:

1. Being inaccessible—There’s nothing more frustrating than being unable to contact a company, whether it’s to ask a question, place an order, or file a complaint. If your customers can’t reach you, they’re going to leave you. You must be accessible to your customers and give them the one-on-one attention they desire. Make sure you’re answering your phone, responding to emails, and being available for face-to-face service if necessary. (more…)

Chances are that email is a central communications tool for your business. You probably communicate with customers and prospects on a daily basis via email. I know I do.

Simply put, email is a customer service tool. To provide great customer service with email, you need to avoid these 5 mistakes.

1. Taking too long to respond–At minimum, you need to be responding to emails the same day you receive them. But even that is no longer good enough for some customers. Many customers want faster response times, so you really need to stay on top of your emails and respond to them as quickly as possible.

2. Responding to only part of the email–There’s nothing that annoys me more than receiving an incomplete email response. If a customer brings up 3 separate points in his email, make sure you address all 3 points in your response. Before you hit send, reread the initial email to ensure you’ve touched on all points with your response.

3. Not personalizing your response–Generic responses are bad for customer service. While they might save you time, the customer will interpret it as a lack of caring on your part. Take time to personalize your response to the individual.

4. Not proofreading before you hit send–Your emails don’t have to read like a Pulitzer award worthy piece, but you should take the time to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Such mistakes make your company look unprofessional.

5. No “hello” or “goodbye”–It’s the simplest thing you can do, but it’s important nonetheless. Open your emails with a greeting and finish them with a goodbye.

What are some other email customer service mistakes to avoid? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

What’s the one thing all consumers hate? Excuses. Consumers have zero tolerance for excuses. They know that whenever a company starts making excuses, they’re going to be subjected to a line of BS and no accountability. For once, it’d be nice to see a company admit their mistakes and offer solutions and promises for not making them again.

Look, everyone knows accidents happen. Things don’t always go as planned. It sucks when things go bad, and there are numerous possible reasons why companies make mistakes. The problem is the consumer doesn’t care why something happens. They don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to hear you passing the blame off on someone else. They don’t want to hear that the employee who screwed up their order is new. They don’t want to hear about problems with the delivery coming in late. They don’t want to hear that somebody was out sick.

All they want is for you to fix the problem as quickly as possible. They want you to care. They want you to be truly sorry for your mistakes, and they want to get the service or experience they expected from the beginning. Nothing more. Nothing less. They want you to stop spewing the same corporate BS every company delivers when things go wrong.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at BP. Since the beginning, they’ve been playing the blame game, trying to say it was the drilling contractors who were responsible for the explosion that killed 11 workers. The public didn’t want to hear it, and thanks to their constant, BP just might be the most hated company in the world right now.

The point? When your company messes up, don’t make excuses. Instead, do everything you can to rectify the situation. Your customers will end up much happier.

Recently, I wrote a post offering tips for creating an effective customer retention plan. One of the most obvious things you can do to keep customers loyal to your brand is to provide them with excellent customer service. The first step to accomplishing that is to avoid these common customer service mistakes.

• Ignoring your customer after the sale—Way too many companies treat their customers like royalty leading up to the sale, then ditch them as soon as they hand over their money. Not only is this rude, but it’s just flat out stupid from a customer retention standpoint. After making the sale, you need to follow up with your customers to make sure they’re 100% satisfied. Get feedback from them asking what you can do to improve your service to them. If they ever call you with complaints or questions, be there for them.
• Not living up to your promises—My biggest pet peeve is when a company overpromises and under-delivers. Never make a promise you can’t keep. If you say you’re going to deliver the product on Friday, you better make sure it’s there on Friday. If not, your customers will see you as a liar, unprofessional, and unreliable. (more…)