How to hack your customer service skills!

In my opinion, customer service is one of the hardest parts of running a small business.

Once your sales start picking up, so do customer enquiries. These can come via dms, emails and comments. The way you respond to customers can make or break your business so if customer care is not your area of expertise or you feel like you could be doing more, these 5 tips will send you on your way!

1: Remember it’s not personal.

When you’re running a small business it can be so easy to take what customers/potential customers say personally. And of course it feels that way when you’re a single person business. It feels like every single word they are saying is personally directed straight at your soul. Majority of the time, this isn’t the case. It’s just really easy to forget someone is running a small business compared to a huge corporation when you’re doing things online especially.

If someone sends an enquiry that you feel is slightly on the rude side, they may have just had a bad day. It may be that the post man hasn’t delivered their order and the easiest person to contact is you. It might be that one delivery that is keeping them going through a tough week. So just try to take a step back and accept that peoples reactions are a reflection of how they’re feeling, rather than being a personal attack on you!

2: They are spending their hard earned money on your products.

This one thought kept me so grounded when running my small business. Every time you receive an order, your customer chose you! They took the money they earned and made a purchase with you. Especially during the past few years, everyone has had such a hard time and money is hard to come by, so if someone has or is thinking about spending their money with you they’ve already done so much for you! The least you can do is be kind and indeed thankful. When you think about this at the start of the conversation you will notice how much more patience you have when interacting. Your customer can sense so much from a small conversation so make it worth it!

3: Give enquiring customers discount codes!

When a customer makes an enquiry, especially on your social media platforms they are increasing your engagement! 0 interaction = 0 sales! Reward your customers when you have a positive conversation! If they’re enquiring about a product, hand over 10% off their first order. This personal touch when exchanging messages makes such a difference! There is no downside to this, you increase your chances of getting a sale and even if your enquirer doesn’t make a purchase there is no doubt they will leave you having had a positive experience which means it is more likely they will purchase in the future and even tell a friend!

4: Reward your repeat customers!

So we all know how to entice our first customer with a discount code. This same rule can apply to repeat customers! As I said above, these people are choosing to spend their money on your products! If they do that time and time again you need to keep them at all costs. People love to know that they are truly appreciated! You can do this by providing discount codes to repeat customers. You can also write personalised notes and add freebies to their orders (one of my favourites) as a small thank you!

One thing I did to reward repeat customers was host a giveaway that could only be entered by previous customers! They absolutely loved it and were so appreciative!

5: Be consistent and competent.

You may not reply to every single customer enquiry within 5 minutes. But you can take steps to inform people of when you’re available to answer queries, and stick to it. If you say you’re going to reply to all DM’s tomorrow afternoon, make sure you’re set up and ready to go at 11:30. You want your customers to know that you mean what you say.

Customers want quick competent responses. So make sure you know your product inside out so you can make the best recommendations based on what they’ve said!

I once made a promise to a customer that I would have her items delivered by a certain date. I quickly realised this wouldn’t be possible via post so I very kindly asked my husband to drive me 30mins (thanks kie 🥰) to drop the parcel off personally so that I wouldn’t break my promise. The customer was most pleased and she continued to buy from me thereafter!

I guess what I’m trying to say is, customer service is all about compassion and personality.

It shouldn’t be like talking to a robot going through the motions! You’re a human being and so are they. Most people are actually really easy to talk to if you can just understand things from their perspective.

If you got this far you’re an Angel and I really appreciate you!

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