Customer Service

via Coursera

Go to class Write review

Overview

Coursera Flash Sale

40% Off Coursera Plus for 3 Months!

Grab it

As a customer service representative, you are expected to handle customer interactions in the best way possible. The expectations of both your company and your customers hinge on your ability to provide the right service in the right way. In this course, you will explore the background and techniques of customer interactions. Providing quality customer care ensures that every single contact with your company is a positive experience. Customers can range from external consumers to internal employees in other departments. Knowing how to provide the same level of service to all customers will enrich your time spent at work by establishing positive business relationships. Recognizing crucial points throughout customer interactions increases your ability to solve problems and offer affirmative solutions. Applying this knowledge to trends in service and consumer desires allows you to contribute to the company’s bottom line and make a customer’s life a little easier. This course is intended for customer service professionals with any level of experience who want to expand their knowledge, improve their skill set, and increase the understanding of customer benefits. In this course, you will explore the background and techniques of customer interactions. You will: • Describe the benefits of customer service, identify internal customers, identify the benefits to you of giving good customer service, and identify how you can help your company to excel. • Identify the major trends in customer service today and the combination of criteria required for customer satisfaction. • Identify the benefits of bringing respect, emotional support, and a personal touch to customer interactions, and apply the personal touch to customer interactions. • Identify the six categories of face-to-face communication, the critical success factors in face-to-face communication, and the benefits of actively listening to your customers. • Identify remote customer service communication channels and apply remote customer service best practices. • Identify guidelines for handling unreasonable customers, explore ways to handle angry customers, and identify guidelines for handling unhelpful colleagues. • Take action to increase the loyalty of the customers you serve. You will also identify guidelines for dealing with moments of truth, identify the benefits of customer complaints, identify the steps in the service recovery process, and analyze the moments of truth in a real-life situation.

Syllabus

Understanding Customer Service

Before you can properly serve your customers, you need to understand the value that service provides. In this lesson, you will acquire tools to provide quality customer service and make lasting impressions on customers, as well as the motivation to learn better skills. Quality customer service begins by anticipating and satisfying the needs of your customers consistently and effectively. The quality aspect of customer service comes in when you provide care in a friendly, positive, and helpful way. This type of care lets customers know that you not only want their business now, but in the future as well. A friendly, knowledgeable employee lets the customer know that she is valued as a person as well as a consumer.

Identifying How Customers Define the Success of Your Company

In the last lesson, you identified the benefits of customer care to the customer, to the customer service representative, and to the company. In this lesson, you will explore how customers define the success of your company. Customers contact you because they have an unsatisfied want or need. It's important to understand that your customers are interested in what your product or service will do for them. If you’re offering a solution, but not the right one for their problem, the customer may become frustrated and decide to not do business with your company at all. Listening to the customer—even if they are irate and complaining—and offering viable solutions during all phases of interaction, affect how the customer views your company.

Increasing Customer Satisfaction

In the previous lessons, you explored how customer service affects your company; now it's time to see how you make a difference to your customers. In this lesson, you will identify techniques to increase customer satisfaction. The key to providing exceptional customer care is building relationships with your customers. Other companies can offer the same products or services, but if a customer remembers the quality care you have provided in the past, they will look to you in the future. Creating loyal relationships with your customers ensures that your business can achieve and sustain a competitive edge over other companies. Treating each customer as you would a friend promotes well-being throughout the transaction and decreases stress for you and the customer.

Providing Face-to-Face Customer Service

In the last lesson, you identified techniques to increase customer satisfaction. Before you can properly serve your customers, you need to understand how customer service affects them and the behaviors you need to exhibit to achieve the best effect. In this lesson, you will examine techniques for interacting with customers. There is more to providing quality service face to face than just smiling. Your body language, tone of voice, hand gestures, and eye contact can say more than words will ever convey. Knowing how to present your physical self in the proper light to a customer gives you the opportunity for more-effective communication.

Providing Remote Customer Service

In the last lesson, you identified tactics and strategies to provide face-to-face customer service. More and more customers are purchasing products and services online, and they're also accessing customer service options remotely. In this lesson, you will identify techniques for providing remote customer service.

Engaging Difficult Customers

In the previous lessons, you have identified ways to handle common customer contacts and complaints. But what happens if a customer gets out of control? How do you engage a customer who has become difficult? In this lesson, you will identify guidelines for dealing with difficult customers. Not every customer will be the one who makes your day. Sometimes, customers have had such terrible experiences with your company that they will unleash their frustrations on you. Arming yourself with conflict resolution and active listening skills can help you weather the storm. There are times when the customer doesn’t just breeze in and out of your daily routine. Knowing how to properly engage difficult customers will defuse their heightened emotions and enable you to handle their issues more quickly and easily.

Increasing Customer Loyalty

You have your customers, whether they are internal or external, easy to handle or difficult. While handling their issues, you have the opportunity to make efforts to increase loyalty. In this lesson, you will identify techniques for increasing customer loyalty. By focusing on increasing customer loyalty, you can keep your customers coming back. Ultimately, repeat customers will not only provide more business for your company, but will also be easier to handle in terms of service needs.