As a business owner, you know that providing excellent customer service is essential to your success. But what happens when you can’t find enough workers to provide that service? The national labor shortage is making it increasingly difficult for businesses to find qualified employees, and the results are often disastrous for customer service. So, what can you do to make sure your customers don’t suffer?
Budget to pay for qualified customer service representatives or consider outsourcing some of the workload.
It’s important to attract and retain good workers, so be prepared to offer competitive salaries and benefits. You may also want to consider offering incentives for employees who go above and beyond in their customer service roles. If you can’t find the right people or you need help quickly, consider using a professional custom telephone answering service. An answering service can function as an extension to your business. This will help cut costs as well as eliminate interview and training time. Also, set up should be easy and quick when you are working with a professional service.
Make sure you have a clear customer service strategy in place.
Whether it is your team member or an agent at a telephone answering service, your expectations need to be met with every customer experience. Your standards need to be clear, concise, and communicated to anyone that will be interacting with your customers. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal. A happy customer is a repeat customer and one that may refer your company to others.
Use technology to your advantage.
There are a number of ways to automate some of the more repetitive tasks involved in customer service. One option is to call forward your customer service line(s) to a Telephone Answering Service. You have the option to forward your calls all the time, during busy times, on weekends and Holidays, or when your employees are on vacation or home sick. This will free up your team to focus on other important tasks. It will also help to ensure that customers always receive the same high level of service. Prerecorded messages about your company, options to leave voicemail messages, providing a detailed list of FAQs, or having answering service patch emergency calls are a few other ways to build customer service programs that will impress every customer.
Be understanding when customer demands are high.
Generally, your team members or the agents at your answering service are doing the best they can. You may need to offer some extra support during times of high customer demand. Make sure you are keeping your website up to date as well as your instructions and expectations of each customer experience.
Always learn from your customer service experiences.
Use customer feedback to improve your processes and make sure you’re always striving to provide the best possible experience for your customers.
Finally, be willing to make changes to your business model if necessary. The national labor shortage is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, so it’s important to be flexible and adaptable with your customer service strategy. If you find that your current approach is not working, don’t be afraid to try something new.
By following these strategies, you can shore up your customer service during the national labor shortage.
Find out more about PCMSI.
Our Answering Service is affordable, reliable, and completely customizable. We have been serving our clients and their callers locally, nationally, and internationally for over 60 Years! We look forward to the opportunity to partner with you. Visit us at pcmsi.com or call us anytime at 888-776-2661.
