Crafting a better work experience

When I took over the customer service team at my last company, it was during a period of transition.

We’d just gone through an acquisition which, although welcome, meant we needed to reassess our resources, our tools, and our team’s strategy for the foreseeable future. I was also stepping from a senior role into a management role, and while neither management nor the team were new to me, the situation was changing quickly.

This presented a challenge: quickly leading the team through setting new expectations and requirements, while still delivering the same excellent customer service experience for our customers.

It also gave us an opportunity to move from good to great — by understanding where we were, where we wanted to go, and how we might get there.

Maybe you’ve also just taken over a new team, or you’re also going through an acquisition or reorganization. Or maybe you’re just looking to level up your support team.

Regardless of why you’re here, this article will help you understand what SMART goals are in the context of customer service and how to define SMART customer service goals for your team. It includes some examples of great customer service goals, and it will show you how to measure the success of your goals so your team can continue to grow and adjust your customer service strategy as needed.

Table of Contents

• Why Setting Customer Service Goals is Important
  • It makes good business sense
  • It makes for happier, more loyal customers
  • It makes for happier, more engaged customer support teams
• SMART Goals in Customer Service
• Setting SMART Customer Service Goals
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound
• 3 Examples of Customer Service Department Goals
  • Improve customer self-service
  • Implement a quality assurance program
  • Improve customer satisfaction
• 2 Examples of Customer Service Manager Goals
  • Improve customer service team engagement and satisfaction
  • Become the voice of your customer
• 2 Examples of Customer Service Representative Goals
  • Improve customer service skills
  • Owning the customer experience
• Customer service goals level up your team

Why Setting Customer Service Goals is Important

Being on a ship with no destination is unpleasant and nerve-wracking for everyone aboard.

Setting solid customer service goals for your team provides a common purpose and keeps everyone moving in the same direction. It improves your odds of reaching your destination: consistent excellent customer service.

And beyond the psychological benefits of having clear goals, there are plenty of more tangible benefits too.

It makes good business sense

Clear customer service goals ensure that your team’s efforts align with the broader objectives of the company, so it’s clear how your team is contributing to business growth.

It also means both you and the company can make more informed decisions about budget and resource allocation, using the real data and trends you glean from measuring your progress against your goals.

It makes for happier, more loyal customers

Goals focused on customer satisfaction directly contribute to improving the overall customer experience. Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal, to make repeat purchases, and to recommend your business to others.

Consistently meeting and exceeding your customer service goals also builds your company’s reputation for reliability and trustworthiness, which is essential for long-term brand success.

It makes for happier, more engaged customer support teams

Setting specific goals and measuring how each member works toward these objectives allows customer service teams and managers to identify strengths and weaknesses. It also allows individual team members to understand and direct their own professional development.

Well-defined goals also provide teams with a clear sense of direction and purpose. Team members who understand how their work contributes to larger goals are happier and more committed to the company’s success.

SMART Goals in Customer Service

You’ve probably heard of SMART goals before. It’s a handy mnemonic tool that reminds everyone that effective goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

But why do the goals you set for your customer service team (or that they set for themselves) need to be SMART?

The point of setting goals is to be as clear as possible about expectations:

• How you expect your team to work independently and with each other
• How you expect to create satisfied customers
• How you expect to contribute to your company’s success

There shouldn’t be ambiguity in customer service goals. That’s because while a well-defined goal tells your team members what success looks like, it also acts as a catalyst or guide to help you get there.

This may be from a customer standpoint (satisfaction, response time, self-service, etc.), from an individual perspective (performance or professional development), or from a company perspective (cost per customer, retention rate, expansion rate, etc.).

Setting SMART Customer Service Goals

First, keep in mind that you usually can’t jump right into creating a goal. There’s always an assessment period first.

You need to spend some time figuring out what the current state of your customer service team is.

Some questions you can ask to guide your assessment:

• What is our budget? Are we over or under-budget?
• What is our team capacity?
• What is our incoming ticket / chat / phone volume?
• Does our team capacity match our ticket volume?
• What are our most important customer service metrics (like first response time (FRT), average handle time (AHT), and customer satisfaction (CSAT))? What is the current baseline for each of those metrics?
• What are our most important customer success metrics (like Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer churn and retention rates, and customer lifetime value (CLV))? What is the current baseline for those metrics?
• What tools do we have? How much do they cost? Are they necessary?
• What tools don’t we have that we need?
• What internal and public-facing product resources do we have? What do we need?
• Are there any existing company goals that are relevant to the customer support team? If so, what is the team’s current progress / contributions toward those goals?

Your assessment will be highly dependent on your team and company, but these questions should give you an idea of the things you should consider as you work to define your goals.

Once you’ve done the foundational work to understand what your team needs to improve on, you can begin using that information to define your goals.

Let’s break it down in the context of a real customer service SMART goal.

Specific

Any goal you set should be clear and well-defined. For example, “answer customers faster” is a nice aim, but what are the channels where you want to answer customers faster? What does “faster” mean?

A more specific goal for reducing customer wait times would be to set a target first response time for a specific channel, such as: “Send a first response to customers within 60 seconds of their initial chat message.”

Depending on your needs, you could get even more specific: “Send a response to customers inquiring about their order status in 60 seconds or less.”

Measurable

Any customer service goal should be measurable, so you can understand whether you’ve achieved the goal (or not) and adjust your strategy appropriately.

Taking our example from above, a measurable target chat response time goal could be: “80% of customers will receive a response to their initial chat message within 60 seconds.”

Achievable

This is the point at which your initial assessment becomes really important.

“80% of customers will receive a response to their initial chat message within 60 seconds” may sound like an achievable goal. It might be doable if you have a simple product or many agents trained and available to handle chats.

But what if you have only two chat agents and are receiving hundreds of chats each day?

Of course, you still want to strive to improve their first response times, but you’ll have to set reasonable expectations to give your agents a fair shot at success.

An attainable goal in this context might instead involve increasing the initial chat response time or decreasing the percentage of customers you’re targeting, like this:

• 80% of customers will receive a response to their initial chat message within 120 seconds
• 60% of customers will receive a response to their initial chat message within 60 seconds

Your context will determine what makes the most sense for your team. Just remember to aim for a goal that’s stretching, yet realistic.

Relevant

This is another area in which your foundational assessment is key.

First, are your proposed customer service goals aligned with your customer service values and company’s objectives? If not, they won’t be effective or successful, no matter how well they fit the SMART parameters.

Secondly, are your goals relevant to your team? For instance, a manager with a high chat volume might adapt our example to involve implementing a chatbot in order to hit their desired initial chat response time goal.

But a manager with a low ticket volume probably can’t justify the time and expense of implementing a chatbot because the benefits will never outweigh the costs for their team.

Time-bound

This parameter is closely tied to being measurable. You won’t be able to determine whether you’ve succeeded unless you know when the goal needs to be achieved.

To make our example time-bound, we could edit it to read: “By the end of Q2 2024, we’ll be responding to 80% of customers within 60 seconds of their initial chat message.”

3 Examples of Customer Service Department Goals

Improve customer self-service

Customer service goals aren’t just about how your agents interact with your customers. Surveys have shown again and again that customers want the option to solve their own problems.

A goal for developing effective self-service could be:

“By [DATE] we’ll have launched a knowledge base with articles answering our 10 most frequently asked questions about [PRODUCT], resulting in at least a 10% reduction in tickets about those issues.”

Many knowledge base tools will have built-in ticket deflection tracking features, such as giving you the number of views for an article and the number of tickets created after the article was viewed.

You can also measure the success of this goal by tracking ticket volume for a specific category or tag over time.

Implement a quality assurance program

Implementing a quality assurance program is a great way to improve overall customer satisfaction, response and resolution times, and brand recognition. It’s also a more objective way to measure and track agent performance and to kick-off conversations about professional development with your team.

It might look like this:

“In January 2024, develop a draft QA scorecard based on ticket reviews from the previous 3 months, so that we can begin calibration sessions with the team in February 2024.”

In this case, measuring success is relatively simple: is the draft scorecard available by February 2024 when calibration conversations must begin?

Improve customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is crucial to your support team’s success, but also the overall success of the company. To build a customer-first organization, improving or maintaining your customer satisfaction score should be one of your main goals.

A sample goal for CSAT could be:

“Each month next quarter, maintain an overall CSAT across text channels (chat and email) of 85% or better.”

You can gather CSAT ratings using built-in tools on your customer communication platforms, or through a dedicated CSAT tool to send customer surveys. Most tools will calculate your CSAT score or percentage automatically.

2 Examples of Customer Service Manager Goals

Improve customer service team engagement and satisfaction

As we’ve already covered, customer service agents are most engaged when they understand what their role is and can see how their contributions matter (both to their entire team and the company).

A goal for improving your customer service team’s overall engagement could be:

“Have a monthly one-on-one with each agent on my team and arrange at least one team social event a quarter, with the aim of reducing employee turnover by 10 percent by the end of the year.”

As you can see, this goal includes multiple conditions for success, and the team turnover rate is a metric that can be directly measured.

Become the voice of your customer

As a customer service manager, you get an especially broad view of how customers use and feel about your product. You also have the ability to take that customer feedback and put it in the hands of those who need it: your product team, your engineering team, your marketing team, and so on.

This can be as simple as implementing a public customer feature request tool where your customers can share their feedback and vote on what they want to see, or as complicated as setting up an internal, cross-functional customer feedback process.

The goal for becoming the voice of your customer could be:

“Have a bi-weekly Voice of the Customer meeting with the product development team, leading to at least one product bug fix and one new customer-requested feature release every quarter.”

You could measure this goal in a number of ways, depending on your strategy. If you have implemented a dedicated customer feedback tool, you can track customer usage against the rate of product releases and bug fixes. You could also track ticket volume in a specific category as well as any impact on CSAT ratings.

2 Examples of Customer Service Representative Goals

Improve customer service skills

Everyone has their specialties and their weaknesses, and your customer service agents are no different. Quality assurance programs are a great way to identify areas for improvement, but you may also uncover opportunities during performance and career development conversations.

Your customer service reps can improve by seeking training in special topics, professional development courses, and peer support. Working with each team member to set and achieve goals for improvement fosters a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

A good example of goal for your agent could be:

“Get training on my weakest skills as identified by our QA reviews during the next month so that my average handle time goes down to [TARGET] by the end of the quarter.”

They can measure the success of this goal through attendance and completion of training, as well as by looking for improved QA scores and handle times.

Owning the customer experience

The more customer service agents take ownership of their customers’ experience, the happier both they and the customer will be.

Owning the customer’s experience will mean something different for every team. It may look like being the customer’s one point of contact for an issue, or it may mean acting as the customer’s guide as they move through the escalation process.

It may look like answering every CSAT rating, good and bad, to thank the customer for their thoughts and solicit more feedback. Or it may mean reviewing their own customer interactions, identifying missed opportunities for exceeding customer expectations or anticipating customer needs, and devising strategies for doing so in the future.

A goal for owning the customer experience could be:

“I’ll reduce my ticket escalation rate by X percent in Q2 by being the primary agent on tickets about Y topic.”

Measuring your growth at owning the customer experience will depend a lot on what specifically that means for your company. For the example above, you’d measure the achievement by looking at the percentage of tickets you’re still escalating on the specific topic.

Customer service goals level up your team

As you’re building out goals for yourself or your customer service team, remember to take a step back occasionally and look at the big picture.

Are these goals aligned with your company and your team’s vision? Are they clear or confusing? Are they too inter-dependent, so that if you fail at one, you fail at them all?

There’s nothing magical about setting SMART goals. They’re a fantastic tool for customer service teams, but the real key is in making goal-setting a discipline and a habit you’re regularly engaging in. Setting goals is not a one-time task — it’s an ongoing process of adaptation and growth.

The landscape of customer service is always changing, and your goals will need to evolve with it.

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Ah, unhappy customers. The not-so-silent killer of business.

Our teams may deliver, innovate, and grow... but if customers aren't happy, we won't be doing it for long. Can't improve what you don't measure, so...

How do you actually measure customer happiness?

With customer satisfaction metrics.

There are dozens of them, but fret not, we've highlighted four key metrics easy to understand, track, and improve upon.

All right, let's get you the measuring tools you need to improve customer satisfaction.

But first, a definition

Table of Contents

• What are customer satisfaction metrics?
• The 4 main customer satisfaction metrics (and when to use them)some text
  • 1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  • 2. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT score)
  • 3. Customer effort score (CES)
  • 4. Churn rate
• Going beyond metrics

What are customer satisfaction metrics?

Customer satisfaction metrics are what companies use to understand how happy customers are with their product, customer service, and overall experience. These metrics provide insights into how well your organization does at delighting customers.

Customer satisfaction metrics also play a crucial role in developing your customer experience strategy. They’re a critical feedback loop that allows you to understand how your customers perceive your business and customer support, then to make course corrections where needed to keep improving.

The 4 main customer satisfaction metrics (and when to use them)

Some customer satisfaction metrics shed light on the performance of specific employees and departments, while others serve as indicators of the overall customer experience, reflecting the efforts of the entire organization.

Let’s dig into the key customer satisfaction metrics and explore benchmarks, examples, and situations where each of them is particularly useful.

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS score is a customer satisfaction metric that attempts to gauge your customers’ satisfaction based on their likelihood to refer others to your product or service. If a customer will enthusiastically tell their friends about your product, it’s a good indicator that they’re happy with what you’ve created.

Net Promoter Score is based on a single survey question:

How likely would you be to recommend X to your friend or colleague?

