A customer’s first interaction with a business during the exploration or sales phase is usually a positive one. The prospect typically is excited about buying something new or solving a problem they have, and the sales rep is, naturally, keen to impress.
On the other hand, when a customer contacts ‘customer service,’ it’s most likely because they have a problem. When they make a phone call or write an email, they are likely angry, frustrated, restless, or, at the very least, confused.
Positively engaging a person in that frame of mind, without losing their patronage, is what customer service etiquette is all about. Let’s dig deeper.
How to Improve Your Customer Service Etiquette
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat is Customer Service Etiquette?
Customer service etiquette is a set of behaviors, manners, and techniques that professionals use to resolve customer issues to their satisfaction.
Good customer service etiquette is how a customer service representative behaves, but it’s also inherently adaptive and must be modified based on the customer’s response.
Why does customer service etiquette matter?
Essentially, customer service is a problem-solving role. These customer problems might be as simple as “I’m unable to reset my password” or as complex as “I am unsatisfied with your product and want a refund.”
Whatever the nature of the customer’s complaint, good etiquette helps in innumerable ways, such as:
- Placating the customer and getting them to be solution-oriented
- Turning a negative situation into a positive or at least neutral one
- Presenting a professional and customer-centric brand image
- Creating a delightful customer experience even after a negative event
- Fostering customer loyalty by taking care of customers irrespective of their experience with you
What makes good customer service etiquette?
While the experience with each customer can be different, there are certain key principles that most businesses follow.
Respect
The first and foremost principle is to respect the customer and their problem, irrespective of how silly or easy it sounds. Even if the solution is a simple “restart your system,” say it with respect to build rapport with them.
Empathy
The service rep must recognize customers’ emotional states, put themselves in their shoes, and respond accordingly. This will help address customer concerns without judgment.
Active listening
Concentrate on what customers say, acknowledge their concerns, and mirror their language to ensure you don’t leave out any critical information. Active listening can significantly reduce frustration and enhance customer satisfaction.
Clarity
Avoid jargon. Don’t use complex words when simple ones will do. It also helps to mirror the language of the customer to ensure they feel heard and understood.
Transparency
To convince your customer to trust you with their problems, you need to be transparent. Acknowledge the problem. Provide accurate information. Be transparent about whether you can solve the problem or not. If you can’t, be especially open about that. But suggest a clear way forward.
Professionalism
Good communication involves using polite language, good manners, and appropriately presenting oneself. This helps establish a positive image of the company.
Consistency
Consistency is critical to great customer service. Customers should receive the same level of service regardless of whether they’re reaching out on email, phone, or live chat.
You’ll notice that the above characteristics are behavioral and therefore, open to interpretation in some cases. For instance, one of the tenets of high-quality customer service is ‘respect people’s time.’ As you can see, it’s not a specific instruction like ‘wear a tie’ or ‘mention the company’s tagline in your goodbye message.’
Respecting people’s time might include reducing their wait time, giving clear answers, acknowledging how busy they are, and so on. Based on the situation, it is the job of customer service agents to choose what the right etiquette is.
Today, customers reach out for support via phone, email, social media, live chat, and so on. Something as simple as a period at the end of a sentence can come across as rude in text. Based on context, etiquette can change dramatically.
In short, customer service etiquette can be a slippery slope. While there can’t be cut-and-dry customer service etiquette rules, there are best practices followed by successful businesses worldwide.
Summarize this article for me pleaseTips for Mastering Customer Service Etiquette
Customer service etiquette is multi-dimensional. The primary aspect of it is, of course, communication, i.e., how you speak to the customer. However, it also involves various considerations around privacy, handling personally identifiable information [PII], escalations, and more, depending on your customer service goals. Here are some best practices.
1. Adapt the customer service etiquette to the mode of communication
Depending on the platform the customer has contacted you on, your etiquette will vary, even though the principles are often standard. For instance, on the phone, you might demonstrate active listening by saying, “hmmm” or “I hear you.” That’s harder to do on social media.
So, here’s how you can adapt your customer service etiquette to the mode of communication.
Email etiquette
Email is a tricky medium. It is textual. So, it is also difficult to hear the tone of your voice. Good etiquette can go a long way in making the interaction positive.
Use clear subject lines: Use specific and clear subject lines that indicate the email’s content. For example, “Update on your order #12345” is more informative than “Order update.”
Personalize: Address the customer by name to make the interaction more personal and connected. If you’re using Gmail as your customer support tool, you can easily search for conversation trails and relationship history, look at all past emails, and learn about the customer. This helps continue the relationship without making the customer repeat themselves.
Keep it short: No one wants to read long emails if they can avoid it, especially from a business. Keep your message short and to the point. If there is a lot to say, use formatting like bold, underline etc., to highlight salient points.
