Best and Worst Phrases Used in Customer Service

In the service industry, it is very important to keep the customer happy. The top companies in this area of business always find ways to keep customers on their side, and much of this comes from how they interact. By using a few favorable phrases, customer service employees can start an interaction off the right way.

It is very easy to get off on the wrong foot with a customer, however, by using a few phrases that they hate to hear. Once customers hear these phrases, the interaction can quickly turn, especially if the customer's needs are not met.

Best Phrases

· "I will solve your problem."

When the customer approaches or calls a customer service representative, he or she is looking to have a problem solved by that employee. There is always a great deal of uncertainty when dealing with customer service, so having the first person with which you speak promise to take care of everything is a definite relief.

· "How can I be of service?"

This phrase gives the customer a chance to explain the situation, which is exactly what is needed to solve the problem. The phrase works well because it opens up a dialogue where the employee will listen to the customer and come up with a solution based on the information that is provided. For example, if you are calling a hotline to find the best rehab centers in your area, the last thing you want to do is have to call multiple numbers to solve your problem.

· "I will find out."

In some cases, the customer service representative might not know the answer. This is a fear of customers because in some cases, the employee will tell the customer to speak with someone else or to call another number. Having an employee take responsibility and figure out a solution for a customer definitely puts that company in their good books.

Worst Phrases

 · "That's our policy."

Simply citing a company policy is very impersonal and makes the customer feel unvalued. This phrase tells the customer that there is nothing that the company is willing to do to make him or her happy. At the same time, it tells them that the same problem could arise again in the future if he or she continues to do business with the company.

· "There's nothing I can do."

When a customer service representative refuses to help a customer or is not able to because of management, it is usually the last time that the customer will do business there. Nothing makes a customer feel unvalued more than having his or her concerns being ignored.

 · "You'll have to speak with..."

This phrase tells the customer that more must be done in order to receive an answer. Customers hate this because it means that they will have to start from scratch and explain the entire situation again before receive help. In some cases, this even involves waiting in line or sitting on hold for hours.

How To Create A Great Customer Experience On Social Media

Creating the right customer experience is vital for every company using social media, both for existing customers and potential customers. In 2012, 77% of B2C companies and 43% of B2B companies used Facebook to acquire new customers. You need to make sure that your social media strategies engage and retain your existing customers, as well as attracting fans and converting them into new customers.

Thankfully, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter spend a lot of time getting the aesthetics of their pages just right. They provide companies with great tools to set up pages, profiles and communities, making themselves distinct from the competition and attractive to the right audience. However, you still need to perfect the right strategy in order to retain and gain new customers.

Know your Audience

If you want to create a great customer experience on social media you need to know all about your audience. You need to post content that will interest and attract the right people on social media – people who can be converted into customers.

Of course, you can’t forget about your existing customers either. Encourage your existing customers to follow you on social media sites. Put follow widgets on your website and put your social media handles in obvious places on your sales copy. If you have an email database, let your customers know about your social media sites by email.

Lots of companies use Twitter as a customer service tool, responding to customer queries and complaints with tweets and direct messages. I won’t go into detail about how to use Twitter as a customer service tool here, but you can check out our article it here.

You can use other social media sites to connect with your customers as well or, even better, provide a place where they can connect with each other. Create a Page/Group/Community so that you fans can discuss your company: a place where you can get involved yourself, engaging your fans with interesting content and questions.




Perfect your Pages

Make sure you post compelling, diverse, quality content on your pages. Don’t post too regularly but make sure you post frequently enough. Work out what your fans and followers like and work out a posting strategy which takes advantage of this. Make sure that you promote your products enough, but not all the time: fans don’t like being inundated with advertising, they want to see content that is of use to them.

Make sure that your profile images and descriptions are eye-catching, interesting and, most importantly, grammatically correct. Check all the spelling in your posts and tweets and only post images that fit within each social media sites’ image parameters. The content on your pages needs to be both professional and attention grabbing.

Respond to all the comments on your pages and retweets your messages get on Twitter. Be active and polite: you customers will appreciate it if you acknowledge them quickly and consistently. Analyse the sentiment of comments about your company online: if someone is negative about your brand you need to act quickly so that your reputation isn’t damaged.

Reward your Fans

Reward your fans and followers with exclusive content. Post information about new products and behind the scenes footage where only your fans can see it. Send out a new product to you Twitter followers before you send it anywhere else, or invite them to your headquarters to try it out for themselves. You could even give them discounts and vouchers for your products.

