8 Tips to Deliver Professional Customer Service

93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases from companies that offer excellent customer service*. But what separates an excellent customer experience from an average one?

Outstanding customer service combines the efficiency of cutting-edge technology with the warmth of human connection. Customers should feel they’re getting a curated customer service experience whether they’re interacting with a chatbot online or in person with a customer service agent. 

In this article, we’ll share eight tips to enhance customer support and improve call center performance—transforming each interaction into a chance to build lasting relationships and propel your business forward.

Key takeaways:

• Outstanding customer service combines technology with a human touch. By treating customers as real people and fostering authentic connections, you can build brand loyalty and deliver a standout customer experience.
• Building trust requires empathy and active listening. Acknowledge customer concerns, communicate effectively, and provide timely solutions so customers feel valued and understood throughout their journey.
• By using CloudTalk to streamline communication and customer support, you can create more meaningful interactions that build brand loyalty and enhance the customer experience.

*HubSpot

How To Provide Outstanding Customer Service

Companies that excel in customer service incorporate a human touch in every interaction and leverage technology to provide personalized customer experiences (CX) at scale.

Done right, prioritizing CX can significantly impact your bottom line. Research shows companies earning $1 billion annually can earn an extra $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience. SaaS companies can also expect to increase return on investment (ROI) by $1 billion. This metric that can be easily defined with a ROI calculator directly indicates the succes of your project.

With this in mind, here are some of our top tips for providing exceptional customer service.

#1 Be Respectful

Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, so treat them that way!

They should always feel valued, heard, and supported whenever they interact with you, not dismissed or talked down to. Keeping your conversations respectful, polite, and genuinely helpful makes all the difference.

#2 Work on Improving Key Customer Service Skills

It costs less to keep existing customers than it does to attract new ones. 

In general, 65% of sales come from existing customers, so it’s good business to do what you can to keep them coming back. The customer experience you provide can be the determining factor for a client debating buying from you or from one of your competitors.

In fact, Salesforce found that 80% of customers believe the overall customer experience is as important as a company’s products or services when it comes to client retention. 

Below, we examine the customer service skills you need and how to improve them:

Exhibit Empathy

Empathy plays a big part in building trust and establishing an emotional connection with your customers. 

According to Zhecho Dobrev, consultant at Beyond Philosophy and author of, The Big Miss: How Organizations Overlook the Value of Emotions: “Emotional connection creates preference over the competition. Customers don’t just come back out of convenience. They see a difference between doing business with your company and other companies.”

A good experience creates a positive memory, and it’s these memories that keep customers coming back. Customer empathy is about making sure every customer feels heard, understood, and valued through the actions you take every day. 

Here are a few practical tips to instantly elevate your customer experience (CX):

• Make support easy to reach
• Provide fast resolutions
• Act on customer feedback
• Personalize interactions to build relationships
• Support causes your customers care about
• Provide empathy training
• Use features like Sentiment Analysis to understand CX
• Invest in the employee experience

This mindset shouldn’t be limited to customer service agents. True customer-centricity means getting everyone, from product managers to marketers, to see things from the customer’s perspective. When a company builds empathy into its culture, it leads to improved product development and happier customers.

Use Active Listening to Your Advantage

Dealing with angry customers can be daunting, but often they just want to feel genuinely heard and understood. Simple gestures like using their name and acknowledging their concerns—by saying, “I understand,” or “I see why that’s important to you”—can significantly impact the outcome of your interaction. Even if you can’t resolve their issue right away, showing you’re actively listening and empathetic can make a huge difference.

Expressing gratitude for their feedback is also crucial. Thank them for sharing their thoughts; their concern was important enough for them to reach out, and recognizing that effort demonstrates that you value their input.

While you may not always be able to provide an immediate solution or fulfill their request, showing empathy and offering an alternative can help soften the impact. By addressing their feelings with understanding and suggesting possible next steps, you can transform a challenging situation into a more positive experience for both you and the customer.

Adaptability and Problem-Solving

Waiting until customers complain to address issues is like starting to water your plants only after they’ve begun to wilt. Instead, nurture a healthy relationship by being proactive.

Good customer service is about anticipating your customers’ needs and nipping potential issues in the bud before they become a bigger problem. Instead of waiting for a complaint to come in, you’re taking action to help them now, which saves your customer service team time and keeps your customers happy.

Even when you can’t give the customer what they’re looking for, you still have a chance to build goodwill by suggesting a workaround or even directing them to a competitor. Take shoe company Zappos, for instance—they’ll refer customers elsewhere if an item is out of stock. 

CEO Tony Hsieh believes that even though they might lose a sale, it pays off in the long run because, “the customer appreciates the help and shares the story with their friends.” That kind of loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz far outweighs any short-term loss.

Master Communication Skills

Every customer service situation is unique, so try to address each one to the best of your abilities based on the issue at hand and your team’s availability. If you can’t solve their problem right away, let them know you’re on it and will get back to them soon.

How quickly you respond and how you communicate those responses are key to great customer service. Plus, being proactive and understanding customer behavior can help you spot potential problems before they arise.

Brian Reuter, former director of customer success at Zendesk, says it’s important to let customers know when they can expect to hear back from you. For example, if someone shoots an email to your support team and gets an immediate reply saying, “We usually get back to customers within four hours,” it helps manage their expectations and not churn. 