Proofread: Always check for spelling and grammar. A well-written email reflects professionalism and attention to detail. Gmail has built-in spell checkers. You can use external tools like Grammarly.
If you use ClickUp CRM, you might also use the platform’s in-built AI as your writing assistant. As a bonus, here’s a detailed primer on how to use AI in customer service.
Put your name on it: Sign off with your name and title to make the email more personal. This also conveys accountability.
Phone etiquette
If you’re answering phones from customers, here is what good etiquette will look like.
Greet professionally: Start positively with a greeting like, “Thank you for calling Acme company. I am Elmer Fudd. How can I help you today?”
Acknowledge regularly: Show you’re engaged by responding and acknowledging the customer’s words. Ask gentle yet leading questions. For instance, you might say, “I understand you’ve tried restarting the system and it didn’t work?”
Speak clearly: Avoid jargon and use specific words. For instance, say, “Let me connect you to a specialist right away who can help you better” instead of something vague like, “I am going to escalate this; you’ll hear from us soon.”
Repeat the concern: To ensure you understand what the customer is saying, repeat their concern in a short and clear manner. For example, you might ask, “The app is hanging every time you try to change the password. Is that correct?”
Follow up: Follow up if the issue requires it or if you have promised to follow up. This builds trust and reliability.
Chat etiquette
Live chat is one of the most popular customer support mediums today. But instant messaging can be difficult. Good etiquette can make this easier.
Respond quickly: Aim to respond to messages from the customer immediately. Many prefer to chat because of the speed of reactions, which is why delays can get especially frustrating.
Be friendly: Maintain a friendly, happy tone. Say, “I’d be happy to help you with that.”
Keep messages short: Be clear and brief. Repeat if necessary and use words similar to what the customer is using.
Leverage resources: Wherever appropriate, give the customer links to video tutorials or step-by-step instructions to make the problem-solving easier. Be ready to share the screen and show them what to do.
Provide a summary: Summarize key points at different stages of the conversation and definitely at the end. Let the customer know what exact actions you will be taking based on their inquiry.
Social media etiquette
Social media is similar to an online chat, except it happens publicly, in front of millions of people. If something goes wrong, it can become a public embarrassment. If you get it right, it can create viral positive word-of-mouth. Creating good social media interactions depends on good etiquette and behaviors like:
Be polite: Irrespective of the customer’s tone of voice, be polite and professional. Try not to escalate an emotionally charged conversation.
Reply quickly: For most customers, social media is not the first port of call. They have already tried emailing/chatting and have not received a satisfactory response. So, they use social media as an escalation point. Make sure you reply quickly.
Respect privacy: Some PII—like order number or delivery pincode—needs to be handled with care. Keep DMs open and protect customer data.
Take things offline: Not everything can be resolved with exchanges on social media. For a detailed conversation, take things offline. Call the customer and speak to them personally.
Circle back: Once the customer query is resolved, post it on the social platform and invite customer feedback.
Virtual meeting etiquette
Modern customers demand to speak on the channel they’re most comfortable with. Especially if you’re in B2B, virtual meetings are par for the course for client communication. To navigate this, it helps to design virtual meeting etiquette rules, including Zoom meeting etiquette.
Be punctual: Log in well before time and ensure all technical aspects are functional. Make sure your speakers, mic, webcam, customer training software, etc. are working fine.
Speak from a professional environment: Ensure you are in a quiet, well-lit room with a clean, distraction-free environment for the meeting.
Prepare in advance: Have everything you need for managing client expectations, including materials, screens, presentations, and notes. Ensure you show the customer only what they need to see and nothing more. Practice for better performance.
Take permission: If you’re recording the call, inviting a colleague, or using an AI note-taker, ask the customer for permission.
2. Value people’s time
Remember that absolutely no customer enjoys spending their time talking to a customer service executive about a problem with a product they paid money for. In fact, a recent study found that “43% of customers would rather clean a toilet than call customer support.”
So, the most important customer service etiquette is to value people’s time.
- Listen carefully so that the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves
- Aim to resolve in first contact, so they don’t have to call back
- Don’t keep them waiting unless you absolutely have to
- If something will take time, explain to the customer why
To ensure that your teams can focus on the customer and their concerns, give them a robust system to take care of the rest. A good system would include the following.
Ticket management
When using ClickUp for Customer Service, you can create tickets as tasks or update existing tasks with custom fields. This single-pane visibility ensures that your teams don’t rely on memory or personal notes to solve problems.
Frameworks
Give your teams pre-defined customer service templates to make their job simpler. A good template not only guides them through the process, it also helps maintain consistency and compliance throughout the team.
ClickUp’s Customer Service Management Template is a feature-rich framework that enables you to monitor tickets and manage resolutions. Need custom Status for escalations or Custom Fields for reasons? No problem. This customizable template enables all this and more.