Respondents rate the likelihood of recommending your product or service on a scale from 1 to 10. Based on their rating, they fall into one of three groups:

• Detractors are customers who gave a rating from 1 to 6. They are not satisfied with your product and make up the largest group in the NPS model. That’s because negative customers are often the most likely to talk about their bad experience with you.
• Passives are customers with ratings from 7 to 8. They generally feel good about your product, but they aren’t overly enthusiastic. The NPS model suggests excluding them from the NPS equation.
• Promoters are respondents who provide ratings of 9 or 10. These customers love your product. They’re highly satisfied and likely to spread the good word.

How to calculate Net Promoter Score

First, determine the percentage of promoters and detractors from the total ratings pool.

Then, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. That gives you your Net Promoter Score:

NPS = % of promoters - % of detractors

Let's say you received 100 responses to your NPS survey. Out of these:

• 50 people gave scores of 9 or 10 (50% promoters)
• 30 people provided ratings of 7 or 8 (30% passives)
• 20 customers appeared to be detractors (20% of the total responses)

In this case, your NPS would be 30, calculated as 50% promoters - 20% detractors.

Helpful tools

The good news is you don’t have to calculate your NPS score manually. Popular survey and user analytics tools like Survicate, Qualtrics, or SurveyMonkey can automate the process and handle the job for you.

How do you know if your NPS is good?

NPS can range from -100 (if all customers are detractors) to 100 (when all customers are promoters). But both of those are unlikely — you’ll usually land somewhere between those two extremes.

Any score above 0 is considered a good sign, as it indicates that you have more promoters than detractors. And generally speaking, the higher the number, the better. Benchmarking data varies across industries and company sizes, but according to recent research by Survicate, the overall NPS benchmark is defined at 32.

While benchmarking is helpful, paying attention to your NPS trend is just as important. An increasing NPS trend means that your efforts to improve customer satisfaction are paying off.

But if NPS drops despite your efforts, it’s probably the right time to revisit your customer service strategy and employ more comprehensive customer satisfaction analysis tools – such as customer interviews or analyzing support tickets to better understand the source of customer dissatisfaction.

When to use Net Promoter Score

Theoretically, you can use NPS to track customer satisfaction with any product, service, or even documentation materials and specific touchpoints in the customer journey. While that’s possible, practically speaking, NPS is usually used to assess overall customer satisfaction with a product.

The implementation of NPS can look different depending on the type of business:

• For web apps, it’s common to send email or in-app surveys after the onboarding stage and repeat them every quarter to maintain a regular pulse on the account.
• E-commerce stores typically follow up with an NPS survey via email within a week from the delivery date..
• Brick and mortar stores have more limited options, as digital surveys are rarely possible there. Instead, many stores opt for a physical machine with buttons that customers can press to share their feedback. In recent years, it’s becoming increasingly popular to use QR codes that customers can scan at the exit to provide their NPS score and feedback.

Product and marketing teams often rely on NPS as a key performance indicator (KPI) to gain insights into customer satisfaction and track it over time. However, other departments can also benefit from NPS.

Freich Reichheld, the developer of NPS, suggests that it can be a tool to predict customer loyalty. Customer success teams often leverage NPS as a data point for churn prediction models and within customer health score formulas to identify at-risk accounts.

Pros & Cons

• Insights into the overall customer satisfaction.

• Likelihood to recommend a product doesn’t always correlate with customer satisfaction. Nor does it mean customers actually are recommending your product.
• It isn’t always clear where to make improvements based solely on NPS data.

2. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT score)

The CSAT score is a customer satisfaction metric widely used by customer-facing teams to gauge “in-the-moment” customer satisfaction at specific customer touchpoints.

The score is calculated based on a CSAT survey asking customers to rate their recent experience with your company. It’s like a snapshot of the customer’s satisfaction level at that particular moment.

How to calculate CSAT score

Your CSAT score is the percentage of customers who rated their experience positively.

To calculate it, categorize your customer satisfaction survey responses into ‘satisfied’ and ‘unsatisfied’ categories. If you’re using the typical 5-grade scale, you’ll define ratings from 1 to 3 as ‘unsatisfied’ and assume that ratings 4 and 5 indicate satisfied customers.

The next step is to determine the percentage of customers who provided satisfied ratings. This percentage becomes your CSAT score.

CSAT score = (number of ‘satisfied’ ratings / total number of ratings) * 100%

For example, let’s say you have 100 customers complete your survey and 80 of them indicate a satisfaction level of 4 or 5. In that case, your CSAT score would be 80% (80 satisfactory ratings / 100 total number of ratings * 100%).

How do you know if your CSAT score is good?

A CSAT score can range from 0% to 100%. A score under 50% is concerning, because it means you have more unsatisfied customers completing your survey than satisfied customers.

In highly-competitive industries, like SaaS or ecommerce, the benchmark hovers around 80%.

The higher your CSAT score, the better. Just know that achieving a perfect 100% in the long run is unrealistic, even with top-notch service. There will always be some random scores or customers having a bad day. In my experience, a 95% CSAT score is an attainable goal for a high-performing customer service team.

You should also expect a 5%-20% CSAT survey response rate, to get enough data for a reliable score. If you receive fewer ratings, revisit your survey settings, including the timing of your surveys, the messaging you use, and the communication channel.

When to use CSAT

While some companies use CSAT surveys to gauge customer satisfaction with help articles or specific product features, the most common use is to assess the performance of customer-facing teams.

Although you can send a CSAT survey after every customer interaction, I strongly recommend against it. It can be annoying, especially since many of us are bombarded with various surveys on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis.

Instead, send CSAT surveys as follow-ups after key touchpoints with your team to measure how happy customers are with the service provided. Here are some common touchpoints to consider:

• After a support conversation
• After a sales demo
• After a business review session with your customer success team
• After an in-store purchase

Many companies use CSAT score as a KPI for their customer-facing team, reviewing scores of both individual contributors and teams to evaluate performance.

Pros & Cons

• Allows measurement of customer satisfaction at specific touch points along the customer journey.
• Gives customers an opportunity to provide instant feedback.

• "Satisfaction" is a subjective team, and what it means to be "satisfied" varies due to cultural biases.
• Like any survey, response rates will vary and your results may not always reflect your wider customer base

3. Customer effort score (CES)

Customer effort score indicates how easily customers find it to use your product or get assistance from your team. Unlike traditional satisfaction metrics, CES focuses on measuring the ease of the customer experience.

The score is based on a survey where instead of questions about satisfaction, customers are prompted to assess how easy or difficult it was to complete a task, such as navigating the product or getting the answers they needed.

Customer effort score has been gaining in popularity, often replacing CSAT scores in support teams’ performance management.

The main benefit of using CES is that it helps differentiate between overall product satisfaction and customer satisfaction with the support experience, focusing on how easy it is for customers to receive assistance. If customers consistently find something difficult, you have a clear area you can work on improving.

How to calculate CES

Customer effort score is measured with a 7-point scale. To determine your CES, divide the number of 5, 6, and 7 ratings — customers who rated an experience as easy — by the total number of ratings, then multiply the result by 100%.

CES score = (number of 5, 6, 7 ratings / total number of ratings) * 100%

For example, if 100 customers submit responses and 60 of them give ratings of 5 or higher, your CES score would be 60% (60 ratings of 5 or higher / 100 total number of ratings * 100%).

How do you know if your CES is good?

Your CES score can range from 0% to 100%. The higher your CES score, the better.

But since CES is a relatively new metric (invented by Gartner in 2010), benchmarking data is still limited. And even with more data, there probably won’t ever be a one-size-fits-all number, as products and services can vary in ease of use even within the same industry or across different touchpoints within the same company.

Having a higher CES score than your competitors doesn't necessarily imply that your customers are less satisfied or unhappy (although reducing customer effort is almost always a good idea). A high score can simply indicate that your product is more feature-rich and advanced, or that you need to invest more in customer onboarding.

To gauge the effectiveness of your customer experience efforts, monitor how your CES changes over time and look for trends.

When to use customer effort score

CES is becoming increasingly popular as a KPI for customer-facing teams aiming to provide more effortless service. According to some research, creating experiences that are consistently easy is a more reliable predictor of customer loyalty than other metrics.

Common touchpoints to send CES survey include:

• After receiving assistance from your customer support team
• After engaging with your product or service for the first time
• When viewing self-service resources.

Survey timing is crucial for CES. Aim to send it immediately after the measured experience, while the memory is still fresh in your customer’s mind. Significant delays can lead to inaccurate scores as customers will struggle to recall all the details.

Pros & Cons

• Highly actionable, providing insight into exact touchpoints requiring the most effort from customers.
• May be a better predictor of customer loyalty than CSAT.

• Can be misleading without context or without understanding the overall complexity of the product or service.

4. Churn rate

Churn rate is the ultimate customer satisfaction metric, because it measures the rate at which you lose customers. When customers cancel their service with you, it’s usually a clear indicator that they’re unhappy or that they found an option they prefer more.

Satisfied customers are less likely to leave – as long as your product isn’t seasonal and there’s a strong product-market fit, of course.

Although it’s a broad-reaching metric that’s impacted by way more than just your customer support team, churn rate can help you find connections between your customer experience efforts and business success.

How to calculate churn rate

Calculating customer churn rate is quite straight-forward and can be done on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis.

First, divide the number of customers lost during a given period of time by the number of customers you had at the beginning of that period. Then, multiply the result by 100%.

Churn rate = (number of customers lost / number of customers at the beginning of time period) * 100%

For example, if you start a month with 100 customers and lose 20 customers by the end of the month, your monthly churn rate would be 20% (20 customers lost / 100 customers at the beginning of the month * 100%).

Helpful tools

Tools like Profitwell or Baremetrics can seamlessly integrate with your payment systems and retrieve the real-time churn rate with a button click. Both tools offer churn rate forecasts, help identify correlations, and can even reduce churn.

For example, by automating follow-ups on overdue invoices when churn is primarily attributed to failed charges rather than intentional cancellations.

Is your churn rate reasonable?

The lower your churn rate, the better. It should be lower than your growth rate and ideally below 7% annually.

A high churn rate undermines business growth, because it means all of the effort and money you’re spending to attract new customers is worth less. Even if your sales team is doing their jobs well, your business may not grow. A high churn rate can signal issues with customer experience and potential misalignment with your ideal customer profile (ICP).

When to use churn rate

Churn rate is crucial for all subscription businesses, especially when it comes to financial reporting and forecasting. The lower your churn rate, the more valuable each customer is and the more revenue you’ll see from them over time.

Despite your efforts, some customers will churn and it’s normal. Churn rate doesn’t always indicate dissatisfaction — a customer might love your product, but find they no longer have a need for it, so they cancel. Or perhaps their budget got cut and they were forced to make a tough decision.

If your churn rate is higher than expected, make time to dig into the triggers leading to churn. Churn rate is a lagging metric — you can’t measure it until after you’ve lost those customers. So when you see churn rate increasing, you need to move quickly to get ahead of it and find ways to improve your product and your customer experience.

Understanding the reasons customers churn is a critical first step in identifying ways to address issues and improve customer retention.

Pros & Cons

• Helps understand the effect of customer satisfaction on finances and growth

• Not very actionable on its own. It requires further investigation and analysis to identify specific areas for improvement.
• Affected by a vast range of factors, making it difficult to pinpoint underlying issues

Going beyond metrics

While metrics and quantified data are excellent for setting KPIs and identifying trends, it's crucial to delve deeper than a simple rating to truly understand your customers. Creating opportunities for them to share open-ended feedback openly and frequently is key.

In my experience, adding a free-text field to our CSAT survey proved invaluable. We discovered that, despite poor metrics, customers were quite content, and all the low ratings stemmed from a few easily fixable product issues. They were happy with our customer service, but their dissatisfaction with the product was showing up in our CSAT surveys.

The opposite is possible, too. You may find that while customers are happy with the specific experiences you measure, they may not be satisfied with your overall product.

These examples highlight why customer feedback is so crucial. The more you can make people feel heard and valued, the more open and honest feedback you’ll receive. With tools like Missive, you can automate follow-ups with customers, giving them opportunities to feel heard, appreciated, and motivated to share more. This ultimately helps you improve your customer experience and boosts your bottom line.

If you're keen on taking control of your team communications & customer support, give Missive a try for free!

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Creating a good customer experience is a heavy lift for any organization. It requires constant maintenance and continuous improvement, a process usually referred to as customer experience optimization.

86% of consumers say they’re willing to pay more for a superior customer experience. And 80% of customers surveyed by Qualtrics said they have switched brands due to a poor customer experience .

In today’s market, there just isn’t room for delivering a bad customer experience today.

Due to constant change in technology and consumer expectations, customer experience is in perpetual evolution. This means you’re never really “done” optimizing your customer experience — it’s an ongoing process. Every business needs to regularly revisit what it means to have an “optimized” customer experience.

Table of Contents

• What is Customer Experience Optimization?
• 4 pillars of CXO
• Why customer experience optimization is important
• Challenges of customer experience optimization
• 7 tips for optimizing the customer experience
• Optimizing your customer experience is a necessity

What is Customer Experience Optimization?

Customer experience optimization (CXO) is the ongoing process of enhancing all of your customer touchpoints throughout the customer journey. Customer experience optimization aims to create positive and valuable experiences that meet or exceed customer expectations. When CXO is done right, customers are happier and more loyal, and they will advocate for your brand.

Customer experience can feel nebulous, because it’s ultimately about your customer’s perception of how your company treats them. Every customer who encounters your brand has their own perception of your business, and that perception affects their behavior with your service or product.

