How Can Small Businesses Provide Great Customer Service?

Small businesses face a number of significant challenges. Due to its stature, any small start-up can feel like it is balancing precariously, with everyone trying to make sure that they deliver the goods and ensuring the business does not crumble due to a lack of support in the form of its customers. This is why customer service is so important to small businesses, but how can small businesses deliver excellent customer service so the people that really matter remain loyal?

Provide a Variety of Communication Tools

Communication is pivotal on every single level, and if we are to give customers what they need when they contact us, it is crucial to ensure they can reach us in a variety of ways. When a customer has an issue, they need it resolved there and then, but one of the biggest obstacles facing customers is that they're not able to get through to us.

Beyond being contactable by email and telephone, live chat is an incredible tool that can personalise the customer experience. Finding the best live chats for small business needs depends on what you demand out of your services. We provide a variety of integrative services, including AI chatbots and a personalised dashboard to suit your brand. A variety of communication methods will allow customers to feel like they can reach you in a way they are more comfortable with.

Hiring the Right Customer Service Agents

It sounds simple, but the wrong customer service agent can turn someone off a business for life. You are only as good as your weakest link, and when the company offers perks to a customer, it's the customer service agents that have to deliver when those perks don’t perform. When a customer gets in contact with a company, they need their problems answered instantly.

The right customer service agents can strike the balance between communicating with a customer on their terms, showing empathy, embodying professionalism, and, of course, solving the problem. This is not an easy thing to achieve, especially in modern environments where everything comes at such a pace. Ensuring customer service agents are schooled up in dealing with customer escalations, but also managing their own emotional reactions to customer service conflict is a delicate balance.

Pay Attention to Customer Feedback

Ensuring your customers have a way to share their opinions about your business is the best way for you to understand where you are putting a foot wrong. Customer surveys or the opportunity to share reviews will help you understand how to improve.

The act of asking for feedback means you are an open book and therefore, a customer will feel like you are listening to what they are saying and are more likely to invest in your services.

Solve the Problem

Whether the customer is right or wrong, it doesn't matter, because you still need to provide a solution for them for the simple reason that they are the ones giving you a lifeline. When we solve their problems, they are more inclined to return to us. One of the cardinal sins in customer service is overpromising and under delivering. It's far beneficial to ensure that if a customer has a problem, we can solve it to maintain their loyalty or at least minimise negative word-of-mouth about your business.

Customer service agents need to know how to solve a problem by being subject matter experts, but also ensuring that when they engage with the customer, they are managing expectations throughout the process. This is why communication is so important, whether it's through live chat, over the phone, or in person.

Never Underestimating a Current Customer

It takes less effort to keep a customer on board than to get a new one. New customers are always beneficial, but there is a big advantage to keeping existing customers. To give great customer service, you can entice customers with perks and deals, but you should also realise that delivering great customer service is about quality over quantity.

Small businesses can find themselves torn in a number of directions, but if you can focus on that one customer who will give you unwavering support in the long run, this is far more important than searching for a new customer and a quick sale.

Great customer service can be like gold dust. There are so many factors involved, but it's as much about the talent as it is about the tools. The best live chat for small business efforts can help infinitely, but it's nothing if you don't have the skills underpinning it.