Being good to your customers ensures customer satisfaction that helps in building customer trust!
How can you be good to the customers all the time? With the use of the right and appropriate customer service phrases.
The experience your customer has with you defines whether that customer is going to be with you for a long period of time or not. Even if you are not able to provide certain product or service, there are some words and phrases that you should never say to your customers. You must refrain from using the phrases that can make the interaction worse.
In reality, what you say? and how you say it? are the most crucial factors when it comes to achieving customer service success.
This article is about some key customer care phrases that are good (the one’s you must keep using) and that are bad (the one’s you must stay away from) in order to deliver the best-in-class customer service so that you can work towards building better customer relationships.
Let’s start on a positive note! Here are 6 good and helpful customer service phrases that are good and ensure excellent customer support:
“I don’t know, but I will find it out for you”
If you have a company that is operating in a saturated market, you have to take this fact into consideration that your customers have many other choices to select from. If you say something they don’t want to hear, you will simply drive them away.
Its okay to not know the answers to all the questions asked by your customers but the way you portray things makes all the difference. You can ask the customer to allow you sometime to get to the solution and your customer will surely be willing to do that.
While talking to your customers, you must concentrate on reducing customer effort in order to deliver exceptional service. If your customers start thinking that they have to chase you or put in a lot of time and effort to get answers from you, they will quickly look for an alternative.
“I’d be frustrated too if I were in your place”
Step in your customer’s shoes! Showing empathy is an important attribute in customer service.
When your customer comes to you with a query or a problem, a thought that prevails in his/her mind is, “Why isn’t this issue important to you as it is to me?” and you have to understand this emotion first before you start solving the issue.
Let’s face the fact! We have all been in this situation when we feel that something that is important to us should be important to other person as well, be it in the case of customer service representatives, friends or family. This is a normal emotion that everyone feels.
No one will feel good to talk to someone who doesn’t understand the depth of the matter and does not understand why you are upset over something.
Therefore, it is important to have empathy towards your customers and to show it as well.
Mastering empathy and showing it to your customers might seem like an intimidating task at first but it will surely become easier as you start working on it.
What the customer is complaining about might not be your fault but just the fact that you can feel your customer’s emotions and that you are sorry about what the customer had to face will start making your customers feel better.
“I’d be happy to help you with this”
Hearing positive and happy words really makes you feel better. You can make your customers feel happy and cared for simply with the use of positive and feel-good words.
It has been researched that most of the customers have done things like stop buying from a particular business or complaining about it to others as a result of a bad customer service experience. A simple strategy of saying more positive words in your interaction makes a huge difference.
So when a customer raises a ticket or emails you about some problem, instead of responding with statements like, “I’ll check this for you” or “I’ll look into this for you”, you can reply, “I’d be happy to help you out with this”.
You must start implementing positive words during your interaction with your customers and you will go a long way in creating customer loyalty and long term customer relationships.
“I’ll send you an update by (time/date)”
If a customer has to send you an email for knowing the status of the issue raised, you must consider this as a failure on your part as you did not update on time. Even if the issue is not resolved, you must communicate with the customer about what you are doing and how much more time will be required to resolve the issue.
Two important things that you can do to avoid customers checking in on the issue are:
- Make sure that you proactively keep the customer updated as frequently as possible. Avoid having long gaps between your updates.
- Let the customer know about what they should exactly expect from you.
It is understandable that at times a solution cannot be delivered in the stated time but you can always send an update!
The habit of keeping your customer updated without having them to check on the issue creates customer trust, they know that you are working on their issue and they know that you care about the inconvenience caused to them.
“I really appreciate you letting us know”
Think about this – If one customer comes to you with a complaint or an issue, it could mean that there are many other customers who might be facing the same problem and yet they might not tell you about it.
This means that if you resolve the problem for one single customer, you will resolve it for many other customers as well and this is a huge opportunity to build good customer relationships!