A customer who associates negative experiences with your brand is less likely to become a loyal customer. In contrast, a customer who has had a positive experience with your brand is more likely to be a long-time satisfied customer.

So how do you shape the perception customers have of your business? How do you impact customer behavior?

Let’s start by looking at the 4 pillars of customer experience optimization.

4 pillars of CXO

The 4 pillars of Customer Experience Optimization are:

• Personalization: Tailoring experiences to individual customer needs.
• Consistency: Ensuring uniform experience across all touchpoints.
• Responsiveness: Quick and effective responses to questions and feedback.
• Accessibility: Ease of interaction across various channels.

Focusing on each of these components is a great start to building a better (more optimized) customer experience. Let’s look at each of these more closely.

Personalization

Adobe reported that 67% of customers want a personalized experience .

The one-size-fits-all approach to customer experience is no longer an option. Customers come to a business from various backgrounds, with different types of problems, and with various (but often high) expectations.

That’s why creating a personalized experience is a must to be competitive in today’s business landscape. A personalized experience helps build trust and increases customer engagement, which increases customer loyalty. You need to understand who your customers are and what they need so that you can create an experience that resonates with them.

Consistency

We’ve all been here: we’re on the phone with a support agent only to find we’re getting transferred to another agent for help. The next agent answers the phone, and we find ourselves explaining our problem again.

Or maybe you’re stuck with a product, so search Google for some help documentation — only to find information that contradicts what you learned during the sales process.

Either scenario is frustrating, and both illustrate a lack of consistency in the customer journey.

Customer-facing team members must be well-trained and equipped with the right tools and information at the right time to deliver a consistent customer experience. Web pages and other resources should contain up-to-date information without discrepancies that may confuse customers. Designers and writers should be trained and have access to your company style guide to ensure any customer-facing graphics or content are true to your company’s brand.

Consistency is hard to manage across dozens or hundreds of touchpoints, but it’s a critical part of customer experience optimization. It’s more than how you engage customers. Consistency across the entire customer journey makes customers more confident in your brand. The more confidence your customers have, the more trust you will build with them.

Responsiveness

Consumer expectations evolve alongside the evolution of technology. You could even say that our patience has plummeted as we become more technologically dependent. When things go wrong or when we have a question, we want an answer quickly.

It is, after all, what we expect.

A Forrester study reported that 77% of consumers say that valuing their time is the number one thing companies can do to provide a great online customer experience. To be responsive, companies — and the teams within those companies — must be equipped with the right resources and technology.

If you have customers all around the world, that might mean offering 24/7 support. Or it might mean implementing an AI-powered chatbot that’s always available to handle your most common customer inquiries.

Start by tracking your response time and other time-based customer service KPIs so you have an idea of where you’re at today, then work to improve it over time.

Accessibility

In addition to fast responses, customers want an effortless experience when it comes to using your product and finding help. Customers today want a seamless user experience and an omnichannel support experience.

Removing friction from the customer experience will help decrease the effort required for customers to get their problems solved, which leaves room for increasing customer satisfaction.

Simple tactics like making sure it’s easy to find your support team’s contact information or embedding help guides within your product go a long way to making your company seem more accessible.

Why customer experience optimization is important

Optimizing the customer experience will help your business grow.

Delivering a great and consistent experience is something prospective customers will recognize. They are also likely to tell people about their experiences, which can exponentially increase your brand’s awareness and, ultimately, your growth rate.

Even better, Deloitte’s research found that customers who have a positive experience are likely to spend 140% more than customers who have negative experiences. That’s good news for your bottom line.

A good customer experience will also increase engagement from existing customers. No one wants to use a product that’s difficult to use or that comes with a poor customer service experience. Customers will be more likely to use your product more when the experience meets or exceeds their expectations.

In short, optimizing your customer experience will retain existing customers and bring in new customers.

Challenges of customer experience optimization

Optimizing the customer experience is incredibly valuable, but it comes with challenges. Here are obstacles you should look out for as you begin your customer experience optimization journey.

Accessing the right data

It’s hard to optimize your customer experience without accurate data about your customers. Unfortunately, many CX leaders find it difficult to capture or access the data they need.

To overcome this challenge, you’ll need to work closely with your engineering or data teams. If your organization already uses tools like Tableau or Looker, you may be able to set up dashboards or reports that make accessing and analyzing data far easier.

Giving up on your optimization efforts

CXO is not a one-time thing. The ongoing need to optimize the customer experience is a challenge in itself. Companies must be invested in optimizing the customer experience all the time. It’s one of the cost of having a business in today’s world.

As your product or service changes, your customers’ expectations and needs will also change. Don’t set it and forget it. Empower a team or a person to own the customer experience and continually act on opportunities to improve it.

Choosing the wrong tools

You’ll need tools and systems to build and maintain a great customer experience. Choosing the wrong technology will only make this difficult task harder.

For example, you might choose a tool that serves your support team’s needs well, but fail to consider how it integrates with your data visualization tool or the CRM your sales team is using. Because having a clear view of your customer’s holistic experience with your brand is important, this would be a painful misstep that would require a lot of time or money to correct.

When choosing CX tools, involve stakeholders from other business teams to ensure you’re accurately understanding how they’ll interact with your entire tool stack.

7 tips for optimizing the customer experience

Now let’s look at some specific ways you can optimize your customer experience.

Create a customer journey map

A great customer experience starts with understanding as much as you can about your customers . A good way to start learning about your customers is to map out their journey with your brand by creating a customer journey map, which is a visual representation of the ways they interact with you. A good journey map also highlights your customers’ needs and expectations at each point of the journey. Once you’ve mapped out every customer touchpoint, you’re able to optimize the experience at each point.

Leverage data

In addition to a customer journey map, you can use customer data to learn more about your customers. Quantitative data like purchase details, geographical location, and industry type give you details about customers so you can segment customers and personalize their experience.

Qualitative data, like customer feedback and customer support conversations, help paint a fuller picture of your customers. Combining both types of data enables you to create both product and support experiences leads that are optimized to your customers — not to some generic avatar or audience that isn’t buying from your business.

Understand purchase motives

Your customers are hoping to “hire” your product to do a job for them. Do you know the job your customers are looking for your product or service to do for them? By understanding the pain points your customers are facing, you gain a deeper understanding of their purchase motives — the reason they bought your product. You can uncover these motives by using the Jobs to Be Done framework and asking questions like:

• When using our product, what’s the final outcome you’re hoping for?
• Why did you choose our product over other competitors?
• If our product wasn’t available to you, what would you do instead?

Understanding purchase motives enables you to guide your customers to that “aha” moment of achieving their goal faster, creating a more powerful experience from the get-go.

Create a personalized experience

With qualitative and quantitative data and an understanding of the customer’s purchase motives, you can craft a unique and personalized experience that resonates with your customers.

Simple ways to personalize your customer experience include:

• Using your customers’ names in your product and in your communications with them, including your canned responses .
• Making it easy for support agents to review past conversations with each customer.
• Soliciting customer feedback and letting them know once you’ve acted on it.

There’s plenty more you can do to personalize your customer experience and create meaningful customer connections.

Optimize content

As we mentioned earlier, customer experience optimization is looking at every touchpoint your customers have with your product or service. A touchpoint can be many different things, including any web page on the internet related to your company.

So ask yourself:

• When you search Google for a common question about your product, what web pages are showed first?
• Do you have old, outdated web properties showing up?
• Is your help center easy to read on a mobile device?
• Is your sales team using the most recent version of your company sales deck?

Have a plan in place to maintain your customer-facing content and ensure you’re delivering consistent, up-to-date, and valuable information.

Experiment

Experimentation and personalization are a powerful combination when it comes to customer experience optimization. You never know exactly how a change will affect your customer experience, so run experiments to see how different approaches to personalization impact things like customer satisfaction or retention.

For example, you can experiment with two different onboarding processes or different types of messaging. If you try two different formats in your onboarding emails, which one has the higher open and click-through rates?

Be consistent

It’s important to deliver a consistent experience across all customer-facing channels. Giving customers a consistent experience sets clear expectations for them.

For instance, a consistent tone of voice across your emails, chatbot, and help center helps customers know who they’re talking to. Clear policies help them know what to expect when working with you. Consistent response times enable customers to know you’ll follow through on your promises.

Being consistent requires a good amount of planning and disciplined execution. Your customer journey map will help you identify where you can inject consistency throughout the entire customer experience.

Optimizing your customer experience is a necessity

We’ve seen a massive shift over the last ten years. Nowadays, it seems like every company is claiming that they’re “customer-centric.” It’s no longer enough to just make the sale — you have to make the sale and keep customers coming back for more. This is largely due to the transition to a subscription-based business model in so many industries, but it’s also due to an increase in competition.

But what does “customer-centric” mean today?

A customer-centric company is one where everyone at the organization — from the frontline support agent to the CEO — is thinking about the customer every day. It’s a company that optimizes the customer experience and makes decisions with the customer in mind.

Customer experience optimization is a cross-functional effort . Everyone from CX to engineering to product managers and executives needs to be involved. Everyone has a role to play.

As your customer’s expectations evolve and change, you’ll see big benefits — like high retention rates — if you consistently optimize your customer experience.

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There’s a saying in the support world: no one majors in customer service.

Which is to say, that there’s no single educational or career path that will prepare you specifically for this kind of impactful work. Most of us go on a professional journey before arriving at our final destination of a customer support career.

It also means that we pick up the excellent customer service soft skills we need to do our jobs along the way, sometimes formally (through college education) or informally through direct work in different customer-facing fields.

That was definitely true in my case. My college and career journey has spanned everything from journalism to public health to logistics. While my career hasn’t been a direct path, it’s proven over and over how soft skills are in customer service.

It’s also reinforced an important point over and over: it’s never too late to improve your soft skills.

Whether you’re a college student working part-time or a career customer support person, this post will help you understand more about the skills that are so important to customer service — and why you should invest time and effort into mastering them.

Table of Contents

• What are soft skills?
• The benefits of soft skills in customer service
• 8 soft skills proven to improve customer service
• How to train your soft customer service skills
• Balancing soft skills and hard skills

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are commonly distinguished from “hard” skills on the grounds that they have to do with things like emotional intelligence and communication ability, while “hard skills” are more technical competencies like coding or accounting. Ostensibly, hard skills are measurable, whereas soft skills are more abstract.

But here’s where I have to break with common wisdom (a bit).

As a longtime customer support professional and as a hiring manager and leader, I don’t think there’s anything “soft” about the support agents need to do their jobs well in customer service. Many software engineers couldn’t handle a phone call with an aggressive customer — there’s nothing “soft” about the skills needed to calm them down and find a path forward.

I also disagree with the idea that soft skills aren’t measurable, particularly in the realm of customer service.

Do you have a best-in-class customer satisfaction (CSAT) rating? That’s a measure of your support team’s empathy and care.

Do you have a high bug fix rate and feature release tempo? That’s a measure of your support team’s problem-solving skills, their ability to build productive and healthy relationships with other teams, and to advocate on your customers’ behalf.

Do you have a high Net Promoter Score and retention rate? That’s a measure of your customer support team's active listening skills and their ability to anticipate and address your customers’ needs (i.e., their emotional intelligence).

Do you get an outpouring of understanding and support from your customers following major outages? That’s a measure of your support team’s positive attitude, helpfulness, conflict resolution, and de-escalation skills.

I could go on. Suffice it to say that while it’s okay to use the term soft skills as a categorization method, it’s important to remember that they’re just as vital and valuable as any other skills.

The benefits of soft skills in customer service

If you’re still not convinced, let’s go over some hard numbers:

• Customers who have a good customer experience are likely to spend a whopping 140% more than customers who have a bad experience with your company.
• 96% of customers say the customer service a brand offers plays a role in their loyalty to that brand.
• On the opposite end of the spectrum, 61% of customers have ended a conversation with a customer service agent mid-call out of frustration, while 71% of customers have dealt with a rude customer service agent (yikes!).
• When customers leave a company, 68% of the time it’s because of poor service

All of these points are somewhat related to customer service agents’ soft skills. Their ability to remain calm even when a customer is rude, be empathic, and understand your customers’ problems will directly impact their experience with your brand.

In sum, soft skills in customer service will help keep customers happy, loyal and even make them spend more.

8 soft skills proven to improve customer service

1. Empathy, compassion, and patience

Ok, this is kind of three skills in one. But they’re so related and interconnected that separating them is difficult.

Customers are often contacting us in moments of real need and frustration. Sometimes they just won’t be at their best.

Empathy and compassion are required in order for us to truly understand their problems and make them feel heard. Through showing empathy, you also give customers permission to express themselves honestly, so that they can trust you to fix their problems.

Patience is crucial in all customer interactions, regardless of the product or service you’re offering. Customers may not have the technical understanding of why something isn’t working, so your support agents have to be capable of kindly drawing out the information you need or guiding them through a solution, without pressure or judgment.

2. De-escalation and conflict resolution

Customers don’t reach out for customer service because they enjoy it — they reach out because they need help. And while abusive customers can happen at times, most customers aren’t overly aggressive. They’re just regular people working through frustration, stress, fear, pain, and probably other private struggles you’re not privy to.

And if they’ve had poor customer service experiences with other companies, sometimes they’re coming to you conditioned to expect the same poor treatment. That makes it extra important to be able to hear and constructively address a customer’s feelings without taking it personally or making judgments about it.

This reduces stress for both you and the customer. It shows them you see their humanity and helps them trust that you want to help.

By remaining calm and de-escalating conversations, you create positive associations with your company. You help customers get to a place where they can share what’s really going on.