Automation
One of the simplest ways to respect people’s time and get things done faster is through automation. Identify the most commonly asked questions or concerns and seek to automate them.
For instance, you can use ClickUp Automations to trigger emails based on task actions or form submissions. If a customer live chats about being unable to reset their password, the bot can create a ticket, which automatically triggers the corresponding workflow.
3. Use a script
Scripts are a great way to operationalize the intangible aspects of etiquette we’ve been discussing so far. They help build consistency, not just for each individual customer service rep but also among the entire team.
While you’re creating scripts, consider the following customer service etiquette tips.
Coverage: Cover a wide range of scenarios, from the basic greeting to placating an angry customer or when a call is disconnected midway.
Updates: Keep your scripts updated. With ClickUp Docs, you can even edit collaboratively with the team and publish updated versions in the same place!
Access: Make the scripts accessible to everyone on the team. When you use a tool like ClickUp Docs, you can publish it online and give view, comment, or edit access based on the needs of each individual.
You can also make access easier with ClickUp Brain. Empower your customer service reps to ask questions and get comprehensive answers from sources across documents, people, tasks, and your organizational knowledge.
4. Be extra careful about customers’ PII
Customer service etiquette requires representatives to know as much as they can about the customer, their shopping habits, and how they like to have their problems solved.
This information comes with a caveat, though. It is personal information, and customers are becoming increasingly particular about privacy and data security. So, customer service etiquette includes exercising care and confidentiality with personal data.
Collect as little as possible: The information you don’t have can’t be stolen or misused. Collect only the data necessary for customer service. For instance, don’t ask for a customer’s wedding anniversary unless you’re a gifting platform.
Get consent: When you collect any information from the client, mention why and what you’ll use it for. When you’re asking for a customer’s phone number, you might say, “Can I have your mobile number so I can call you back in case this chat is disrupted?”
Limit usage: Use the data only for the purpose it’s collected. If you ask a customer’s mobile number to call back, don’t add it to a database and spam them with marketing messages.
Give users control: Empower your customers by providing privacy controls on-site and opt-out options for communications.
Be compliant: Stay compliant with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. Understand customer rights and implement mechanisms to fulfill privacy-related requests.
5. Handle escalations tactfully
If a customer support call is typically a negative experience, escalations are worse. An escalation means that a customer is dissatisfied with the solution they’ve been offered and seeks to speak to someone with more authority/knowledge.
Excellent customer service relies significantly on how well you handle escalations! The etiquette this demands is of a slightly different nature.
Understand escalations: Escalations can be classified into two types.
- Functional escalation, which occurs when customer support agents lack the necessary skills or authority to resolve the issue
- Hierarchical escalation, which occurs when a customer explicitly requests to speak to a supervisor or higher authority due to dissatisfaction with the initial response
Know what you’re dealing with before you speak to the customer.
Be patient: The customer is evidently frustrated. Listen to them carefully, empathetically, and patiently. Endeavor to create positive customer relationships, even in times of escalations.
Be prepared: Before taking on the escalation, get a summary of customer interactions from the previous agent. Don’t make the customer repeat themselves. Begin the conversation with, “I gather this is the concern, am I right?” This helps the customer feel they’re understood.
Personalize: Go through the CRM and learn about the customer’s relationship with you. See what they’ve bought, who they’ve referred, what they say about you on social media, etc. Demonstrate your knowledge while talking to them.
For example, you might say, “I see that you’ve been with us since 2015, and we’d hate to lose such a longstanding customer. Please allow me to make it right for you.”
Be clear and transparent: If you don’t have a solution other than the one they’ve already been presented with, let them know. You might say, “I understand your frustration, Ma’am, but Elle has already given you our best solution. I’m sorry I’m unable to do more.”
Stay positive: During escalations, things can go horribly wrong. For instance, a customer might want to cancel the service or threaten legal action. Even when the conversation ends badly, stay polite, professional, and positive.
Summarize this article for me pleaseAugment Your Customer Service With ClickUp
In an HBR article provocatively titled Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers, the authors argue that “loyalty has a lot more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises than on how dazzling the service experience might be.”
Especially when a customer is contacting you about a complaint, speaking to them in a polite, empathetic, professional, and solution-oriented manner can make all the difference. While a lot of this is behavioral, you can improve outcomes with the right tools for excellent customer service.
ClickUp for Customer Service teams is designed to accomplish exactly that. It gives your customer service representatives access to data, processes, and automation so they can resolve customer queries faster and more effortlessly.
Whether it’s a comprehensive CRM to manage client-related data, automation templates for common queries, or an intelligent spell checker, ClickUp has everything you need to consistently improve customer satisfaction.
Empower your customer service team. Try ClickUp for free today.
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