A Live Answering Service Can Help You Provide Superior Customer Service

There is no mystery hidden in the fact that providing good customer service is the best way to keep improving your business. Chances are a pleased customer will keep returning as long as you offer customer service that makes your business worth visiting.

One way to offer great customer service is to have a live telephone answering service providing coverage for your phone calls. Everybody has been in a situation where they call in to a company and are inundated with automated operators directing their calls. This can prove a frustrating experience for customers, especially if they need to navigate a maze of options, button presses and horribly canned music.

Why not offer your new and returning customers the simple, and seemingly rare, experience of talking with a real live person? An answering service can provide real time answers for almost any question related to the business, given proper preparation. This fact alone can have an immeasurably positive effect on a customer’s experience.

A live answering service will give you a customer service advantage over all other companies that choose to go with the less efficient recorded phone labyrinth. Let your competition deal with the raging beast of the labyrinth. And we are not talking about the Minotaur; we’re talking an angry customer.

A live person can provide your company with many features that will improve customer satisfaction. Some of these can be integrated with other tenets of good customer service:

1. Listen to the customer’s needs and wants. No more having your customers leave a message for future contact. The live phone service can work with the customer and see to it that the correct information is gathered for future replies. The customer can leave satisfied knowing their message will find its way to the correct responder.

2. The simple art of the apology. Nothing can diffuse an irate customer’s anger faster than hearing an apology. Let’s see an answering machine try that. The live telephone service can help calm a frustrated or angry customer. Chances are they will hang up feeling better about the situation.

3. Help the customer understand. Every company is going to have their own way of doing things. Systems and processes develop and grow over time to make your business run better. Unfortunately, customers do not see the paths needed to navigate the process successfully. If you want a high level of customer satisfaction, then your job is to make sure the way is clear for the customer to get what they need.

4. Your customers are appreciated. Let the customer know they are appreciated by providing them with a real human to talk to when they call. Nobody likes dealing with an automatic phone system. Always keep in mind that a real person can show empathy to a customer's concerns or build a sense of trust by answering their questions with honesty and immediacy.

5. Provide an avenue for feedback. One of the best ways to improve your business is to take feedback from your customers into account. Even complaints can serve a purpose, as long as the complaint is reasonable. Having a real person listen to the customer's feedback can give you better insight as the customer's conversation can be shaped by the operator based on the information your business provides.

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