3. Positive attitude and friendliness

Customer perception can form instantly, and when customers are frustrated or when a problem can’t be solved right away, a positive and friendly attitude can work wonders.

Simply reframing the language you use to be positive instead of negative can have a big impact.

For example, instead of saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t offer you a refund,” you could try, “I can get that product replaced for you, would that help?”

The second option offers a solution and asks for the customer’s input, rather than providing a dead-end that the customer has to figure out how to get around.

Similarly, putting a smile and warmth in your voice when you speak to customers over the phone or appropriately using emojis over chat builds a customer’s trust and good feelings about the company’s brand. It’s a bit of a cliché, but people can often tell if you’re smiling when you answer the phone.

4. Effective verbal and written communication

Effective communication fosters understanding and builds emotional connections with your customers. These two things are core to creating an engaging experience that’s catered to each customer’s needs.

Customer service agents must be able to explain information clearly, concisely, and at the customer’s learning level. They need to be able to guide customers through tasks like troubleshooting step-by-step, so customers don’t get confused or frustrated. Reply templates can help, but they’re best used as a starting point.

Clear and effective communication is vital no matter the support channels you’re using — whether you’re talking to customers over the phone, managing your team inbox, or handling live chats.

It really is the core of the job.

5. Active listening and attentiveness

The ability to be present and listen actively to customers is a key skill for any customer service agent.

By actively listening, you can often glean insights from what the customer’s not saying or how they’re conveying information to you, which means you can ask more informed and relevant questions that will get you to a solution faster.

Moreover, customers hate having to repeat themselves. By actively listening, you can show your customer that you value their time as well as their business.

6. Curiosity, adaptability, and resilience

It’s not unusual for support agents to run into situations or issues they’ve never encountered before — in fact, that’s pretty much status quo for customer service professionals.

When a customer brings us a gnarly problem or asks about a part of the product we’ve never even heard of, we have to be able to respond with curiosity and flexibility (not panic). Resilience is just as necessary because sometimes you just have to buckle down and work on an issue until it’s resolved without getting tired or flustered.

When even the most unpredictable issues are handled calmly and confidently, it builds customer confidence in your team and your brand.

7. Problem-solving and resourcefulness

It’s not enough to be curious about a new topic or bug. You have to know how to work the problem and go about finding answers within a reasonable amount of time, so that you’re not leaving customers hanging with no resolution or explanation.

This could mean having god-level Google-fu, or having a tried-and-true troubleshooting methodology. It might also mean knowing what tool or database to query for answers, or knowing who to ask for help (and when).

The greatest customer service agents are super sleuths, tracking down answers with creativity and determination.

8. Ownership and advocacy

Speaking of asking for help, customer service agents should be a customer’s greatest advocate.

While support agents may handle dozens of customer conversations each day, they’re probably only interacting with each customer once. Here’s what that means:

What’s routine for you is rare for your customer.

Your support team does two things when they take ownership of each customer’s problem:

• They create a satisfied customer
• They transmit valuable feedback to the rest of your organization

Creating opportunities for advocacy across your customer service team makes them more than just a transactional machine handling routine questions. Instead, they become an invaluable asset to your company. They become your customers’ champions.

How to train your soft customer service skills

Did you read through that list and come across a few skills you’d like to work on or to help your team improve in?

Being a good customer support agent means always being open to growth, and although there’s no degree in customer service (yet!), there are many ways you can beef up your customer service skills.

As the customer service profession has grown and evolved, so have the resources available to us for learning and improving our most important customer service skills.

You can find professional education and courses on all the skills we covered in this article on training platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, and more.

Customer service professionals and leaders have also written many books covering these soft skills and related topics, including some of the tougher competencies to build on like empathy, growth mindset, and adaptability. Some recommendations include:

• Never Lose a Customer Again
• The Service Culture Handbook
• Exceptional Customer Service

Finally, your peers and leaders are excellent resources for developing your customer service soft skills.

Take advantage of peer feedback and mentorship your team can offer. Role-playing customer interactions with your team is a great way to practice conflict resolution and active listening in a low-stakes environment.

Balancing soft skills and hard skills

Customer service professionals are the living embodiment of why it’s important to maintain a balance between soft skills and hard skills.

We keep customers happy by understanding their problems, solving them, and listening to their feedback.

We keep our product and engineering teams happy by understanding and valuing their work, translating customer needs into business objectives and technical requirements, and helping those teams fulfill their commitments to the product and customers.

If I can share maybe the most pivotal lesson I’ve learned in my customer service career, it’s that there are no hard skills without soft skills.

It’s a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship, and when you find someone who can demonstrate both skill sets, it’s a beautiful thing.

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Nearly 80% of customers say speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service are the key ingredients to any great buying experience.

But the pressure of delivering that experience usually falls at the feet of your customer service team. The reality is, no matter how well you train a customer service team, sooner or later they will be hit with a scenario they won't know how to deal with.

When it happens, they will either sink or swim… right? Well, there is also a third option—equipping them with a customer service values playbook.

Customer service values are essentially a compass to guide support reps on how to communicate and handle customer interactions. If a customer service representative doesn't know how to deal with conflict or thinks a customer is about to go to a competitor, these values act as a rulebook on how they should interact and react to every situation.

In this guide, we will walk you through why customer service values are so important and how to implement them to keep customers happy.

Let's dive in!

Table of Contents

• What are customer service values
• Why customer service values are important for your business
• Best Practices to Implement Customer Service Values at Your Company
• Excellent Customer Service Values Examples That Won Over Loyal Customers
  • 1. Chewy wins customers over with empathy
  • 2. Nordstrom puts customer satisfaction first
  • 3. LANDR uses consistent communication to educate customers
• Customer Service Values Should Always Be Aligned With Your Company’s Values

What are customer service values

Customer service values are strategies and principles that guide customer service staff to ensure every buying experience is positive, from communication to product satisfaction. In practice, they are words or phrases that encapsulate how support agents should interact with customers.

These core values directly align with a brand's mission statement and act as a benchmark for how your support team should deal with issues, communicate with customers, and talk about the brand publicly. Because of this, customer service values make a huge impact on a company's reputation and bottom line.

Why customer service values are important for your business

Customer service values are a compass for how service representatives should talk to and treat customers.

Essentially, these values are a framework that empower every decision a customer service rep makes, from how they talk to customers to how disputes are resolved and what ethos the company wants to portray.

A customer service team aligned behind core values not only creates a consistent customer experience, but also empowers employees to take charge in handling customer complaints and give customers a better experience.

To really figure out why customer service values are so important, I trawled through Newsweek’s America’s Best Customer Service 2023 report. It surveyed 30,000 U.S. customers over three years to see what made them open their wallets and buy from a company. Scores were based on 5 factors:

And… the winners were a bit of a surprise.

Usually, these types of customer service articles list the same brands, like Zappos or Apple, as benchmarks. But the Newsweek survey had different results. Customers voted for brands like Everlane for best online apparel retailer and Nordstrom Rack for best brick-and-mortar discount clothing outlet.

But why do customers love these brands so much? 🤔

Simple. Most companies have built trust with customers thanks to a solid set of customer service values based around consistent communication, empathy, focus, and satisfaction.

As a discount retailer, Nordstrom Rack has built its reputation on providing Nordstrom-level service at lower price points. Their values around friendliness, individual attention and making every customer feel valued have helped them gain and maintain loyal customers.

As for Everlane, its values of prioritizing transparency in its supply chain and communication offers customer an insight into ethical manufacturing and transparent pricing. Both companies clearly demonstrate how aligning operations with values can help build relationships and drive positive customer experiences.

So, how can you implement customer service values to give every customer the same experience with your brand? 🤔

Best Practices to Implement Customer Service Values at Your Company

Having great customer service require all your customer service employees to follow the same playbook to do their job well.

Defining clear customer values is the most crucial part to set the standard for how employees in the company should interact with customers and with each other. For example, if a core customer service value is integrity and transparency, a team is empowered to admit mistakes and take ownership if there is a problem with a customer's order.

Here are some best practices to follow when you create customer service values:👇

1. Get the Basics Right

Every customer service value strategy should be built from wider company values. Usually, these are taken from key principles like:

• Empathy. Each interaction with a customer should show genuine understanding and compassion while acknowledging and resolving their issues. In short: put yourself in your customer's shoes.
• Reliability. Customers need brands to show up and be dependable when they need them. Good customer service = meeting deadlines and hitting targets around shipping times/refunds.
• Responsiveness. Customers want quick responses and problem-solving. Responsiveness can significantly impact customer experience and can leave a good (or bad) taste in their mouth after dealing with your brand.
• Transparency. Customers expect you to be honest with them about products, services, pricing, and policies. It can build trust in your brand and help resolve conflicts if there are ever any issues.

Once you have laid this foundation, it's time to shape each value so it's unique to your brand.

Let's use Netflix's cultural values set as a hypothetical example.

It's clear the company wants to empower its employees to do great work by using sound judgment, good communication, and treating people with respect. Netflix could use these wider company values to create more direct customer services values for its team, like:

• Inclusion: Treat every customer with respect, no matter how long they have been a customer. Every Netflix customer is important.
• Communication: Remain calm and courteous every time you speak to a customer. Search for the root cause of the problem so you can make an informed decision about how to resolve it.
• Judgment: Always take a customer at their word. If they say their experience is subpar or they have been billed incorrectly, trust them and deal with their complaint immediately.

This example shows just how easy it is for a company already with a solid set of cultural values in place to create specific values for its customer service team. If a Netflix customer service rep faced a problem they weren't trained to deal with, these core values can guide them when handling the issue.

2. Create Concise Values

A common pitfall when creating a customer service value strategy is to go overboard.

The reality is, you don't need 20 customer service values written into a code of ethics for your team to succeed. Choose around 3-5 core values to guide your customer service agents when making decisions.

These may be customer service values like:

• Conflicts: When faced with a problem, treat customers with empathy, respect, and always aim for quick resolution.
• Always be positive: Centre every conversation around positivity and finding a happy resolution with the customer. When our customers are happy, we are happy.
• Authenticity: Good customer service feels fresh and real. Show our customers you can react and communicate in a personal, human way. Don't be afraid to inject your personality into conversations.
• Empowerment: Use your best judgment when speaking to customers. Make a decision based on your intuition and experience at our company.

Your values should also be short and easy for your team to remember. Whatever set of values you decide on will depend on your brand, but just make sure each one is directly tied to your wider values and company culture.

3. Use Values as a Foundation for a Customer Service SOP

Studies show companies that are more focused on solving customer problems grow faster than their competitors. But it's also important to make sure every customer problem is handled consistently.

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) outline how your team should handle specific situations consistently based on the values you defined.

Let's say a customer's order is lost. An SOP could provide a guideline tailored to your core values on how the agent should respond. Depending on your guiding principles, agent could:

• Option 1: Apologize and give the customer a timeframe on when the issue will be resolved
• Option 2: Immediately post out a new order to keep the customer happy

This SOP should also include finer details like what language the customer service rep should use to keep interactions consistent:

• Will the customer be asked for order/tracking information to confirm a parcel has been lost, or should the customer service rep trust the customer's word?
• Should they focus on being empathetic and authentic? Or is speed and urgency more important?
• Should their goal be to resolve the conflict immediately by sending out a replacement? Or resolve it in a way the customer prefers, like issuing a refund?

These small (yet important) details during a customer interaction could mean the difference between smooth conflict resolution and a bad review on Google. If customer interactions are based around core customer service values like empathy, trust, and respect, they are more likely to end positively.

At the end of the day, a set of customer service values help your support team do its best work and more importantly—keeps customers happy.

Excellent Customer Service Values Examples That Won Over Loyal Customers

Instead of putting a list of generic tips here, I decided to take a look at how real brands use customer service values to keep customers coming back.

What I found wasn't all that surprising. Companies that put customers first and consistently deliver don't just retain customers—they turn them into lifetime brand advocates.

This approach also pays off, a Deloitte study found that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than competitors that don't prioritize customer experience.

Let's look at how some brands win using customer service values. 👇

1. Chewy wins customers over with empathy

Chewy is an online pet supplies store that sells all the essentials like food, toys, treats, and even medicine.

After taking Newsweek's survey, customers ranked Chewy a whopping 9.16 outta 10 (and nearly .5 points ahead of second place). I looked at what customer service values made Chewy so special, and a few really stood out:

• 🐶 Partnership: One of the brand's taglines is "With Chewy, no one pet-parents alone". It's a promise to customers they will be there for every step of pet parenthood and equip them with everything they need to keep a pet happy and healthy.
• 💰 A customer first philosophy: Chewy has a 100% Unconditional Satisfaction Guaranteed Policy on every order. If a customer doesn't like a product, a customer service rep swiftly triggers a refund.
• ☎️ Availability: Chewy's team is available in the morning, noon, and even at 3 am. Thanks to 24/7 service (365 days a year), customer support is always open.
• 🍋 Understanding: They are experts at turning lemons into lemonade. For example, if an order arrives with the wrong product, the customer service team acts with understanding instead of thinking about lost profits. They ask the customer to donate the wrong items to a local animal shelter while they send out a replacement. This small gesture can help customers feel good and shows Chewy cares more about animals than money.

The one customer service value that stopped me in my tracks was Chewy's empathy towards customers.

