Customer service standards checklist

It is the backbone of your basic customer service standards. It should outline how your business will provide support to its clients. Be clear about the procedures that need to be followed to resolve any complaints or queries.

Why is a customer service policy important?

It provides your staff with a clear set of guidelines to follow when they are assisting clients. As a result, they will be able to deliver service with a consistent level of quality and it will make it easier for staff to resolve any disputes that may arise.

How to set up a customer service policy?

Your policy should include the following elements:

• Customer support objectives
• Customer satisfaction targets
• Response time expectations
• Information to be provided by customer service representatives

Which tools to use for setting up a customer service policy?

There are a variety of tools that you can use to help manage your customer service policy, including the following:

• Customer feedback forms
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Customer support tickets
• In-house training sessions
• Online training courses
• E-books and manuals

Transparent communication is important for excellent service to customers. It ensures that there is no miscommunication between management and support staff when it comes to dealing with customers on a daily basis.

Why is transparency important?

Lack of transparency between your support team and management can create mistrust. This can hinder communication, negatively affecting your bottom line.

How to maintain transparency?

You can do it by holding regular meetings between management and staff. It allows both parties to openly share any updates or concerns they may have, and keep communication open.

Which tools to use for maintaining transparency?

• Google Docs
• Skype
• GoToMeeting

A consistent level of information should be offered to customers when they contact the business.

Why is consistency important?

It helps your customers trust you. There may be confusion among clients who attempt to access support if each member of staff has a different understanding of the company’s policies.

How can consistency be improved?

The following steps can help you improve the consistency of your customer service:

• establish a customer service policy that is clear and easy to understand
• train your staff in delivering excellent assistance
• make sure that your contact information are easily accessible
• monitor the quality of your service via feedback forms and surveys

Which tools to use for being consistent?

There are a number of tools that you can use, including:

• customer support standards checklist
• customer feedback forms and surveys
• customer satisfaction scores

A very important feature is accessibility to the customer service standards checklist. This will make it convenient for your staff to refer to it whenever they need it, as well as make it easier for them to follow the guidelines set out in the document.

Why is easy access important?

If the customer service standards are not readily available, then staff will be less likely to refer to them, leading to a possible decrease in the quality of service. It may confuse support staff.

How should easy access be handled?

Store them in a convenient location, like a shared folder on the company’s network. You can also make them available online, or even print them out so that staff can have a physical copy to refer to.

Which tools to use for providing easy access?

• Microsoft Word
• Google Drive

One of the main goals of customer service standards is to ensure that response times are as short as possible. It shows that your business cares about its clients, that they are valued and appreciated.

Why is the speed of response important?

A quick average response time is essential for customer satisfaction levels. It demonstrates that your business respects its customers’ time.

How to reduce your speed of response?

You can do this by implementing a ticketing system or using help desk software. This will allow you to track the progress of each support request, and help you provide quick responses to all inquiries.

Which tools to use for reducing your response time?

• help desk software
• ticketing system
• LiveAgent helpdesk software

It’s imperative to be polite to your customers at all times to help your business establish and maintain a positive reputation.

Why is courtesy important?

You must consider the needs of your clients if you want them to see a positive image of your business. Customer service is often the first impression that people have of your company, so it’s important to make sure that it’s a good one.

How to be courteous?

You can set standards for employee behavior and provide training courses that focus on courtesy and good manners. You can also use customer service scripts.

What tools can help you be courteous?

• employee training courses
• courtesy training course
• scripts for customer service agents

For your clients to have a positive customer experience and become repeat customers, accuracy and attention to detail are vital factors.

Why is accuracy important?

When your employees are kind and show punctuality, customers are more likely to perceive your business positively.

How to maintain accuracy?

You can use tools like LiveAgent helpdesk software to keep a close eye on all the customer interactions. Additionally, all customer inquiries are accessible from a single universal inbox. With this system, nothing will be overlooked. Your staff can also benefit from customer service scripts with all the detailed information they need.

Which tools to use for maintaining accuracy?

• customer service scripts
• accuracy training course
• attention to a detail training course

Clients prefer to be served immediately upon their request. The best solution would be to have someone accessible 24/7 through live chat to answer customer inquiries immediately but of course it is not always possible. Also, a Knowledge Base is a good way to empower customers to solve issues on their own.

Why is responsiveness important?

