Customer Service Etiquette: Rules for Phone, Live Chat, and Email

Making sure your customers receive excellent customer service is critical for growing a successful business. Maintaining customer satisfaction indicates that they are receiving the attention they deserve. This is precisely what Vivant’s VoIP solutions can assist your company with. When a customer contacts or visits a company, their first impression is usually based on how they interact with your employees. Therefore, business owners should thoroughly analyze every facet of their customer service etiquette. Failure to do so may give the wrong message to your target audience. The last thing you need in today’s hyper-competitive market is for your clients to feel underappreciated. Keep in mind that your competitors are more than willing to embrace your clients and deliver them with a world-class experience that you couldn’t. Customer service etiquette is one of the most important selling points for any business on several levels. Nowadays, simply providing “service with a smile” isn’t enough. Businesses must take a granular approach to customer service. Every detail matters and no stone should be left unturned.

What does “customer service etiquette” imply?

Good customer service etiquette will assist your support team in providing better service. It is essentially a set of guidelines that govern how one should act in a given situation. It includes tips, dialogues, and tricks given to support staff, as well as telecommunication scripts. The goal is to help make customers feel at ease while resolving their issues without inducing anxiety or offense. Customer service etiquette guidelines help reduce ambiguity in a variety of situations. Not only do they help reduce errors, but they also help agents maintain a professional demeanor even when dealing with irate customers. Even better, an agent can gain confidence and respond to client inquiries in a more positive manner.

Tips for handling phone calls

According to studies, the phone is still one of the most common ways to contact customer service. However, calling customer care support lines can be a notoriously time-consuming process. Customers frequently have to wait in a phone queue before speaking with a representative or requesting a callback. Using automation software can help your business improve the customer experience by streamlining the call process. Vivant phone system solutions offer an alternate method of responding to client concerns, lowering the number of calls that require the attention of support staff. The voice attendant feature of Vivant assists in gathering information about the consumer to categorize and link them with the appropriate agent. Because your customer is connected to a qualified employee who is proficient in resolving their issue, this saves time and increases customer satisfaction In addition, Vivant voice attendant can be used in conjunction with your customer relationship management software (CRM). Instead of going through the customer information gathering procedure, Vivant enables agents to go straight to the problem. Here are some helpful tips to improve your phone call etiquette:

Within the first three rings, always pick up the phone.
Pay close attention to the full issue.
While the problem is being described, prepare a solution.
Encourage comments as the meeting comes to a close.
In circumstances of excessive delay, contact the consumer again with concrete solutions.

Email support tips

Customer service via email is the second most popular method. The major email issue is that agents are frequently overwhelmed by the volume of support tickets. This may make it difficult for them to effectively process all of them. Vivant’s automation features for its VoIP phone systems are one of the most effective ways to reduce reaction time. When you receive an inquiry by email or any other non-real-time channel, the customer should be notified that their query was received. In addition, you can also include an anticipated timeframe for resolving the problem. This ensures that the customer’s ticket is properly documented and recorded in the system. This may appear to be a straightforward task, but it’s surprising how few businesses have yet to establish such a system. Because the consumer knows when to expect a response, it also decreases follow-up emails and phone calls. Businesses must stay on top of their client’s demands in today’s fast-paced world. It could be that one of your staff requires rapid access to a new client order, or that a customer demands an immediate answer to a problem. Regardless of the situation, Vivant’s 100 percent uptime guarantee ensures that your business is always connected.

Improved Live Chat experience

According to a recent survey, live chat is the preferred method of contacting customer care for 46% of respondents. It’s affordable, works with a variety of platforms, and provides an excellent customer experience by allowing users to seek help right from the app. Communication via live chat, like email, can lead to misunderstandings. According to studies, it’s possible to interpret material differently depending on one’s attitude. That is, the same sentence will convey different messages to a relaxed customer than to someone who is stressed. To help minimize misinterpretation, the rules of live chat etiquette encourage the use of simple and clear language. These rules also increase trust because each person in the conversation is aware of what the other is doing. Your customers should be aware that they are being placed on hold because their agent is seeking assistance from another department to find the best solution to their problem. Chat transcripts, like call transcripts, always include timestamps and names, making it easy to find what you’re looking for when you need it. Vivant live chat on your website and/or user portal provides customers with instant access to your support team. This eliminates the inconvenient nature of a phone conversation or the lag time associated with email. It’s the most convenient alternative for everyone involved, so it’s no surprise that more and more consumers prefer to receive help via live chat.

Provide a next-level customer experience

Customers who have gotten outstanding customer service are more likely to become loyal to your company. After you’ve resolved their problem, don’t forget to send them a customer satisfaction survey to see if they’re satisfied with your help or if there’s anything you can do better. To learn more about our VoIP phone solutions for your business, contact Vivant now