Its customer service reps are trained to recognize how attached customers are to their animals—especially when they experience loss. When Anna Brose's beloved dog Gus passed away, she contacted Chewy to return some unopened food. Just look what happened next:

Thank you all for the kind messages and shared stories in the comments 💙 Gus would have been blown away! pic.twitter.com/DiopASuHIi— Anna Brose, MSc (@alcesanna) June 16, 2022

The tweet was flooded with hundreds of thousands of comments. Amazingly, some of them were from other customers saying they received the same empathetic support from Chewy. One customer even said Chewy sent a hand-painted portrait of their pet after she crossed the rainbow bridge. 🥺

These customer service values set brands like Chewy apart—and ensure its customers stick around for life.

2. Nordstrom puts customer satisfaction first

Nordstrom is so well known for its customer service, there has even been a book written about it.

It's easy to see why. If you open up Nordstrom's code of ethics, this ii the first thing you will see:

This core customer service value is a continuous theme for how the brand approaches customer service. It not only empowers employees to take care of customers, but it guides the customer service team on how to approach situations like product returns and conflict resolution.

Just take a look at how the retailer asks its team to use good judgment with its flexible returns policy. Regardless of the reason, Nordstrom allows customers to return products without hassle or time limits, and even without a receipt!

A quick Twitter search comes back with a ton of happy customers who have returned items TWO YEARS later—no questions asked.

Yesterday I returned a bra to @nordstrom that I bought in 2020 (and never used because it didn't fit well) and they gave me a full refund. Nordstrom's #customerservice truly cannot be beat! pic.twitter.com/zXGkhfEEVY— Katie-Rose Watson (@krwatson) February 11, 2022

The bottom line with Nordstrom's customer service values is a simple one: meet and exceed customer expectations—and they will shop with us again.

3. LANDR uses consistent communication to educate customers

You can't keep customers happy if they can only contact you between 9-5or if their only option for a refund is to call you. That strategy may have worked 20 years ago, but today—it's dead in the water.

A customer service department is only as efficient as the tech it uses. To track communications and connect with customers, agents need the right toolkit.

Here's an example:

LANDR is a creative platform that has helped over 2.5 million musicians turn their ideas into real tracks.

But as LANDR grew, its support team struggled to handle customer service queries. The team decided to use these questions as a chance to educate users on how to get the most out of the platform and build trust in the platform.

LANDR used Missive to communicate efficiently with users based on a core set of customer service values:

• Expertise. Each support team member covers one product line. This approach allows each support rep to become an expert in a specific feature and maximize value when they talk to a customer.
• Useful information. Thanks to Missive's collaboration feature, different customer service members can chime in and provide more information to users if needed.
• Quick communication. A lot of questions the customer service team receive are the same, so they use canned responses and templates to answer them in seconds.

LANDR now uses its customer service values around education and quick communication to build trust with customers and grow its brand.

Customer Service Values Should Always Be Aligned With Your Company’s Values

Your company's customer service values should act as the guiding principles to how you treat customers.

With a customer service values playbook, your team can navigate even the toughest scenarios with the right approach. Anchor every value to a wider company goal, like empathy, communication, or authenticity, to help set your service apart and empower your team to handle every situation with confidence.

Most importantly, a solid customer service values strategy will keep your team on the same page and ensure every customer has the same great experience with your brand.

Think about what your company stands for and build your customer service values from the ground up. As long as every value puts your customers first and follow customer service best practices—trust and customer loyalty will always follow. 🙌

Think about a brand you love.

I don't mean a store you buy from every now and then. I mean a company you hold a freakin' torch for. You are loyal to them. And it'll take a lot for you to change to a competitor.

For me, it's Apple.

Cliché, I know. But that company has always been there for me. When I dropped my laptop on my way to a lecture at University a couple (okay, more like 15) years ago. When I email them. When I drop into a Genius Bar because my phone is glitching and I need to get on a flight. When a new product feature drops that improves my working day. They are there.

In my mind, Apple is the perfect example of a customer-first company. Every product they have produced has been for its customers, from iPods to watches. Heck, even Steve Jobs said it was his job to figure out what we want before we do.

This is the epitome of a customer-first approach. It's a brand that puts customers' needs first and fulfills them so well, they never shop anywhere else.

So, how does a customer-first strategy like this work?

Let's take a look 👇

Table of Contents

• What does Customer First Mean?
• Benefits of Adopting a Customer-First Strategy
• 4 Steps to Implement a Customer First Approachsome text
  • Step 1: Figure Out What Your Customers (Actually) Want
  • Step 2: Listen To Customer Feedback and Input
  • Step 3: Talk to Customers 1-on-1 Whenever You Can
  • Step 4: Give Your Team The Tools to Serve Customers First
• Real-World Examples of Customer First Businesses

What does Customer First Mean?

A customer-first culture means a company puts their customer base at the center of every decision—from product design to initiatives, marketing campaigns and support.

With a customer-first approach, every product, service, conversation, campaign, and interaction is designed around what the customer wants. By listening, taking on feedback, and putting customers first, you lay the foundation for long-term partnerships with your customers so they stick around.

The tough reality about a customer-first approach is to achieve it, your productivity or even your bottom line might take a hit. However, with 65% of customers surveyed in a Khoros study admitting poor customer experience caused them to switch brands—putting customers first is a strategy worth pursuing.

To figure out what this really meant and what a customer-first company really had to do to succeed, I dug a little deeper.

That's when I found Bloomberg's Customer Centricity Index. It rates the world's leading brands on their customer-centric approaches. You might just recognize some of the names that made the leaderboard:

So, how did they crack the top 100? 🤔

Well, each company was tested on eight factors:

• ✓If they anticipate customer needs
• ✓How much they care about customers
• ✓If they manage to deliver exceptional customer service
• ✓How easy it is to do business with them
• ✓If their leadership is ethical
• ✓How honest are they with the public
• ✓If their products/services are relevant with customer's needs
• ✓If they respect customer privacy

Ticking all these boxes will score a company a slot at the top of the leaderboard. This checklist is a great foundation for what you should aim for if you want to turn your company into a customer-centric machine.

But before we dive into how to do that, let's take a detour and look at why a customer-first approach doesn't mean you should hand over control to customers.

"Customer First" vs. "The Customer is Always Right"—What's the Difference?

Don't confuse a customer first strategy with a customer is always right strategy.

A customer-first strategy will build a bridge between what a customer needs and what your company can achieve. On the flip side, following a "customer is always right" strategy can lead you down a garden path where you try to meet every customer demand, even if it hurts your business.

Build a strategy to strike a balance between meeting customer needs and maintaining your own business objectives.

Benefits of Adopting a Customer-First Strategy

A customer-first strategy helps a business truly see its target customers and allows them to build out products and services they really need. It also helps improve customer retention and employee satisfaction because both parties are satisfied.

Let's break that down a little.

Great service can mold how customers spend money. A recent Zendesk study found a whopping 87% of customers changed their future buying behavior thanks to a good customer service experience.

It found they were more likely to purchase more products, recommend the company to other people, or even switch who they shopped with. Forbes also found brands that give customers a "super experience" reap the (cash) benefits and bring in 5.7x more revenue than competitors.

Apart from increased sales, a customer-first strategy can also:

• Bring repeat business.
  Satisfied customers stick around. It's not rocket science. 89% of companies say an excellent customer experience plays a huge role in customer retention, which helps lower acquisition costs and keep more money in your pocket.
• Give you a competitive advantage.
  Industries get crowded. Putting your customer first helps you truly understand them and tailor solutions that fit their specific needs. Your company can create a unique selling proposition around this solution instead of just marketing a generic solution to your customer's problem.
• Consistently grow your company.
  Brands need consistency to grow. I don't just mean consistent revenue—I'm talking regular referrals for other customers and more awareness about your products. Happy customers aren't just a buffer against economic downturns, they help grow your business through word of mouth.

A lot of these benefits are down to one thing: customer satisfaction. And most customers will pay more for an exceptional customer experience.

4 Steps to Implement a Customer First Approach

Step 1: Figure Out What Your Customers (Actually) Want

The days of closed-door innovation—when teams got in a room and figured out what to build or supply next—are over.

That's not a bad thing. Today's customers are more vocal and tell you exactly what they want from a product or service. All you have to do is listen. Monitor your social media channels and check online reviews to see what customers are saying and if they are asking for a product or upgrade they need.

Oh, and don't forget about asking your employees on the front line (like those in the customer support team) what they hear on the ground. Any nagging issues or suggestions from customers should be put into an internal shared document to follow up on. The sooner you act, the better.

This brings us to step two—getting feedback.

Step 2: Listen To Customer Feedback and Input

The most loyal customers aren't just happy—they've got their skin in the game.

Asking customers for feedback and acting on it is the best way to prove to customers that their voices are being heard. Set up feedback loops through surveys using tools like Tally, or trawl through customer reviews or social media posts to understand how your customers perceive your brand.

Maxie Schmidt is a Principal Analyst at Forrester. She recommends taking a look at whether this process is measurement-obsessed or customer experience-obsessed using this chart:

Obviously, you want to be on the right side of the chart (no pun intended.)

Just look at how Starbucks gets feedback from customers.

Ever tried a pumpkin spice latte? If so, you have mystarbucksidea.com to thank. The site was launched over 15 years ago to give customers a platform to share and vote on ideas to improve their Starbucks experience. It wasn't pretty, but it worked:

Customers posted over 150,000 ideas on how to improve Starbucks on the platform, and nearly 300 of them were brought to life. And even though the mystarbucksidea.com site has been wound down, it showed thousands of customers the brand wasn't just willing to listen, but their ideas were good enough to use in-store.

The takeaway here is simple. Actively address customer feedback and use it to drive trust in your brand.

Step 3: Talk to Customers 1-on-1 Whenever You Can

A good product fit can only get you so far. If your post-sale support sucks or customers don't feel appreciated, there's a risk they will churn to a competitor.

Make the effort to connect with customers on a 1-on-1 basis whenever you get the chance. Whether it's replying to an email or a comment on social media, a personal interaction will always score points. It also shortens the feedback loop and you can instantly solve a problem or take a great idea back to your team instead of wading through surveys.

He may be controversial, but Elon Musk is (very) visible on social media and makes the effort to reply to customers about concerns they have with Tesla. Look at how he replied to this comment about electric vehicle charging stations:

You're right, this is becoming an issue. Supercharger spots are meant for charging, not parking. Will take action.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2016

This showed the customer that his feedback mattered and action would be taken immediately. It's a great example of showing your customer you care.

Step 4: Give Your Team The Tools to Serve Customers First

Finally, equip your team with the tools they need to successfully implement a customer-first strategy.

Talk about what a customer-first culture will look like at your company and make sure your team is on the same page. Then, set some goals for them to hit:

• Set metrics for response times.
  Don't leave customers in the dark. Create a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for when emails, text messages, and social media comments will get a reply. Use shortcuts like canned responses or automated replies if your team is short on time.
• Share communication responsibilities.
  Encourage your team to share the customer load. Use a tool like Missive to create shared inbox and chat channels so everyone can jump in and talk to customers. If each department (e.g. sales, support team) has its own inbox, teams can collaborate on emails and stay on top of messages so no customers slip through the cracks.

It's also a good idea to put all your data under one roof. Use a customer relationship management (CRM) software to collect and store customer data. That way, if your team needs to get up to speed on a customer or look at recent feedback—it's all in one place.

Real-World Examples of Customer First Businesses

Not all companies are customer first. But those who have adopted this strategy have learnt how listening to what their customers want can pay off.

Here are two examples of companies that have used this strategy to improve customer experience. 👇

1. Uber Changed How it Catered for Its (Furrier) Customers

You may have to pay an extra couple of bucks, but you can now take your pet in an Uber.

Before the feature launch, individual drivers could decide whether or not a cat, dog, bird, or any non-human was allowed in their car. For customers with pets, this led to an awkward (and sometimes heated) standoff where they had to message their Uber driver to make sure the ride would be accepted.

After a ton of feedback from customers in certain areas like Hong Kong and Germany, Uber decided to launch a dedicated option to order a pet-friendly ride.

This change accomplished two goals. It gave a subsection of Uber customers a feature they asked for. Plus, it cut out the annoying (and awkward) messages between customers and drivers about whether a pet was allowed in the vehicle or not.

Talk about a win-win!

2. Lionize Retooled its Tech Stack to Reply to Thousands of People Every Day

Lionize is a SaaS software platform built to simplify the lives of marketers. It serves thousands of influencers every day along with the brands that work directly with the company.

But there was a problem. The Lionize team was juggling a ton of influencer and client communications and its team… couldn't keep up. Influencers were left hanging and waiting for a reply, and Lionize's brand partners were also leaving money on the table.

Eddie Dalrymple, Senior Account Executive at Lionize, said it was really difficult to organize communication channels as they were all over the place. For example, the team is sending emails to influencers, but they might get a reply via text.

"It was really difficult for us to manage a Gmail inbox, and also manage a Twilio number which was what we were doing originally. We needed a way to group all communication together to be more organized when reaching out to these influencers", he said.

"It's difficult to check that a person emailed us but we sent them a text an hour ago, and you get these mismatches in communication."

Lionize knew it wasn't replying to its influencers' emails and texts quickly enough. So, the company set a goal to reply to each influencer within 48 hours. And they hit it.

The company started using Missive (our team inbox and chat app) to keep communications under one roof and reply strategically. The best part is anyone can reply to an influencer when an email lands in an inbox, as they can see the last 10 conversations and get up to speed on where they are at.

Since Lionize prioritized putting its customers first and (dramatically) improving its communication, it has cut response times and most importantly given its clients a better service. 🥳

Want to join Lionize (and 3000+ businesses) and put your customers first? Missive is a team inbox and chat app rolled into one to help your team truly collaborate. Take it for a free test drive here!

