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5 Customer Service Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs

Mar 4, 2016

3 min read

Whether on Facebook or in real life, you can’t make these mistakes when dealing with a customer.

Sometimes different people might talk with and to the clients via your social media accounts. It should your priority to train your employees.

There are a few things that any of us won’t tolerate. Rudeness is one of them. Sadly, it’s not that seldom that we get to experience it via social media communication channels – so when we do see a perfect example of cooperation between a potential client and a company, we’re more than happy.

Check out this amazing example:

Graze could’ve answered differently. They could’ve politely refused, but no! They’re aware of the fact that taking part in such projects is a part of building a positive brand image. And it really doesn’t cost you that much.

The second sin that we have to talk about is apathy. Lack of interest to solve your clients problems is pure laziness.

The third one – providing incorrect information. Aside from making sure that your staff knows how to talk to clients, you need to be convinced that they will know what to talk about.

It’s not about winning an argument when it comes to your business. Sure, if someone is trolling your fanpage with incorrect historical facts, you might take up the challenge – but it’s better to ignore and delete such posts. A bakery or a florist studio is not the place to discuss such topics.

But when the customer is arguing about the way you do business – you definitely should speak with them. “The customer is always right“, a saying popularised by pioneering retailers, is one of the most important rules of doing business. Customer satisfaction must be maintained here so that people won’t feel cheated or deceived. It might be counter-intuitive as some of the people might try and take advantage of you, but it’s still right.

César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier who lived in the 19th and 20th century, used to have a saying: “If a diner complains about a dish or the wine, immediately remove it and replace it, no questions asked”. And who are we to correct the guy who founded the world-famous Hotel Ritz?

One more thing – various writers and marketers of this world often say that content is the king. Let’s apply the same thing to your business, just as the Germans are doing. “Der Kunde ist König”. The customer is the king.

Everyone can smell a “go-away-I-don’t-have-time-right-now” answer from a mile away.

If you don’t have time to answer your customer correctly, make the time. If you really can’t make it right away – just write a short answer. Say that you’re working on the solution and you’ll get back to the client as soon as possible. We all must endure a bad day from time to time. Sure, it’d be better if this never happened, but it probably will.

Try and think about the problem from your customers’ perspective. How would you like to be treated? Would you rather be parried? Or would you understand that the company is doing everything they can, but they simply need a few more hours to prepare a compelling, fulfilling answer?

The point here – you really should give the client a realistic expectation of when they might receive a follow-up from you. That helps you to avoid situations like the ones you can see above.

If you have a wife, a daughter, a friend or basically anyone you are close with, congratulations. You managed to maintain a relationship.

What I’m sure of is you didn’t do it by negging, being inaccessible or undependable. You probably did succeed in those areas of life by doing what you’ve said you’ll do, caring and going above and beyond providing help when it was needed.

Treat your every customer as your friend from the start. This doesn’t mean you should send them “I love you” texts at 5 AM. It simply means that you shouldn’t be an anonymous, faceless figure.