You must always appreciate the customer who brings a certain issue to light. After all, it is the basic human nature to like getting appreciated. When you thank your customers for letting you know about an issue, you make them feel great!
- In situations where your customer gives you a feedback or an opinion, thank him/her.
- If a customer reports a bug, thank him/her.
Tell your customers how much you appreciate their feedback or email irrespective of the tone of the content send by your customers.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
There are situations where your answers are not helpful for your customers. There are situations when most of your customers might not speak up about their problems. It is a fact that if the solution that you have provided is not helpful for your customers; next time, they won’t proactively talk to you about any other issue.
This is when this customer service phrase comes to the rescue! By saying this phrase, you leave the door open for your customers to respond and speak up. When you say this, your customers will certainly tell you about anything that is unresolved.
Now let’s have a look at the customer service phrases that you should not use:
Knowing what ‘not to say’ is equally important than knowing ‘what to say’…have a look:
“Nope”
Nope is a highly unprofessional word that should not be used in customer service at all. Even if you have to say no about something, the way you say it makes a lot of difference. Saying the word nope might portray you as being rude to the customer even if you might not mean it that way.
In customer service, it is crucial to make sure that your tone is right. Saying the word nope conveys an overly casual tone (similar to using slang or emoticons)and it has a negative impact on customer experience; especially if you are denying a request. Being very casual shows that you do not take the request of the customer seriously.
In place of saying “Nope”, you can say, “I’m sorry, that’s not something we can do” and then offer an alternative solution by saying, “However what we can do is ………”.
“Please calm down”
Referring back to the point of empathy and why it is important in customer service. It is crucial to keep in mind that there is hardly anything that feels more annoying than talking to someone who does not understand the reason why we are annoyed.
Don’t be a person who does not understand the emotions of the customers, especially when you are helping out the customer with something.
Irrespective of whether you are communicating with an angry and upset customer or talking to your family and friends it is never a good idea to tell them to calm down. If you advise an angry or upset person to calm down, it shows that his problem is not as important to you as it is to him.
What can be said instead, “I am really sorry about this, I understand that it is annoying to deal with this (mention the problem they are facing). I’d be frustrated too if I were in your place.”
Note : This is applicable only when the customer is not being really mean or abusive.
“It’s not our fault”
If your customer is angry or upset over something and if you still want to retain that customer, then keep this in mind – It does not matter whose fault it is! While it is tempting to pass the ball in the customer’s court or to make someone else responsible for the issue, but that does not serve any purpose.
You must think in this way – they are your customers and you have to protect them and provide solutions to them. And no matter who ever is responsible for the situation they are dealing with, it is your job to set things right.
In this case, your first reply would be to apologize for the situation your customer is going through.
Even though you are not responsible for whatever made your customer upset, it is good to be genuinely apologetic about the way the customer is feeling. Once you have apologized, start working on setting things right.
What you can say – “I’m really sorry about how frustrating this situation is for you, but I am going to do everything possible to make things right.”
“Sorry, but it’s our policy!”
It is good to have policies, every company has certain policies. The right policies will empower your support team and customer care team to create better customer relationships and this will result in the growth of your business.
While using the word ‘policies’ it is important to be aware of the fact that ‘policies are not excuses’!
Policies are not a hiding place for you where you can hide in the situations where you cannot deliver your customers with what they want. It is true that you can’t grant every wish of your customer, but refrain from using the word ‘policy’.
In fact you must appreciate the customer’s intelligence when he/she needs an explanation about your policies.
What you can say instead, “I am sorry about the frustration, but this is the reason why the policy is created…”
Over to you! Be aware of the customer service phrases that you are using!
You don’t have to be paranoid about every word that you are using. Don’t get sacred when it comes to talking to your customers, try to relate to the customer’s point of view and you will automatically start thinking about the right words and phrases. Your customers will definitely accept the fact that you are human and you might make mistakes as long as you are empathetic and you show kindness.
The words and phrases mentioned in this article will help you in transforming the way you communicate with your customers that will further help you in creating good and long term relationships with your customers.