If you’ve ever worked the customer service desk at any time in your career, you know running into an angry customer is inevitable and can be tricky to navigate—especially if there is no official guidance from management on handling the situation.

Do you just let the customer walk away angry and run the risk of them telling other people about your “bad service”? Or do you do whatever you can to make the customer happy?

In situations like these, it helps to have a service recovery plan in place to help deescalate tensions and make things right with the customer.

If you don’t already have a customer service recovery plan in place (or you’re looking for tips to improve yours), this article is for you.

Table of Contents

• What is Customer Service Recovery?
• 8 Steps to Customer Service Recoverysome text
  • 1. Listen to the customer
  • 2. Apologize to the customer
  • 3. Take ownership of the problem
  • 4. Identify and clarify the problem
  • 5. Solve the problem
  • 6. End on a positive note
  • 7. Follow up with the customer
  • 8. Learn from the recovery experience
• Service Recovery Email Free Templates
• Improve Customer Satisfaction with Service Recovery

What is Customer Service Recovery?

Customer service recovery is a company’s steps to solve an unhappy customer’s issue through excellent customer service. When customer service blunders happen, it can feel like a mark against your business, but it doesn’t have to be—you just need the right systems to fix the issue.

In a perfect world, customers would be delighted with the service they receive 100% of the time. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world, and when customers receive lousy service, nearly 80% of those customers will take their business elsewhere, especially if they feel their complaints are unheard. That’s when customer service recovery should come into play.

Here’s how to handle complaints effectively:

1. Identify the service complaint
2. Work with the client to resolve the issue
3. Learn from the experience
4. Implement necessary process changes 

While it may seem that customers with a bad experience will be hesitant to continue doing business with your company, that’s not the case.

According to the Service Recovery Paradox, when your employees go above and beyond to solve an unhappy customer’s issue, they’re helping to increase the customer’s brand loyalty even more than if no issue had arised.

Clearly, service recovery should be a priority for your business and employees. Let’s look at the eight steps to create a service recovery plan to ensure your employees knock it out of the park when issues arise.

8 Steps to Customer Service Recovery

1. Listen to the customer

As a customer, there is no worse experience than not being heard when you have an issue with a product or service.

Recently, I experienced this with my Internet service provider.  After days of trying to get help from customer service and multiple transfers to various departments, my issue was solved with a straightforward click of a button. The entire experience was frustrating, and as a result, I would not recommend their service.

It could have easily been solved if customer service had taken the time to listen to my concerns and identify my problem. The point of this story is simple: take the time to listen to your customers and understand their issue.

Encourage your reps to use specific phrases to show customers that they are heard. Train your employees to use terms like:

“I understand how this is upsetting.”

“I will work to resolve this issue.”

“I understand your concerns.”

2. Apologize to the customer

Along with listening to the customer’s concerns, the next step in customer service recovery is apologizing for the mishap.

Appropriate apologies never pass the blame on someone else or another department. Instead, they are genuinely heartfelt to help customers understand their needs and issues matter. Usually, a sincere apology helps to calm a customer, too. And when customers are cool and collected, it becomes easier to work with them to resolve the issue.

3. Take ownership of the problem

Part of a good recovery service plan is allowing your employees the authority and resources to resolve customer issues.

The goal is to avoid making customers wait a long time for answers, or make them repeat the issue to multiple people. Bouncing your customers from one department to the next only increases their frustration.

Although a breakdown in service may have happened for various reasons outside your control, it is your customer care team’s responsibility to own and fix the problem.

Research about service recovery through empowerment shows that it’s an  effective way to improve service recovery performance and service team’ job satisfaction. 

4. Identify and clarify the problem

Before your customer service reps attempt to resolve anything, the customer’s issue should be clearly understood. Learning to ask appropriate questions is vital to providing excellent customer service and resolving a problem.

Sometimes, getting to the root of an issue is as easy as asking clarifying questions like, “I understand this is the problem. Is this correct?” Other times, your reps might have to play the role of a detective and ask, “Can you walk me through the steps you took with our product that led you to this issue?

It’s crucial that your customer service representatives do not attempt to solve a problem without understanding it. Attempts to solve an unknown problem will only lead to more frustration for your customers and employees. 

Show your customers you care by seeking to understand their issues.

5. Solve the problem

The customer care team members are expert detectives and problem-solvers. Their job is troubleshooting the customer’s problem and finding an appropriate solution. Armed with the knowledge of the issue, your customer service reps can now do what they do best: solve the problem.

At this stage in the customer service recovery process, your reps should be focused on solving the customer’s issue and actively working to maintain the customer relationship. Maintaining customer relationships while solving a problem sometimes involve offering a refund. Other times, it’s fixing a broken product or upgrading a service. It should always include the company covering all costs associated with the fix. Research shows that when companies overcompensate for service failure, customers are more likely to accept the fix as fair and satisfactory.

It’s important to note that a problem is not solved until the customer is completely satisfied. Be sure not to make assumptions about customer satisfaction. Instead, ask them if they are satisfied with the solution and the service they have received.

6. End on a positive note

The service recovery process isn’t over when the customer is satisfied with the solution. Remember, customer service recovery is also about enhancing brand loyalty.

It’s often not enough that an unpleasant situation has been made right. After all, that’s the service or product your customer should have received in the first place.

Instead, show your customers you care and offer them a token of appreciation. If you’re a subscription service, think about offering a free month of service or waiving shipping fees for delivery. Or, offer a 15% discount for the next purchase. Come up with offers that make sense for your company and offer those to your customers in appreciation for sticking with you through their bad experience.

By doing this, you’ll be sure to end the interaction on a positive note and keep a loyal customer.

7. Follow up with the customer

Want to score extra points in the brand loyalty department? Follow up with the customer to ensure complete satisfaction.

Good customer service recovery continues well after the initial conversation with the customer ends. Ask them if they are still satisfied with the solution and service you provided with a follow-up email, a simple phone call, or take it a step further and mail a handwritten note. Consider asking the customer to respond to a satisfaction survey, too.

It’s also a good idea to keep a record of customer interactions for future reference or analysis.

8. Learn from the recovery experience

While service recovery might seem like it only benefits the customer, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Service recovery is just as much for your team as it is for customers because it helps your team identify lapses in service or defects in your product line. You’re missing out if you’re not using it as a learning opportunity.

With the information your customer service team gathers from troubleshooting with customers and responses from the customer satisfaction survey, you and your team have the tools to ensure a bad customer experience doesn’t happen again.

Continuously improving and tweaking your products or services based on what you learn makes for a better experience for all, including your customers and employees.

Service Recovery Email Free Templates

Implementing a service recovery plan for your business doesn’t have to be complicated. If your business operates online, you can use these service recovery email templates as a guide to writing your own emails.

Apology Template

Hello [Customer]-

Thank you for emailing us about your concerns with our product line. I’m sorry to hear you are experiencing an issue with our product.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We stand behind our promise of guaranteeing the best product on the market, and we’ve failed. This one’s on us. 

To clarify, you are experiencing [describe the issue in detail]. We want to make this right for you, and we have a couple of options.

We can offer you a full refund of your order or replace the defective product entirely at no extra cost to you.

Please let us know which option you prefer.

On another note, as a valued customer, we are offering you 20% off your next order. 

Thank you for being with us! 

[Your Company]

Follow-up Template

Hello [Customer]-

I hope this email finds you well!

I just wanted to follow up with you about your product replacement. I see that it was delivered to your address yesterday.

Please let me know if you experience any issues with your replacement product. Y

If you have a minute, we’d love if you took a second to complete a short survey about your experience. We’d greatly appreciate your responses to help us continue to improve.

Don’t forget to use your 20% discount for being such a valued customer! 

Thanks for being awesome!

[Your Company]

Improve Customer Satisfaction with Service Recovery

If you provide a product or service, encountering an angry or rude customer is bound to happen. It’s almost inevitable. But with the proper service recovery plan in place, your customer service team has the power to calm your customers and do right by them.

When mistakes happen, don’t squander an opportunity. Use it as a chance to show your customers you care and build lifelong business relationships.

Have you ever tried a new app or software and felt instantly ‘at home’? Or the opposite, where everything just felt... off? 

That's the power of customer perception at work.

Top-notch features are merely part of the formula. The positive feeling users get while using a product or contacting customer support is what truly sets a brand apart. 

In this article, we’ll share how to measure customer perception and proven strategies for improving it. 

Here is the table of contents for the article you provided:

Table of Contents

• What is customer perception?
• Why is customer perception important?
• How to measure customer perception
• 7 ways to improve customer perception
• How customer perception helps your brand stand out

What is customer perception?

Customer perception is how a person thinks and feels about a product, service, or company. Also known as consumer perception, it’s formed by a person’s direct experiences. These may include using a product or talking with the business’s customer support team. 

It’s also indirectly shaped by the price and quality of the product as well as what customers see in ads or hear from friends. Online reviews and social media also influence customer perception. 

Why is customer perception important?

Customer perception is important because if customers feel positive about your business, they're more likely to buy again and recommend it to others. When people shop, they don’t just buy products or services. They also buy what they believe or feel about them.

Here’s why it matters so much:

• Brand reputation: A brand's reputation isn't built overnight. When customers have a positive perception, they associate the brand with good qualities like reliability, trustworthiness, or value for money. But if the perception is negative? The opposite can happen. People may associate the brand with poor quality, dishonesty, or a waste of money.
• Customer loyalty: Loyal customers are like gold. They not only buy repeatedly but also recommend the brand to others. They trust the company to deliver consistent value and meet their expectations. How do businesses earn this valuable loyalty? A big part of it is positive customer perception. 
• Word-of-mouth recommendations: People talk. If they have a fantastic experience with a brand, they might tell their friends and family. But the reverse is also true. A poor perception can lead to negative word-of-mouth, which is harmful. Personal recommendations often carry more weight than ads––88% of consumers worldwide most trust recommendations from people they know.
• Business growth: Positive customer perception can lead to increased sales, repeat business, and long-term growth. On the other hand, negative perception can result in fewer sales, loss of valuable customers, and a slower growth.

How to measure customer perception

Measuring customer perception doesn’t need to be complex. It’s all about being a good listener, tune into customer signals, and, most importantly, be ready to evolve.

Here are six ways to measure customer perception of your brand:

1. Collect customer feedback through surveys and forms

Understanding your customers' opinions and feelings about your product or service is key. There’s no better way to do this than directly asking. 

Use customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) to gather specific information. Surveys give you quantifiable insights that guide improvements, whether it's about a new feature, overall user experience, or service quality.

Tools like Tally or Typeform let you gather customer opinions easily.

While surveys often have set questions, feedback forms offer users the chance to freely express their experiences. Place these forms on your platform or website, and give customers an opportunity to share their thoughts when they're most relevant.

Here’s how to use feedback to understand customer perception:

• Analyze data for common themes
• Implement changes based on constructive feedback
• Acknowledge positive feedback and identify areas of excellence

2. Net promoter score (NPS) 

You can understand how customers feel by asking, “Would you recommend our product to a friend?” Their answer, on a scale from 0 to 10, gives you a score that tells you how they feel about your product.

The answers offer insight into how customers perceive your brand's value.

Here’s how to interpret the scores: 

• Promoters (9-10): These are your brand champions! They love your product and will likely recommend it to other potential customers.
• Passives (7-8): These customers are satisfied but not enthusiastic. They might switch to a competitor if given a reason.
• Detractors (0-6): These users had a less than stellar experience and might spread negative feedback.

NPS provides a clear picture of your customer's loyalty, which often correlates with retention, growth, and profitability. 

3. Online reviews and ratings

We all know the power of customer reviews and ratings. Review sites like G2 or Trustpilot offer a goldmine of customer insights. Are folks singing your praises or pointing out issues?

Bad experiences described in frequent negative reviews give you a good insight in what could be improved in your product or interactions. While positive reviews describing customer success stories highlight a stronger perception. 

4. Social media mentions

Social media posts and mentions can tell you a lot about how your customers feel. Whether your users spend time on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram, or another platform, you should monitor what they say about you.

5. Customer support interactions

Your customer support team is on the frontline. They deal with the complaints and issues of long-term and new customers. 

So dive into their chats, emails, and call logs. You'll be surprised how much you can learn about perception just by seeing what issues pop up frequently or what features users rave about.

To go a step further, choose a couple of recent customer interactions to follow up on. Ask each customer in-depth questions about their personal experience with your business and product. 

6. Usage and retention data

While surveys and feedback methods capture the voice of the customer, observing consumer behavior is often more revealing. Enter usage and retention data. 

If you have access to it, usage data provides insights into how customers engage with your product. Key metrics to consider include:

• Frequency: How often are users accessing your product?
• Duration: How long are they spending each time they log in or use the product?
• Feature usage: Which parts of your product are customers using the most or least?

High usage often indicates that customers value your product, signaling a positive perception. Conversely, infrequent usage or neglect of key features might highlight improvement areas.

7 ways to improve customer perception

1. Provide robust customer support

When customers have questions or run into problems, they want help quickly–72% of customers say they want immediate service.

Imagine you’ve just subscribed to a new CRM. But you can’t figure out how to import your existing data. Now imagine calling up the company and getting the solution in minutes. Instead of the issue ruining your day, the company resolves it so you can start using the CRM.

Quick responses and friendly help can turn a frustrated customer into a super fan.

Aim to offer great customer service experience through: 

• Emails
• Live chat
• Phone calls
• Video tutorials
• User-friendly documentation
• Comprehensive written FAQs 

For best results, ensure your support team is well-trained and has the tools to address issues quickly.

