If there is one common theme for success across a wide range of different industries it is that the companies who focus on providing excellent customer service tend to have the edge over their rivals.

If you are a business owner or manager in charge of a team who represent the public face of your company you will want to ensure that they are remembered by your customers for all the right reasons.

Here are some insights and pointers on how to improve your team’s support skills and provide great customer service, including how focusing on customer service helps grow your business, a look at what makes a good customer service rep, and why social media has now become integral to customer communication.

A key ingredient for success

It has shown itself to be a winning strategy time and time again, providing great customer service will boost your prospects of growing the business because satisfied customers are happy to refer your business to others and they often spend more money too.

It seems that regardless of whether you are running a retail or a commercial operation the simple act of putting a smile on your customer’s face and giving them what they want in the right way greatly improves your odds of getting them to spend more with you and stay loyal.

Companies use resources such as www.serviceskills.com to teach employees better customer service skills and improve team spirit, and if the money invested results in an upturn in sales and the positive profile of the business, it could even be considered an investment rather than a cost.

The right attributes and skills

There are a number of key attributes that every customer service representative should strive to possess so that they can convey a friendly, competent and first class attitude every time they are on the phone to or in front of a customer.

The most obvious challenge is the fact that each customer will often have different needs and attitudes so you can create a generic customer service template and then hope to apply the same approach each and every time.

The idea customer service representative will be adaptable to each customer’s mood and demands and be able to display the right amount of empathy, patience, and understanding as soon as they have made a professional judgment call at the beginning of the conversation and having listed to what the customer is looking for.

The importance of good product knowledge

If you are selling a product or even selling a service, good customer service means being able to demonstrate a good level of knowledge and being able to answer most questions that are being asked by the customer.

Sometimes the questions might be too technical or detailed to be able to give an answer straight away or if it is beyond your current knowledge. Even if that is the scenario, it is always better to be honest and offer to find the right answer, which is often appreciated by the customer.

A vital communication channel

The vast majority of people now actively use social media as a way of communicating with family and friends and they also use major sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with companies about their product or customer service experience.

Part of creating an excellent customer service culture now involves recognizing the important role that social media now plays and tapping into that powerful tool in a positive way.

Great customer service now means engaging with customers online and responding to positive and negative feedback as quickly as possible because lots of other customers are also online and often watching how you respond to judge your performance.

Always ask for feedback

Not every customer has the time or the inclination to provide feedback on their customer service experience but it is valuable data if you can encourage people to comment on and rate your performance.

It is worth creating a short phone survey at the end of the call that each customer can choose to contribute to or not and some companies offer some sort of loyalty bonus or discount off their next purchase in return for providing feedback.

All feedback is good whether it turns out to be positive or negative, as it helps you to identify any potential weaknesses and should help you to confirm what you are doing right so that you can do more of the same and continue improving the customer service experience.

Max Brady runs a small business. Always looking for ways to improve customer relations, he writes about what he finds on a number of business blogs.