Find customers who are willing to be your social media brand advocates and provide them with a platform from which they can promote your products. Reward these influential people with discounts and products or, if they’re very good at what they do, a marketing job. Publicise the fact that you reward your fans and advocates: other people may be willing to follow you and promote your brand in the future if there is an extra incentive.

If you work in retail, introduce signage into your shop that encourages people to follow you. Take advantage of the mobile geotargeting options available to marketers. Target people who are close to your store or check-in there with advertising, or offer them special deals.

How have you perfected your customer experience on social media?

Why You Should Use Twitter As A Customer Service Tool

Twitter, as everyone knows, is a fantastic B2C communication tool, helping companies to connect, engage and interact with their followers and customers. One of the advantages of Twitter’s readily available communications network, is that customers can directly contact companies by including their Twitter handle in tweets.

Companies should always pay attention to the questions and queries mentioning them on Twitter. By monitoring and responding to these questions, a company will improve its reputation on the social media site. The companies that respond to their customers tweets are often well regarded, by customers and the general public alike. Analytics site socialbakers recently released figures showing the top 10 fastest responders to Twitter queries. Halo BCA, the fastest company, has an amazing response time of 3 minutes.

Of course, response speed isn’t everything but, as communication becomes more and more instantaneous, it becomes increasingly important for companies to respond to queries, questions and comments on social media sites as quickly as they can. Here’s how you can use Twitter as a customer service tool.

Respond To Mentions

Try to respond as quickly as you can to comments, questions and queries to do with your company. Monitor and search through the tweets which mention your company on Twitter. Try to respond to all of the questions, even though this may take time. Search Twitter for comments about your company that don’t include your Twitter handle, not everyone will mention you directly if they have a complaint to make, but they will probably appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Of course, you don’t have to respond to all the comments – the ones that are downright offensive, for example – but it’s best to monitor and analyse the sentiments expressed online about your company. Use a tool like Ezeesocial to manage, monitor and respond to all the questions and queries you get on Twitter.

If you run a larger company, it might be worth creating a dedicated customer service Twitter handle – 30% of Fortune 100 companies have a specific customer service Twitter site. A dedicated customer service account can draw attention away from negative comments about your company, as well as helping you manage complaints and queries.

Be Polite

Be personal and polite. Always answer customer queries and complaints with an apology and an offer to help. To make it even more personal, you could use the ^ symbol and include your initials. By doing this, customers will know they are talking to an actual person and not a faceless company. You could also address your customers by their names: check their bio or Twitter handle, their name will often be there.

There are examples on Twitter of employees judging the tone of tweeted queries and changing their response accordingly. For example, telecommunication agency O2 made headlines last year by responding to a customer complaint in London slang. O2 were not only able to help the customer with his problem, they also got a lot of publicity for their brand. Of course, I would generally advise against this approach as it is more likely that you will offend the customer than anything else, but it’s always worth assessing the tone of customer queries and complaints anyway, in order to judge how best to respond.

For that extra personal touch to customer service, you could even follow up the more difficult customer problems a few days or a week later. Just tweet the customer after a week to make sure they aren’t still having problems. Try not to be too invasive, however, and don’t be offended if they don’t respond. Most customers who you help will be happy to compliment you on Twitter, which can really help your reputation.

Always Respond

You should always try to respond to questions, even if you can’t answer them. By acknowledging someone’s query, you ensure that they know that you are listening. If you don’t know the answer, direct

them somewhere they might find it. Of course, it’s always better to try to give them the answer yourself.

If someone has a complaint that can’t really be expressed fully in tweet form, then ask them to direct message you their personal details, privately, so that you can continue the conversation on the phone or via email. A phone conversation is probably the best option: talking to a customer directly is often the fastest way to get a problem sorted. Of course, Twitter is great as the first line of communication, as it takes less time and effort to answer problems on the service.

Be Proactive

You don’t only have to respond to direct customer queries about your company, you can also look for tweeted questions to do with your industry that you can answer. You could even find funny or interesting questions to respond to, if you feel that you could shed some light on the subject.

Make sure your Twitter handle is in an obvious place on your website so that customers know how to get in contact with you. Put recently asked questions and answers in the FAQ section on your website: most people will look through this before turning to Twitter to help. It’s sometimes worth posting these FAQs on Twitter: useful information that might help your followers and customers.

Hopefully, your customers won’t have too many queries or complaints, but in the business world, they are inevitable. Thanks to Twitter, companies now have a platform on which they can communicate quickly and easily with their customers and vice versa. Twitter really is the first line of b2c communication in the modern world of social media.

How do you use Twitter as a customer service tool?