Take Dropbox for example, a cloud storage solution. The brand offers detailed help articles, community forums, and direct support channels. By providing easy-to-understand resources, their users can quickly resolve most issues. For larger problems, it’s easy to contact Dropbox support and get a quick solution. 

Suraj Nair, a senior digital marketer at SocialPilot, a B2B social media management tool, explains how a more proactive approach to customer support boosted customer perception. 

“Our support team reached out to customers, offering personalized assistance and suggesting features to meet their specific needs,” he says. “This improved customer satisfaction and changed their perception of us as a customer-centric company.”

2. Create an intuitive user interface (UI) and experience (UX)

Remember when you tried to use that one app and got lost five seconds in? We've all been there. Making your product easy and fun to use is key.

Your platform or website should be user-friendly. A well-organized dashboard, for example, can make navigation a breeze. 

For example, Linear, a developer tool platform, became popular partly because of its clean, user-friendly interface. It’s easy for new users to understand and navigate, enhancing their perception of the brand.

3. Roll out regular feature updates

By continually releasing new features or refining existing ones, you demonstrate commitment to your product's evolution. It’s important to regularly introduce improvements based on user feedback and market demand. Whenever you release an update, communicate it to your user base. 

For example, Notion, a productivity tool, frequently releases updates and new features based on what users are asking for, helping to cement their reputation as a responsive and innovative brand.

4. Use transparent pricing

No one likes unexpected billing surprises. Offering clear pricing tiers that detail what each entails can instill confidence in potential clients. 

Provide clear, upfront pricing without hidden costs. Offer scalable solutions for different business sizes.Trello, the task management tool, uses a transparent tiered pricing model where users can easily see what they're getting at each level.

5. Engage with your community 

Engage with the user community through forums, webinars, workshops, and social media. These mediums can provide valuable customer feedback and are a great way to connect with your customers. 

For example, Atlassian has a vibrant community forum where users can share tips, ask questions, and provide feedback.

6. Prioritize security and privacy

Data breaches can be catastrophic to your bottom line and customer perception. Once you lose trust, it’s hard to win it back. So make sure your data is secure and you comply with all relevant data protection regulations. Then, clearly communicate your security measures to your users.

For example, Salesforce heavily emphasizes its security measures, reinforcing the trust businesses place in them to handle sensitive data.

7. Share educational content

Produce content that educates users about your product and the broader industry issues. This could be through blog posts, webinars, or ebooks.

Onboarding tutorials, webinars, and knowledge bases can make the adoption of your product smoother.

For example, the ecommerce platform Shopify offers free resources for its users. There are online courses and blogs on everything from how to set up an online store to advanced ecommerce strategies, cementing its brand image as an industry leader and a helpful partner for businesses.

How customer perception helps your brand stand out

Customer perception is often the defining factor between thriving and surviving.

But a positive perception doesn’t just happen. It's cultivated through attentive customer support, user-friendly products, transparent pricing, and more. 

Businesses can boost relationships and their bottom line by placing the user at the heart of all decisions and constantly refining customer experience. 

Ultimately, improving customer perception is not just a nice-to-have bonus—it's a fundamental pillar of business success.

Talk to any customer support rep, and they’ll tell you that sometimes customers act rude. Recent research shows an uptick in challenging customer interactions, too. What’s behind this? Causes include higher customer expectations, rapidly evolving tech, and modern stress.

Currently, 76% of customer service reps experience rude behavior at least once a month. Customer ranting can be overwhelming. But the good news is every interaction, especially the challenging ones, provides insights and opportunities for growth.

Table of Contents

• Why do customers act rudely
• What's the impact of customer rudeness on businesses?
• 7 Strategies to deal with rude customers
• What should you do after experiencing a rude customer?
• Leveraging tools to handle rude customers
• The hidden opportunity for rude customers

In this article, we’ll share proven strategies and tools to help you deal with rude customers.

Highlights

<div class="table-of-contents" style="background-color: #F9F9F9;"> <ul> <li>Customers act rude because of mismatched expectations, previous negative experiences, or personal frustrations. </li> <li>Rude customers can negatively impact employee wellbeing, staff retention, brand reputation, and financial performance.</li> <li>Customer support reps need clear guidelines for handling difficult customers.</li> </ul></div>

Why do customers act rudely

Sometimes, customers act rudely because of misaligned expectations or previous negative experiences with the company. Other times it’s because they had a stressful day or are dealing with personal frustrations. Customers then misdirect these negative emotions to customer service reps.

Expectations around response times continue to rise––30% of customers will wait a maximum of 2 minutes for an agent on chat. And around 3 in 5 people have hung up on an agent at least once out of frustration. Shockingly, one in three customers admits to screaming or swearing at support staff.

When a customer feels unheard or undervalued, they may believe that being aggressive is their only avenue to a resolution. Understanding these motives helps reps put themselves in the customers’ shoes and handle tense situations with empathy.

What's the impact of customer rudeness on businesses?

It's Monday morning. Jake, a customer success manager at a popular SaaS startup, logs into his support dashboard. The first ticket of the day? A scathing message from an angry customer who can’t navigate the platform's new update. While it's just the start of the week, these interactions aren’t rare in his job.

These instances of customer rudeness can ripple through the business in unexpected ways.

Employee wellbeing

SaaS platforms, with their frequent updates and iterations, are a target for user frustrations. Jake, and many others like him, bear the weight of these frequent changes. While reps know how to handle critical feedback, consistent rudeness can pile up. Over time, this creates higher stress levels. A stressed employee might mean slower resolution times and less-than-optimal customer interactions.

Staff turnover

Regular exposure to rude or aggressive customers increases stress and burnout among employees. This results in lower job satisfaction, poor morale, and higher turnover rates.

After months of handling a barrage of rude messages from customers, many reps decide to move on. High staff turnover isn’t just about recruitment costs. It means losing experienced professionals who understand your product.

Brand reputation

Nowadays, word travels fast. A customer who had a bad day might post on social media about their experience or leave a review on platforms like G2 or Capterra.

More than half of consumers (53%) have publicly shamed a company following an instance of poor customer service, while 34% of consumers have done this multiple times.In industries where businesses rely on peer reviews and testimonials, one negative interaction can snowball and affect potential user trust.

Financial impact

Unresolved negative interactions can result in lost sales, refunds, or compensations. In the long term, there's a risk of lower customer loyalty, leading to a loss in recurring revenue.

7 Strategies to deal with rude customers

Want to deliver consistently excellent customer service even in the most challenging of circumstances?

Here are seven effective strategies for dealing with rude customers.

1. Take responsibility

It's a simple principle—when there's a mistake, own it. Often, customers are more understanding when they realize they're dealing with a company that values transparency. By taking responsibility, businesses not only humanize themselves, but also pave the way for resolution.

Let’s say you work at a project management tool and it experiences a major outage. A frustrated customer reaches out to your support team. Instead of jargon-filled excuses, you could say:

"Firstly, we sincerely apologize for the disruption. We understand the inconvenience this has caused your team. We're currently addressing the issue and are implementing measures to prevent this in the future. We should be up and running within four hours."

An honest response that apologizes and sets realistic expectations will reassure the customer that you’re doing your best.

2. Keep the conversation polite and professional

Always speak and act professionally, regardless of the customer's attitude. Often, it's not just what you say but how you say it.

• Stay calm: Remember not to take a rude client’s remarks personally. Respond politely regardless of the customer's tone.
• Use positive language: Instead of saying, "We can't do that," try, "What we can do is... .
• Follow up: After resolving the issue, follow up with a polite message, reinforcing the company's commitment to their satisfaction.

For example, when a user angrily points out a bug in the system, your support team could just fix the bug and move on. But to be extra polite, you could respond with:

Thank you for pointing that out, Mark. We appreciate your vigilance. The issue has been resolved. Please let us know if there's anything else we can assist you with.

3. Set boundaries

It’s important to set some boundaries––even if the customer is wrong, arguing makes matters worse.

Draven McConville, CEO and founder at Klipboard explains how he found a solution for an angry customer by setting boundaries.

I stayed calm and professional and listened to his concerns. Once I understood the problem, I offered a solution. However, he wasn’t satisfied and continued to be rude. So I eventually set a boundary with him, he says.

I told him that I wanted to help, but I would not tolerate his abusive behavior. I asked him if he could be more respectful. He agreed, and we resolved the issue.

4. Be empathetic and practice active listening

Always give the customer your full attention. By actively listening, you show that you value their concerns, which can help de-escalate their frustration.

Developing emotional intelligence will help you handle unhappy customers. For example, expressing understanding or saying, "I see why you'd feel that way," can go a long way. This doesn't mean you're admitting fault but rather validating their feelings.

5. Offer solutions, not excuses

After understanding the concern, offer practical solutions. If you can't resolve it immediately, assure them of a follow-up.

Let’s say a key feature of your software crashes. A longtime user is furious. They reach out for support, expecting a slew of excuses. Instead, they’re met with, "We're genuinely sorry for the inconvenience. While we fix this, here's a workaround..."

Offering a solution, instead of dwelling on the problem, can turn a potential disaster into an opportunity to showcase reliability.

6. Know when to escalate or defer

If you don’t know what the right solution is, it’s best to pass the baton to someone who does. For example, let’s say you encounter a user whose technical questions are beyond your expertise. Rather than giving inaccurate advice, you could escalate the ticket to the senior tech team, ensuring that the user gets precise, expert guidance.

7. Know when to end the conversation

If a customer is being excessively rude, and no solution seems feasible, it may be time to end the conversation or even fire the customer. Depending on the support platform used, this could mean politely ending the chat or involving a supervisor.

In some cases, a fresh perspective or the authority that comes with a supervisor might help pacify the situation.In rare cases, if a customer's behavior becomes abusive or severely impacts the team's well-being, it’s time to consider ending the relationship.

What should you do after experiencing a rude customer?

Unpleasant customer interactions can shake even the most experienced rep’s confidence. Follow these steps, and you’ll be able to use the bad experience to your advantage in no time.

Reflect on the interaction

After the encounter, take a moment to reflect. Evaluate the conversation objectively. Were there points where things could have been handled differently? What went well

Write down details of the encounter, including the customer complaints, your responses, and any outcomes. This is useful for future reference, especially if there's a follow-up or if the situation escalates.

Gather feedback for improvement

If you have regular team meetings with supervisors, mention these challenging interactions to get feedback.

Use the experience as a catalyst to develop further. This might mean brushing up on product knowledge, refining communication skills, or doing additional training like role-play to handle difficult customers.

Get support post-confrontation

Following the interaction, take a short break before heading back to the frontline. Take some deep breaths, go for a brief walk, or grab a coffee to help calm down.

Next, try debriefing with a supervisor or colleague. Sharing a bad customer experience with someone else can provide a fresh perspective or simply serve as a means to vent and get emotional support.

Schedule regular debrief sessions with other team members where everyone can share those you won’t believe the call I had today stories. It’s therapeutic and everyone will learn a thing or two.

When to forward to a manager

There will be times when you need to forward the experience to a manager. If the encounter ticks any of these boxes, it’s best to let a manager step in.

• Repeated issues: If customers consistently raise the same concern, it may indicate a deeper issue. Maybe it's a product flaw, a gap in communication, or a recurring bug that needs addressing.
• Threats or severe discontent: If a customer threatens to escalate the matter, leave negative reviews, or end the business relationship. Managers may have access to resources or strategic insights that can address the root cause or pacify the situation.
• Emotional or verbal abuse: Your well-being is paramount. If a customer becomes disrespectful, excessively aggressive, or uses offensive language, involve a manager.
• Feedback on products or services: Sometimes, rude interactions stem from genuine gaps in the product or service offering. If a customer’s rudeness revolves around such gaps, sharing this feedback can lead to product improvements.

Leveraging tools to handle rude customers

"Two heads are better than one" holds true, especially when confronting the challenges of rude customer interactions.

Using a shared inbox like Missive lets customer service representatives share emails with other team members and discuss them in a conversation.Here are five ways a Missive team inbox can improve teamwork and efficiency:

1. Collective experience. A team inbox lets multiple people view a customer's issue. Team members can collaborate and decide the best response or solution. From the team inbox, you can directly reply to a message or assign messages to colleagues.

1. Faster response times. When multiple agents access the same inbox, there's a greater chance that messages receive a quick response. This is useful when a rude customer demands an immediate solution. You can customize it so active members get notifications while observers don’t.

1. Continuity of service. If an agent is unavailable or needs a break after a tough interaction, another team member with access to the entire conversation history can take over, ensuring that the customer receives consistent support. Supervisors can use workload balancing to assign messages fairly.

1. Learning opportunities. Observing how different team members handle difficult situations is a valuable learning experience. New team members can learn strategies and techniques from seasoned pros by reviewing past interactions or writing emails using templates.

1. Escalation efficiency. Should an issue need escalation, managers with access to the team inbox can quickly review the entire conversation thread, ensuring that they have all the context they need to step in and address the situation.

In the face of rude or challenging customer interactions, a team inbox is more than just a tool—it's a support system and a central platform for collaboration. By leveraging the collective strengths of the team, businesses can transform potential pitfalls into opportunities for growth.

The hidden opportunity for rude customers

Rude customers aren’t just a challenge, they’re an opportunity. When you lean into proven strategies and embrace collaborative tools like team inboxes, you’ll get insight into your business and boost customer experience.

Every interaction, no matter its tone, is a chance to strengthen customer relationships, refine product offerings, and empower the support team.

Building a business without offering an excellent customer experience is like constructing a house without a solid foundation.

In the short term, it might work, but as time goes on you’ll need that strong foundation of satisfied and loyal customers, otherwise your company will struggle to grow and succeed.

