With much customer service now delivered via live chat or social media, ensuring your teams are properly trained in written communication best practices is paramount to your success. When your staff can not only educate and serve your customers, but also communicate with them in a meaningful way, you are much more likely to build loyalty and recommend you to their family and friends.
According to members of the Young Entrepreneur Council, keeping these 11 tips in mind when engaging with clients in a written format can help ensure your communication is clear, helpful, and likely to earn you trust and loyalty. of your customers.
1. Keep answers short and to the point
Customer service professionals have to fight the urge to respond in a way that sounds like their speaking voice, because it can lead to long sentences, over-politeness, and tons of endless sentences. In a world of hashtags and catchy slogans, it’s best to keep your message short and to the point to avoid misunderstandings. Text that takes more than 20 seconds to read can be overlooked and the main point can be lost. – Heather Francis, High Funding
2. Repeat customer requests
You should always repeat the client’s request to him. Adding a layer of clarity will allow the client to make corrections if necessary. If they don’t have corrections, you can continue to properly understand their concern. Summarizing the conversation is also helpful. Several simple sentences are sent in succession with chat messages, so say something like “To sum up your concern…” then repeat it to the customer. -Mary Harcourt, CosmoGlo
3. Use tools to review your message
Don’t send anything without reading it and checking that it could reasonably (or frankly, unreasonably) be misunderstood. Help yourself with a spell checker and editing tools. Writing has never been a solitary adventure. This has always been done in dialogue with the publishers. Use tools that help you be your own editor. If it’s an important issue (an email to a shareholder, for example), send it to someone you trust. – Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts
4. Learn from past interactions
Learn from best practices from past interactions. These concrete examples of effective communication serve as the basis for developing clear messages and setting the right tone for various issues in future engagements. I highly recommend reviewing these examples with your team, as it will encourage collaborative learning and the development of improved communication strategies. – Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME
5. Send customers in-depth guides and articles
Creating detailed help articles that you can send to customers to address more technical customer service requests can be helpful in keeping communication clear. Guides can help you provide faster answers (because you won’t have to type out a 10-step process every time) and give customers something to refer to if the issue reoccurs. – Diana Goodwin, Market Box
6. Use clear language
Avoid jargon and technical terms when communicating with your customers. Not everyone has the knowledge to understand these words, and the last thing you want to do is make your customers feel stupid asking for something. Use simple language to explain concepts and ideas. – Samuel Timothy, OneIMS
7. Add bullets to break up text
Long comments are hard to read and easy to misinterpret. Instead, keep things simple for customers by giving them the main points in bullet form. It’s also more likely to be a helpful resource for other fans and followers who need information that provides succinct, easy-to-identify answers. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep Mattress
8. Take advantage of the “BLUF” approach
To ensure clear and useful written communication in customer service, you should use the “BLUF” (Bottom Line Up Front) approach. In this approach, you present the most important information or solution first, followed by the necessary details. This technique improves the clarity, effectiveness and readability of your texts, making it easier for customers to act on your response. -Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz
9. Standardize your processes
It is essential that you develop standard operating procedures and train your teams in them to streamline your communication. The problems can vary from company to company, as can the solutions. So identify the problems, brainstorm to find the best possible solutions, and standardize your processes. This keeps loopholes to a minimum and ensures excellent customer service. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
10. Make sure you have real humans on standby
Make sure you have a live human available if you use chatbots. While chatbots can answer basic questions and resolve issues quickly, sometimes a customer has a specific question and wants to speak to a representative. Be sure to establish regular hours when reps are available and respond to any weekend or holiday messages. – Duran Inci, Optimum7
11. Then send a recording of the conversation
One way to ensure that you communicate effectively with customers is to send a recording of the conversation to their email addresses. Many consumers may feel like a representative was unclear when they don’t fully recall the conversation. An automated interaction log can clear up confusion and make it easier for customers to find value in your advice. – John Turner, SeedProd LLC