Without that communication, customers might expect an instant answer and get annoyed if they wait too long. And if you’ve got callers on hold, let them know how many customers are ahead of them or how long the wait might be. If you need to circle back with a follow-up, just tell them when they can expect to hear from you again.

Or reach more customers faster with AI-powered business calling software like CloudTalk. With features like Call Queuing, it automatically distributes calls to available agents based on customer status, technical skills, or business needs.

By setting up solid communication practices, you can avoid a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings and keep your customers feeling valued and supported.

#3 Consider Every Touchpoint

The modern customer transitions through countless touchpoints before making a purchase. Key touchpoints include all the moments customers interact with your brand before, during, and after making a purchase. 

So, you need to carefully consider each of these steps, especially when engaging with customers who might’ve had a negative experience. A poor experience at any stage of the customer lifecycle has the potential to do permanent damage to your brand’s reputation. 

That’s why your customer experience skills need to shine through at every stage of their journey. Focus on key touchpoints, but don’t lose sight of the bigger picture—missing a step could lead to service gaps that hurt your business.

#4 Find Solutions That Actually Solve Customer Needs

Dealing with customer issues can be an emotional rollercoaster, especially when they’re angry or frustrated. For both your well-being and theirs, remember to maintain a broader perspective and stay resilient in your quest for a positive outcome. Aim to shift your customers from a problem-focused mindset to a more optimistic one by actively seeking solutions. 

81% of consumers say quick and accurate issue resolution significantly affects their purchasing decisions. If you’re looking to enhance your customer experience, boost satisfaction scores, and hit your service goals, prioritize delivering exceptional customer care.

#5 Own Up To Your Mistakes

Imagine your customer’s website falls victim to a cyber attack. Spouting technical jargon is unlikely to soothe frustrated customers or help them access their product or site. Instead, try this approach:

• Apologize sincerely
• Outline your plan of action
• Let them know how you’ll update them
• Follow up with a fix

When you own up to your mistakes in real time, even if you catch them before your customers do, it builds trust and helps restore confidence. Taking responsibility lets you manage the situation, redirect the customer’s focus, and work toward a solution. Acknowledge your mistakes, follow up quickly, and take action to prevent them from happening again.

#6 Use Positive Language

Using positive language keeps the conversation flowing and reduces the chance of misunderstandings. Words like can’t, won’t, and didn’t—as well as phrases like “you have to” or “you need to”—often come off as negative.  

Focus your messaging around how you’ll solve the problem and steer clear of words that might trigger a defensive response. Instead of saying “No, we don’t have that,” try something like “While there’s currently no way to do that, we appreciate you letting us know it’s something you’d find useful. We use feedback like this to guide our product development, so thank you for letting us know!”

For example:

Say one of your products is back-ordered for a month. Your customer service representatives need to deliver this disappointing news to your customers, but there are a couple of ways you can go about it. 

Option 1: You can let clients know that the product is unavailable and you won’t be receiving it until next month. 

Option 2: Put a positive spin on the situation by letting them know you’ll place the order right away and will send it over as soon as it reaches your warehouse. 

It’s not about what you can’t do; customers want to know what’s going to be done. 

Positive language moves the conversation forward with a focus on solutions, showing your customer that reaching out was worth their time and making them more inclined to connect with you again in the future.

#7 Don’t Keep Customers Waiting

Your customers’ time is valuable, and your actions should reflect that. Start by making sure your customer service reps have all the customer information they need so they don’t have to sit on hold while agents dig for details.

To truly exceed customer expectations, you need to keep up with them and provide quick service along with speedy First Reply Times (FRT). This could mean setting up an automated response to let customers know you’ve received their request and are reviewing it. 

Here are some other great ways to deliver fast customer service:

• Invest in agent training: Equip your customer service professionals with a solid customer service training guide. They should know your products inside and out, have access to a comprehensive knowledge base, and be prepared to tackle challenging issues.
• Use the right tools: Simplify outbound and inbound calls, allocate resources effectively, and boost performance with business calling tools like CloudTalk.
• Improve processes: Speed is key, so get tickets to the right teams as quickly as possible. Consider creating a “customer service triage” team to handle incoming tickets, especially if you often get complex customer questions.
• Get on the phone: If agents are going back and forth or there are long delays, it might be time to pick up the phone. Sometimes, a quick call is the fastest way to help customers.

#8 Encourage Customer Feedback

Feedback is a crucial part of any customer experience strategy. If you want to enhance CX, develop a solid plan for gathering and acting on customer feedback.

Make sure you’re collecting feedback from a variety of touchpoints, including:

• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Live chat tools
• Sentiment Analysis and Call Monitoring
• Personalized emails and outbound calls
• Social media monitoring

Once you’ve gathered those insights, use them to make smarter, customer-focused decisions. This feedback can help you enhance your products or services, build templates, fine-tune your internal processes, and deepen your connection with customers.

Elevate Customer Experiences With CloudTalk

Delivering excellent customer service is the cornerstone of any long-lasting business. Show your customers they come first by respecting their time, maintaining open communication, and fostering an environment where they feel valued and heard. Be empathetic, own up to your mistakes, use positive language, and encourage feedback to refine your approach over time.

With CloudTalk’s call center analytics software, you can improve call center monitoring through features like Real-Time Dashboards and Talk/Listen Ratio. This empowers team members to manage customer relationships efficiently—ensuring every touchpoint is a step toward client satisfaction.