According to a recent report, even when people love your company or product, 59% of people will stop doing business with you after several bad experiences even if they love your company or product. The benefits of prioritizing customer service are well worth the investment.

And the preferred communication channel of your customer is without a doubt email.

In this article, we’ll dive into how you can improve your customer service emails and give you templates you can use to write more effective replies today.

Why Customer Service is Important?

Providing great customer service is important for the success and growth of any business. In fact, according to a report, 92% of companies that are investing to improve customer experience report better customer loyalty.

Plus, 84% of them also report an increase in revenue while 79% of businesses said customer experience also contributed to reducing their expenses.

As we can see the benefits for your business are vast. Here’s a breakdown of the most notorious advantages:

Customer satisfaction & retention

Customer satisfaction and retention isn’t only about providing quality products or services. It’s also about how easy interacting with your business is and the level of support and assistance you provide.

Clients who receive good customer service gain trust, are more likely to be satisfied, and have a positive image of your brand. They are also more likely to come back in the future.

Another benefit of offering good customer service is that you can maintain a good relationship with your customers. they are less likely to do business with your competitors based on the price or gimmicky features as they know they can trust your business support and will have a positive experience.

Company values & brand reputation

When your customers have a positive experience interacting with your company like receiving a fast and helpful reply, it leave them with a favorable image of your business.

In the long run the favorable impressions will help to build a strong brand reputation as your clients are likely to share their experience with others off and online.

Another benefit of providing excellent customer support is that it helps build trust can credibility. By going the extra mile to resolve your customers’ concerns and problems you build a reputation of reliability and care.

In the end, the experience your customers have when interacting with your company service can make or break the perception they have of your brand and give you a competitive advantage over your competitors.

Revenue & customer lifetime value

Studies have shown that a good customer experience will most likely result in repeat business from the customer. This means a steady revenue stream for your company.

It also reduces customer acquisition costs and increases customer lifetime value since you won’t need to attract as many new customers to be profitable and they will probably spend more in the future.

CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) represents the total revenue a customer generates throughout their relationship with your business.

By providing outstanding customer service, you enhance customer satisfaction, foster loyalty, and prolong the duration of the customer-business relationship.

Another advantage of great customer service is that it can be used to upsell and cross-sell. Communicating with your customers, customer service agents will be able to identify their needs and recommend products or services that could complement their first purchase.

Customer service is the direct connection between your customers and your business, so it’s essential to provide a great experience for them.

Plus it can also play a role in employee retention as they will feel more engaged and proud to be working for a company that values its customers.

We recommend you have a look at the best practices for customer service to take it from good to great.

What Are Customer Service Emails?

Customer service emails are email responses to your customers’ inquiries, complaints, or feedback. The goal is to solve their issue and to give them support for your product or service.

Some companies use automatically generated emails and others write their personalized emails to their customers. But with the advent of artificial intelligence, you can now take advantage of both worlds by using an AI email assistant.

For example, the OpenAI integration in Missive takes it a step further by enabling the AI model to use your canned response to generate personalized replies for your clients.

Emails could be used for a wide range of customer service use cases including:

• Problem resolution
• Follow up
• Technical issue troubleshooting
• Installations/getting started service
• Feedback
• Complaint management

By using one of the best software for your customer service emails, you can start offering great support in no time.

Why Should You Still Use Emails for Customer Service?

Despite the emergence of many new communication channels in the past decade, email is still one of the most used channels for customer service.

There are several reasons to explain this, but the main reasons are that it is widely available, easy to use, easy to keep track of, and can be used globally since an email can be sent at any time.

Here’s a quick reminder of why you should continue to use emails for your customer service:

• Enable detailed exchange that can be enhanced by attachments like documents.
• Makes it easier to keep track of all communication between your business and your customers.
• Emails are more flexible than other communication channels since they can be used 24/7 without having to offer real-time interactions.
• Can be scaled more easily since your agents are not tied down to one call at a time.
• Emails can easily be integrated with the tools you’re using to manage your customers like a CRM. It’s also easier to collaborate and involve multiple departments if needed by using a shared inbox software.

Although real-time communication channels like live chat, phone support, and social media are popular, email brings many advantages to customer service.

By including email in your customer service communication channels, you can address the varied preferences and requirements of your customers, offering them a complete support experience.

Tips for Better Customer Service Emails

Now that we know why customer service via email is important, here are some tips to help you offer better customer service via email.

1. Respond Promptly

Timely email responses show care and commitment, managing expectations and avoiding customer frustration, but it's crucial to follow stated response time guidelines.

When it comes to responding to customer emails, you must prioritize the time it takes to reply. Most customers truly value receiving prompt replies. It shows that you care and are committed to addressing their needs efficiently.

We’ve all been there, we’ve sent an email to a company for support and they took forever to reply. Even if their response resolved our issue and we received the most caring email, our experience will still be tinted by the frustration of waiting for a reply.

Having a structure in place and respecting your SLA to address inquiries or concerns will help your business and let you provide helpful and satisfactory solutions. A great way to manage your client’s expectations effectively is by setting clear guidelines regarding your response time.

This could be by sending an automatic reply when you receive an email to your support email address with the timeframe it will take before one of your customer support team members get to reply.

By doing so, you can avoid any potential frustrations or disappointments resulting from delayed replies. However, you should make sure that the guideline is respected otherwise this could result in even more frustration on your customers’ side.

2. Personalize Your Responses

Personalize email responses by using the customer's name, customizing the reply to their specific needs, and acknowledging previous interactions to build strong customer relationships.

It's important to make an effort to personalize your responses to every email you receive. Putting in that extra effort can make a difference in building a relationship with your customers. When your clients feel like you value them and don’t feel like they are numbers, they will be more engaged with your business and feel satisfied with their customer experience.

Simple things like using your customer's name in your email can show that you see them as an individual and not just another customer. You can also add a personal touch and makes the interaction feel more friendly and genuine. After all, we’re all humans being those emails.

Next, take the time to understand their unique situation or problem and tailor your email response to answer their specific needs. By creating a unique reply to answer their inquiry, you show that you're invested in helping them find a solution and care.

Additionally, if the customer previously contacted your business, acknowledge those as well. It can be as simple as mentioning a previous conversation, order, or any other relevant information. This small gesture demonstrates that you care about the relationship you’re building and have an understanding of their history with your business.

3. Use Clear & Concise Language

Write clear and concise emails using simple language, avoiding jargon, breaking down information, and giving step-by-step instructions so your customers understand better and minimize frustration.

It's crucial to communicate in a way that everyone can understand.

Your email responses should be clear, concise, and simple to understand. You should (almost) always write your emails so they could be understood by people in grade 9. If your business is in a technical space, you should also remember that not all customers may be familiar with technical terms or complex language.

Avoid using jargon or complicated terminology that might confuse or make your customers feel like they are not good enough. You should instead use clear and straightforward language that gets your message across effectively.

To make your emails easier to understand, break down information into smaller, skimable chunks. Long paragraphs can be overwhelming, so organize your content into smaller sections and use bullet points when possible.

Additionally, if you need to give instructions, you should offer them step-by-step. With clear and concise instructions, your customers can easily follow steps to solve their problem leaving behind any confusion.

Clear, simple, and easy-to-understand email responses, can create a positive customer experience and minimize the chances of miscommunication or frustration.

4. Show Empathy & Understanding

Show empathy, understand your customer concerns, and resolve their issues to build strong relationships and improve your business reputation.

Having empathy and understanding when addressing your customers’ issues is important. Even if some of your clients show frustrations or disappointments, you want to show that you understand and acknowledge their feelings.

empathy can help you connect with your customers and demonstrates that you care about their experience. Assuring them that you are fully committed to resolving the situation can also help improve their overall experience.

In your interactions, the language you use can help to show your customers that you share their concerns and understand the situation. Choose words that show empathy, acknowledging the impact the issue may have had on them.

Additionally, make it clear that their feedback is valued by your business. It will encourage them to be open to communication and shows that you are continuously striving to improve based on their experiences.

By showing empathy, understanding, and a commitment to resolving their issue, you can build long-lasting customer relationships and create a positive reputation for your business.

5. Provide Detailed & Relevant Information

Improve your customer service by providing detailed information from the start, anticipating follow-up questions, and offering relevant resources to help them.

Going the extra mile by providing comprehensive and relevant information can take your customer service to the next level. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and understand why getting all the necessary details in one go is important.

Take time to write a detailed response that leaves no questions unanswered. You can even go beyond and provide additional information or resources to help them with questions that may arise shortly. It will show that you value their time and are committed to assisting them effectively.

Anticipating follow-up questions doesn’t have to be complicated. Put yourself in the customer's position and consider what additional information they may need. You’ll save them and your company time since they won’t need to reach out again.

In addition to providing comprehensive responses, consider including relevant resources to further assist your customers. Sometimes, a link to a user guide or FAQ section can provide your customers with the in-depth information and step-by-step instructions they need.

You’ll also promote self-service and empower them to find additional information on their own at the same time. After all, 81% of customers are expecting more self-service options.

6. Proofread & Edit

Proofread and edit your emails to avoid errors and look profesionnal. It will also make them clear and easy to understand elimanating risk of confusion.

Every message you send via email to your customers acts as your business’ shop window. You must polish and proofread your communications. Before hitting that send button, take a moment to edit your email reply and make sure it’s mistake-free.

Scan for any grammar mistakes, typos, or spelling errors that might have slipped through. With thorough review, you can ensure that it presents a professional image to your clients.

After all, a well-written and error-free email sends a message that you pay attention to the details and makes your business look more professional.

In addition to checking for errors, editing your email to make them clear and easy to understand is equally important. Read through your message to make sure it flows smoothly and that the language used is clear and understandable.

Make sure there are no confusing or ambiguous statements that might be misinterpreted. This way you are sure your customers can fully understand your message and reduce unnecessary and forth.

7. Offer Additional Assistance

Let your customers that they should reach out for further assistance. It will show that their satisfactionis important to your business and that you are committed to resolving their issues.

Another tip that can improve your customer service is to encourage your customers to reach out again if they have additional questions or need more assistance. Let them know that you want them to be satisfied and that you're always available to help.

This way, you demonstrate that you care about their experience with your company and are there to resolve their issues.

Remember, offering your support beyond the initial reply is a key element of exceptional customer service that shows your clients that their satisfaction is important to you.

8. Follow Up & Close the Loop

<Send a follow-up email to make sure your customers are satisfied, offer more support, and ask for their feedback.

You can send an email to check if the solution you provided met their needs and if you can assist them further. This personal touch can go a long way in building strong customer relationships with your clients.

During the follow-up, you can also go the extra mile by offering your assistance for any problems they might encounter in the future. By doing so, your customers will feel valued and supported, which will build loyalty for your company.

You should also remember that your customers’ feedback is really valuable to help you keep improving. You should always seek their input and value their feedback. It shows that their opinions matter to you.

9. Monitor & Improve

Regularly analyze your customer inquiries and their feedback to identify areas that could be improved. Use it to update your resources and address common concerns for better customer service.

Keeping a close eye on your customer service email interactions is important to ensure you are continuously improving. You should always take time every other week or month to analyze the inquiries and problems your customers are facing.

It will give you valuable insights or your product or service. You’ll also be able to identify areas where your process could be improved.

By understanding common pain points or frequently asked questions, you can make informed decisions about how to better serve your customers. A good practice that we’ve implemented here at Missive is to keep track of all inquiries we get from our clients and update our website help section and improve our FAQ.

By doing so, your customers will be able to find the information they need without having to reach out for support.

If you follow previous tips, you’ll have collected tons of feedback that could be used to guide you toward areas where you could improve. It will also send a signal to your customer that you’re also paying attention to their feedback and are implementing their suggestions.

It’s also important that you don't wait for customers to raise the same concerns repeatedly before acting on them.

6 Customer Service Email Examples (With Their Customer Service Email Templates)

Creating the perfect response can be challenging. That's why we've built six customer service email examples accompanied by their ready-to-use canned response templates.

Here are our professional customer service email response templates that will make your interactions with your customers a breeze.

Auto Reply Email

A good practice to put in place is to send auto-reply when you receive an email at your support alias. However, you don’t want to send an auto-reply every time you receive an email as your customers who reply to their original email will be bombarded by your automatic response.

Using a tool like Missive makes it easy for you to set a rule to achieve that.

Here is an example of what could be contained in the email.

Before using this template, you should make sure you add a link to any valuable resource on your website.

Replying to Multiple Questions

In this example, we’ll provide you we a template that can be used to reply to a customer support email that contains multiple questions.

Replying to Negative Feedback

In this example, we’ll provide you with a template that can be used to reply to negative feedback you may receive. As you’ll see we try to avoid over-apologizing because it might make the interaction seem negative and won’t resolve the issue.

Replying to a Complaint

In this example, we’ll provide you with a template that can be used to reply to a customer complaint. As you’ll see, it is similar to the one used to reply to negative feedback.

Replying to a Cancellation Request

In this example, we’ll provide you with a template that you can use to reply to cancellation requests you may receive. We also included a section to ask for feedback.

Asking for Feedback

Our last example will provide you with a template to ask your customer for feedback after they reach out to your customer service.

Conclusion

In conclusion, offering excellent customer service is essential for the success and growth of your business. Without satisfied and loyal customers, your company will struggle to thrive in the long term.

In the end, customer service emails are an opportunity to provide outstanding support, build customer loyalty, and differentiate your brand from competitors. By implementing the tips and using our templates, you can write more effective customer service email responses and leave a positive and lasting impression on your customers.