As the saying goes: there is no pleasing everyone. And no matter how well thought out your brand strategy is and the customer touchpoints are, there will inevitably be someone who feels disappointed, put out or dissatisfied by their brand experience. The focus on brand experience has become ever more prevalent and is used by brands to distinguish themselves with their customers. Customer care is the golden thread that has to be intricately and seamlessly woven throughout the brand experience.

There are 5 core principles for great customer care:

Effective listening

Feeling as though you are being heard is a fundamental human need in any relationship, but even more so if things are not to your satisfaction. Allowing the customer to explain their position and to vent their frustrations is important for two main reasons. Firstly, it makes the consumer feel better, and secondly, it provides important feedback to take on board to ensure that the problem or issue does not reoccur.

 Practice Empathy

Being empathetic is an important social skill that makes customers feel valued and reassures them that you can see the problem from their perspective. It creates behaviour that contributes towards helping, making it more likely that a resolution can be found swiftly.

Personalisation

Customer care issues are often resolved because their experience was out of the ordinary. These exceptional circumstances require a personalised solution. Creating personalised solutions helps redress the imbalance.

Proactiveness

Being proactive about the solution is also highly important. Make the customer feel valued and let them know that their issue is high priority. Resolving issues in a timely manner is also key to this process.

Convenience

We have written about the importance of convenience in customer care before. Just as customers like personalised solutions they also like to air the complaint through the most convenient channel to them; be this online, by phone, or through any other channel of their choosing. Ensuring that your customer care centre is set up to support the convenience of the customer is an important principle in good customer care.

The core principles themselves are intuitive and many would argue basic common sense. The challenge is not in identifying them but rather in finding the time and resources to manage this process consistently for your business.

There are various options available to address the situation; either by hiring staff internally to manage this or by using an outsourced customer care solution, such as the customer call centre at FMI. Or, one could utilise a hybrid of the two. All options have pros and cons to be considered. Finding the most comprehensive solution that can be used to support a seamless and positive brand experience may just go some way in ultimately helping you to please everyone.

For more information about how FMI can help deliver your customer care solution get in touch today. Call us on 01 496 3399.