As a business owner, your customers should always be your top priority. They’re your backbone and what holds your company together. Without them, your business will suffer, and you’ll have a hard time making forward progress.

If you’re struggling to make your customers happy and meet expectations, you may want to take a look at your processes and approach. Be glad to know there are several ways you can improve your customer service and, in turn, your customer satisfaction scores. Learn from your past mistakes and stay motivated to make changes that will have a long-lasting and positive impact on your clients.

#1: Be Responsive

Your customers want to do business with a company that’s alert and responsive. Improve your customer service and company’s reputation by responding to inquiries and complaints in a timely fashion. It’s not appropriate to let matters linger and not address pressing issues that are clearly frustrating your customers. Make sure that when you do respond that your tone is positive and reassuring and that you’re never blaming the customer for the problems at hand. It’s better to say you have to get back to them or don’t have the answer right now than to ignore them. Be responsive and your customers will feel more confident doing business with you.

#2: Be Available

Another way to improve your customer service and customer satisfaction is to be more available. The reality is that technology has changed the game, and now customers expect to be able to reach out around the clock. It may be challenging to be available and pick up every phone call if you’re a small business owner. Therefore, consider hiring and working with a virtual reception service such as www.virtualreception.com.au. You can ensure that your calls are always being answered and your customers feel heard. You’ll experience less stress and will have more time to focus on other business initiatives.

#3: Train Your Staff

You may know how to treat customers and how you want them to be treated, but your staff may not. It’s your job and responsibility to train your employees so that they are consistently offering exceptional customer service. Have protocols and processes in place so that everyone is on the same page, and there is no confusion about how to handle complicated matters that may arise. Make sure that your customer service team is well trained and happy so that they’re in a position to be helpful and useful.

#4: Request Feedback

You can improve customer service at your business by gathering feedback and insights from your customers about how you’re performing. Send out surveys and ask questions so you can track customer satisfaction scores and make changes where it’s appropriate. Practice active listening and avoid taking anything they say personally. Instead, use these remarks as ammunition to motivate yourself and your staff to do better in the future. Understand that good customer service is a continuous learning process and that you may not get it right immediately. Take the time to gather a deep understanding of your customer’s challenges and their biggest annoyances. You can then continue to search for better ways to address them, so everyone’s happy. Make giving feedback easy so that your customers know they have an outlet to vent if need be.

#5: Fix Issues Promptly

There’s nothing worse than a company or person who listens to you and then fails to address the problem at hand. Therefore, commit to fixing issues promptly and following up with customers to ensure the matter is closed. Give them a call or send them a quick email to confirm they’re satisfied and thank them for their business. Admit your mistakes and use your problem-solving skills to offer solutions that your customers agree to. Depending on the customer or situation, be a little lenient and flex to the person who you’re speaking to and the issue at hand. Use language they can clearly understand, and that won’t cause more confusion.

#6: Create a Customer Community

Another way to improve your customer service and customer satisfaction is to create a customer community. It’s all about creating a sense of community around your products and business. Provide outlets and ways for how customers can communicate with your staff and also other customers. Use webinars, interactive websites, social media, blog comments and trade shows as a way to interact and learn from each other. Provide your customers with the tools they need to answer their questions online or by seeing a response from another customer that may help them with their dilemma.