Tips to Improve Customer Service

To keep up-to-date on happenings within the call center industry, I read a lot of online and offline articles. I came across these two tips, which I thought you 'd find interesting:

• www.callcenterworld.com posts an "Agent Tip of the Week". Last week's tip was "Match Speed" – It is a fact that when we are amongst friends we tend to subconsciously match each others speed – when we get excited so do our friends and vice versa. When you talk to customers you can help build rapport by getting closer to their speed of speech – so if they talk slower than you do, slow down a little. If they talk faster than you do, try and speed up a little. Check out this week's tip, "Don't Assume" at www.callcenterworld.com.
• And here's a great little excerpt from www.customerservicegroup.com on "Email Etiquette":
  1. Always have a clear, concise subject line.
  2. Always begin an email message with a friendly salutation.
  3. Spell out all words and phrases.
  4. Do not courtesy copy (cc) the email to people not directly related to the situation.
  5. Spell-check and proofread for misspellings and grammatical errors.
  6. Do not use all capital letters in the message (as it could be perceived as SHOUTING).
  7. Always end the message with a closing message; for example: thank you, sincerely.