Talking about customer service may seem like the most boring topic we could cover.

Which is exactly why we’re tackling this head-on!

And I’m giving you my 3-part system to turn ordinary, bland and boring customer service…

Into a customer service experience that wows your customers and clients all the way to the bank.

Customer service is something I feel pretty strongly about.

After all, I’ve spent most of my career working in some form of the customer service industry.

Whether as a professional business captain, an agency owner, or a consultant.

I even wrote a book on the subject (conveniently located on Amazon for only a few bucks!)

So, what I want to share with you today are a few different strategies from 3 key areas of your business’s customer service area.

In order to switch it from customer service to a customer experience.

The three areas we’re going to cover are Mindset, Marketing and Mechanism.

The first thing we need to talk about when it comes to getting your customer service right and transforming it into that customer service experience is all about…

Mindset

Mindset is important.

If you don’t get the mindset right, all the stuff we talk about later won’t really matter.

Because it’ll all be built on a really shaky foundation.

So, when it comes to mindset there’s four different areas that we’ve gotta cover:

1. Priorities and Processes

Here we’re uncovering different types of scenarios and priorities that you’ll place on where your customer service fits into your overall business model.

As an example:

Is the customer always right?

Now, anytime I’m on stage and I ask the audience this question, I always get a mixed response.

Some audiences all say yes, some say no, sometimes it’s a mix of yes and no…

And there’s no definitive answer.

It’s completely based on you, your business, and your overall business model.

And where you’re gonna prioritize customer service.

There are gonna be situations where the customer may be right, and there will be situations where they’re flat-out wrong.

A customer may be wrong if they’re abusive, or threatening, or using rude language.

And these are all things that you need to clarify in your company’s Standard Operating Procedures (or SOP’s).

This will avoid confusion down the line and give you guidelines to stick to so you know where to bend and when to break.

2. The Platinum Rule

We don’t want to abide by the Golden Rule (which is treat other people how you want to be treated)…

But rather, treat other people how THEY want to be treated.

This is what truly differentiates ordinary customer service from true customer experience.

Everybody’s different.

We all know that.

And yet, sometimes we try to treat everybody the same.

By using a more personalized, customized and empathetic approach, you’re gonna be able to deliver far superior customer service.

3. Focus on the Customer Service “PACKE”

– P stands for Passion

And there’s no faking passion.

This is why you need energy and enthusiasm behind what you’re doing and what you’re selling.

Because that’s gonna be communicated when you’re talking to your customers

– A stands for Attitude

We all know the importance of a really good and positive attitude.

This is especially true in the customer service and customer experience industry.

You’ve gotta have that good attitude.

So hire for attitude, train for skill.

– C is for Care

Here we’re taking that passion and that attitude and creating a form of care.

Where you genuinely care about the person that you’re solving.

This cannot be faked.

Do your best to try to be empathetic of where the person’s coming from…

And really care about them and about the results you’re helping them get.

– K is Knowledge

This one may be self-explanatory, but in reality, you have to know what you’re talking about.

Otherwise you’re not gonna be able to provide true customer service if you’re not able to help the customer with what they need help with.

– E is Etiquette

This is all just about being polite.

Smiling.

Saying please.

Saying thank you.

(Enough said there).

The fourth and final thing we need to talk about when it comes to mindset has already been said, but we need give it it’s own point:

4. Attitude

I know I beat this up in the “PACKE”, but attitude is by far the single most important element when it comes to transforming your business’s customer service into that customer service experience.

So really focus on making sure you’re delivering the right attitude.

Or that your sales team, or customer service staff has got the right attitude for the job.

Or that the people who have the right attitudes are in the right position.

Alright, so let’s move on to point two:

Marketing

1. Competitive Advantage

Marketing has a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.

This is because, as much as people like to claim they’ve got phenomenal customer service, the statistics say otherwise.

Which is why true and amazing customer service is a rarity, and therefore incredibly valuable in the market.

