There are a multitude of jobs out there that require stellar customer service. The best businesses thrive not only on their ability to create unique or necessary products, but on their employees’ abilities to connect with potential consumers and to sell those same products. Despite its common nature, customer service is difficult to master. There are several tricks that you can employ in order to excel at the practice of customer service, including those listed below. Consider the following and see how you can change your or your employees’ behavior in order to promote improved business practices as well as better relationships with your consumer audience.

Defining Customer Service

Customer service is the art of connecting with a consumer – but it is not so simple in practice, nor so clinical. Certain folks with certain personality types are more inclined towards positions that require lots of interaction with customers. You have to be charismatic, patient, and professional for eight hours a day, at a minimum – a task which requires a significant amount of emotional endurance. Still, it is your interactions with your consumers that can directly influence your sales, not to mention your professional reputation.

How to Treat Your Customers

First and foremost, you need to treat any customers who come into your business like people. These folks may be coming from long days of their own, or they may have children who are actively stressing them out. Their bad moods, or their moods in general, are rarely reflections of your own behavior – at least, upon their first entry into your business. It’s your responsibility, as a customer service representative, to work with whatever mood you’re presented with. If a customer is upset, crack a few jokes or lend them a sympathetic ear. If your customer is in a delightful mood, chat with them like you would any of your own friends while maintaining a professional distance.

Secondly, gauge your customer’s level of awareness regarding the product you’re selling. If, for example, you work as a mechanic, and the woman who comes into your shop has grease stains on her pants and a well-maintained car in your parking lot, treat her as a peer, only explaining additional parts of your work as she asks for elaboration. Alternatively, if a teenager driving his first car pulls into your garage, take the maintenance process slowly without insulting his intelligence.

How to Ensure Repeat Business

By developing a rapport with your customers, both by treating them like well-rounded people and by seeing to their needs with professional awareness, you’re likely to garner a consumer following that keeps you in business for quite some time. These sort of work friendships can prove great fun and be emotionally rewarding, but even if they are superficial, they’re important to the economic and reputable strength of your business.

The Dos and Don’ts of Customer Service

Do: 

• Treat your customers with respect
• Talk your customers about your product without over-explaining
• Remember that your customers are human and emotionally complex

Don’t:

• Ignore your customer’s mood

• Take your customer’s mood personally – at first

• Over-explain a product or work process

• Overshare

With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to master customer service in no time at all while improving your business’s reputation in the eyes of your current consumer base.