6 Different Approaches to Customer Service

Customer service is the type of thing that requires constant focus in order to improve to a point where you are able to give customers the best experience possible. The fact of the matter is that there is no one way to do customer service. Rather, there are a number of approaches that you can adopt in order to keep you customers satisfied. Which approach you end up adopting is, of course, entirely up to you.

That being said, each approach offers you some kind of help that would enable you to become a better customer service representative. In order to help you in this quest we have compiled a list of approaches you can start off with. This list is meant to help you decide which approach you want to go with.

#1 A Focus on Relationships

A team that conforms to this specific type of customer service is going to have a tendency to focus on relationship building whenever they are dealing with customers. This may seem like a laidback approach to customer service because of the fact that the people that apply this approach seem to have a laid back demeanor, but the fact of the matter is that it requires a fair amount of skill and finesse to make customers feel like they can tell you about anything. One of the major benefits of this approach is that it helps you get honest responses from customers and also helps make customers more loyal to you.

#2 A Data Driven Approach

People that apply this approach tend to be a little more methodical than people that apply the first approach. This requires you to go through data and try to get ahead of customers. If the data shows that customers have a problem with a specific kind of product or service, you can prepare yourself to deal with these customers. This is a generally studious approach but it helps you stay prepared for the worst case scenarios. It also allows you to answer all the questions that the customers may ask you in a manner that would leave them completely satisfied and ready to move on from the problem they were facing.

#3 The Meticulous CSRs

This basically involves figuring out every single aspect of the problem that the customers might be facing and then not resting until all of these aspects have been permanently resolved. The important thing to remember is that this will require a pretty enormous amount of effort. People that apply this approach are usually total workhorses. They tend to stay on the phone with customers the longest and also have a tendency to be very thorough when customers give them a problem that they are facing. People that follow this approach tend to make customers feel the most secure because they will clearly be seen as proactive and willing to take the extra step in order to help customers get the best experience possible.

#4 The Backburners

This is something that you shouldn’t really aspire to if you want your customer service to be the best that it can be. This approach means that customer service is not going to be a priority, with the focus instead being on things like sales. This is ostensibly because of the fact that customer support does not give the people applying this approach the results that they are looking for. It’s a valid approach but it is becoming increasingly obsolete in the modern world where the customer is definitely always right.

#5 Large Scale Volume Handlers

This approach can sometimes be seen as a quantity over quality approach, but the fact of the matter is that it is often necessary to approach customer service in this manner if you want to stay relevant in the modern era. This is because of the fact that scaling is necessary in order to justify the continued success of your company. If you want to adopt this approach, a live chat software such as the one offered by Kayako is going to be a big help to you as it will allow you to deal with higher volumes without having to reduce the quality of the customer support that you’re providing.

#6 Multi-Platform Specialists

The people that adopt this approach try to diversify their customer support as much as possible. This is done by offering customer support on numerous platforms such as social media, live chat and email. It is important to try and adopt this approach because you need to be as accessible to customers as possible, and a multiplatform approach can allow you to stay available to customers no matter what platform they may be using at that time. Kayako can also be a big help to you if you try to adopt this approach.