2. Social Media

The next point we need to understand and leverage is the social media aspect of that customer service experience.

The reality now is that a lot of customer service is going to take place through different social media channels.

Whether it’s through a chatbot, or a channel you use to deal with questions or complaints…

And the other side of the coin is that good customer service and bad customer service can be communicated instantly.

It doesn’t take long for someone to go out there and make a post or a tweet to either praise or discredit your company.

You’ve got to take that into consideration.

And this is why building that customer service experience is so incredibly valuable.

3. Understanding the Lifetime Value of Your Customer

This is an exercise I like to walk all my clients and all my students through.

What it really comes down to is identifying the true lifetime value of that customer to your business.

Not a one-time transaction.

Not a one-day, or one-week, or even a one-month transaction value.

But rather the entire value of that customer over their entire lifetime of dealing with your business.

Now, here’s the kicker.

If you’ve never done this before, you’re going to find the lifetime value of your customer is significantly more than you might have thought.

When you understand the true value of a customer to your business, it makes you prioritize creating that customer service experience.

Because you know the true value and the true revenue that they’re bringing to your bottom line.

4. Touchpoints

Everything is marketing.

Every interaction, every post, every tweet, every message, every video.

And everything is going to communicate your brand and your values and your customer service (and the priority that you place on it) to your customer.

This is the reason it’s insufficient to be really exceptional at customer service in one area, but then completely dropping the ball in another area.

Rather, you’ve gotta be equally good across all the platforms you choose to present yourself on.

Now, the quick-fix here is:

If you’re not so strong on one platform, just drop it.

Focus on where your customers are, and where you’re truly gonna be able to shine.

And deliver the best and most value to your customers.

Mechanism

1. Support Tools

The first thing we’ve gotta talk about when it comes to Mechanism is the support tools (and what are available).

Now there are a lot of amazing companies out there that all have some form of customer service tools.

Whether we’re talking about Zendesk, or Rhino Support, or Salesforce or Zoho, or any of the other millions out there.

(All you really gotta do is go to Google and do a quick search for customer service tools, and you’ll find them.)

The beauty of using and leveraging these tools is it makes sure that nothing falls between the cracks and gets lost.

What I mean by this, is that if someone sends an email to your business’s support email with a question, you don’t want it to get lost or get handled later.

So, what these tools do is to assign it to different people on your team, to mark it as resolved…

Or to send it to the right person to make sure it gets handled.

What ever it is, it helps people to stay on track and in line so nothing gets missed.

The next tool we’ve gotta talk about is one that’s freely available to you and to everyone:

2. Facebook Messenger

You see, there’s been an interesting trend and change in the way that customers want to react and engage with businesses.

And this is switching more and more to those online chat features, and Facebook Messenger is leading the pack here.

This means is making sure your business is accessible via Facebook Messenger.

Whether you’re going to use it to answer questions, or to just engage with your community, what ever it is.

There’s a number of amazing chatbot tools out there.

They allow you to pre-qualify or pre-segment people based on their different questions so you can make sure that they’re answered quickly and officially.

3. YouTube

The beauty of using YouTube as a customer service tool, is it allows you to freely and easily upload videos.

You can create FAQs or how-to’s or tutorials or anything else your customers may benefit from.

This is going to dramatically cut down on the amount of customer service staff that you’re gonna need to support all the questions you get in.

4. Net Promoter Score

This is really simple.

All you need to do is ask your customers or your clients:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or family member?”

Here’s the kicker: anything less than an 8?

No bueno.

This means the only acceptable answers to this answer are an 8, a 9, or a 10.

Anything else requires immediate and dramatic corrective action.

To succeed in business today when it comes to customer service, anything less than an 8 is simply not acceptable.

Because there’s other people out there that are willing to raise the bar and go that extra mile.

Alright, so there we have it.

My best tips in transforming your business’s customer service into a true customer service experience.