If you provide responsive service, you can be sure that whatever questions or problems arise will be addressed promptly. If a customer doesn’t receive a response, it can lead them to think that they are being ignored or are not important to the company.

How to be responsive?

Provide an easy way for users to reach you (such as an email address) and make sure that somebody is always monitoring that channel. Having omnichannel support is best, as it lets the customer interact with the help desk across multiple communication channels. Many customers prefer to contact a call center or live chat in order to resolve their issues quickly.

Responsiveness also means answering all customer complaints.

Make sure you have a system in place for tracking customer queries and complaints. You can keep track of any problems or progress with individual customers. Software like LiveAgent helpdesk is great for that.

Which tools to use for being responsive?

• well-organized Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
• email helpdesk software
• messaging software
• survey software
• LiveAgent helpdesk software
• live chat software

In the past few years, AI has become a popular solution.

Why is AI important?

It offers a number of benefits, including the ability to handle more inquiries at once and the ability to provide a human-like experience for customers.

How to use AI?

You can implement artificial intelligence into your customer support department by using virtual assistants and various integrations with machine learning capabilities. This allows you to provide an exceptional level of customer support, and it will also help reduce the workload for your support staff.

Which AI tools to use?

• chatbots
• virtual assistants

Customer service automation is an integral part of providing high-quality support. It increases the effectiveness of your staff’s work. Repetitive tasks that can be defined by criteria can be performed automatically.

Why is customer service automation important?

Using automation tools help manage your customer interaction more efficiently. It will also make the process less time-consuming for both you and your customers. Utilizing automation rules is beneficial for high ticket volumes. It allows less room for human error and improves response times.

How to automate customer service?

You can use automation tools to help with the following tasks:

• customer account management
• order management
• customer support and service

Which tools to use for automating customer service?

• LiveAgent
• Zendesk
• Salesforce

Customer expectations are at an all-time high, but they can be kept under control with the help of management practice.

Why is the management of customer expectations important?

You can better meet your customer’s needs if you keep their expectations in check. Whenever you do not meet your customers’ expectations, they may become dissatisfied. Always strive to provide the best service possible, but don’t promise what you can’t accomplish.

How to manage customer expectations?

Listen to your customers’ needs and then outline what is and what isn’t included in your service standards. Be straightforward and honest rather than overstating your capabilities. When possible, be flexible, but make sure your customer service team can handle the request.

Which tools to use for managing customer expectations?

• customer service form
• follow-up survey

Bear in mind that a business’s customer support standards are often measured by the employees’ behavior towards customers.

Why is a professional approach important?

It helps your staff build strong relationships with clients.

Customer satisfaction can be improved with an employee training program that focuses on customer-centric communication and behavior.

How to take a professional approach?

Involve your employees in designing your customer service standards process and provide them with professional training.

Which tools to use for taking a professional approach?

• customer service standards
• employee training courses

Maintaining a periodic performance plan for your customer support team ensures meeting the standards you have set.

Why is a performance plan important?

Performance plans communicate company’s strategies and objectives. They also help improve employee productivity and motivation, as well as ensure that they are familiar with the company’s goals.

How to create a performance plan?

Set goals and objectives that are related to your staff’s work performance. You can use scorecards to track their progress and identify any areas that require improvement.

Which tools to use for creating a performance plan?

• Asana
• scorecard
• project management software

It’s important to have a training plan for your service agents to keep them up-to-date with the latest changes.

Why is agent development important?

Your agents must know about the latest developments. A training program is vital for your agents to provide reliable and up-to-date service.

How can you manage agent development?

Identify which areas need improvement and create a training plan around them. You can also establish goals and objectives which will improve the performance of your agents as well as keep them motivated.

Which tools to use for agent development?

• training plan
• training courses for customer support agents

Analyzing your results will help you see which campaigns are working well, which could use improvement, and how each marketing campaign is doing.

Why is monitoring and tracking results important?

To make informed decisions, it’s necessary to find out which marketing methods are effective.

How to monitor and track results?

Make sure that all feedback is recorded properly (CRM software is great for this) so that you can analyze it later.

Keep watch on your website’s analytics to see how many people are visiting, and what pages they’re looking at. This will help you understand what content is popular and what needs improvement.

Compare your results with those of your competitors – what are they doing that you’re not?

Which tools to use for monitoring and tracking results?

• Some of the most popular tools for monitoring and tracking results are:
• Google Analytics
• customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot or Mailchimp
• LiveAgent