Why are some businesses willing to spend a fortune on Customer Services? Because the promoters know that it plays a major part in turning a business from tepid to smoking hot. And using psychology to their advantage comes naturally to these customer centric businesses.
Constant reminders to yourself and your team that you build a robust reputation by understanding and fulfilling people’s needs, wants and choices- both emotional and otherwise works wonderfully well.
Even though every individual comes with his or her own set of habits and emotional triggers, we at Open Mind Services Limited have sifted the most popular psychology hacks that we apply in customer support situations.
You are welcome to take advantage of our research and results.
Here’s what you can do to help your customers feel good about your business, as well as themselves:
1. Value them and make them feel important.
Before you start thinking the effect on revenues, making someone feel important does not cost an arm & a leg. Well trained customer service agents use the incredible power of empathy to make even an enraged customer pacify and feel irreplaceable.
Invest in learning to put right kind of efforts to boost the ego of a customer, and your business will keep rising like the sun.
2. Listen but don’t react to an irate complaint.
Everyone has a fighter inside who is ever willing to defend or attack according to the situation. A remarkable customer service agent has learned that angry customers are NOT angry with her; hence her replies are centred on calming the customer and taking control of the situation. Of course she remembers that she has a senior team that she can trust instinctively.
Listening is not fixing. Maybe you don’t have a solution to every problem but escalating that in a calm and dignified manner goes a long way in validating a customer’s trust in your business.
3. Use Positive tone and expressions.
A positive tone of voice comes with the dominance to change an interaction from complaint to suggestion. Simply hearing positive words can change the brain in the time you are listening intently to a customer. Removing some obvious negative phrases from customer support executives’ compact dictionary can completely change the perception of your business. A few culprits that can easily be removed inside the next hour are:
A. Sorry, I’m not the right person for this.
B. I’ll transfer you to another department.
C. NO.
D. It’s not our fault
4. A sincere apology is a powerful tool of trade.
In any crisis, avoid using the automated response, “Sorry for your inconvenience.” Rather than soothing nerves, this done-to-death phrase does more damage than a simple but heartfelt Sorry. Customers love better human service over automated responses.
Besides, you can try to make the apology more sincere by offering a small monetary reward like a coupon or something. In a comprehensive study, 37% customers were satisfied with some kind of monetary compensation in the event of a lapse. But this figure zoomed to an incredible 74% when the compensation was accompanied with an apology.
5. First impressions count more than you can imagine.
While customer service agents are not really expected to make a great first impression, it goes a long way if your business makes a deliberate attempt in creating a halo of a positive listener that cares even for the smallest issues of its customers.
Each positive customer support interaction helps in creating a positive image for your business in the mind of customer. This holds true for negative interactions too. Be judicious in creating a first impression before a customer.
Psychology is fascinating and applying ingenuous principles in customer support interactions will ensure they stay happy and customer retention becomes less painful, as well as reward you with a few genuine believers whose words count more than what glossy brochures can ever promote.
Open Mind Services Limited’s scalable Outsourced Customer Service Helpdesk is making businesses around the country find their true mojo by freeing them from the unnecessary shackles of stressful customer support services.