Sinaumed’s has certainly heard of customer service. Or maybe Sinaumed’s is interested in working as a customer service? To provide a deeper understanding, here is the definition of customer service and the duties of working as a customer service.
Definition of Customer Service
Customer service, also known as CS, is a service offered by companies to customers, either before or after buying a product or service. So, customer service is a division that plays an important role in the defense process of a company that has a direct relationship with the customer.
Even though it is often considered a trivial matter, customer service actually has many functions and roles within the company. There are two main functions for customer service, the first function is to be a leading public relations officer, and the second is to create a positive corporate culture.
Customer service can also be interpreted as direct interaction between consumers who make purchases and staff representing brands or businesses.
The goal of customer service is to provide convenience so that the experience they get in transactions becomes better in the hope of meeting their expectations. Offering good customer service is one of the main factors in the progress of a business.
The form of customer service is also increasingly diverse with the times. If in ancient times customer service was associated with the telephone, today there are many websites that offer customer service by chat. Not only that, customer service can also be done via e-mail , SMS, and even social media.
Customer Service Duties and Job Descriptions
Customer service duties and job descriptions can vary, depending on the industry and field of work. However, in general, the following are the duties and job descriptions of a customer service:
- Recruit potential customers by recommending goods or services and explaining how the company’s products can benefit them.
- Communicating with clients and customers about their experience using the company’s products or services.
- Answer any questions customers may have about the company’s products and services. Help customers create new accounts and record account information in written or digital form.
- Place orders for products or services requested by customers.
- Listen to customer complaints in order to identify the cause of the problem. Provide appropriate responses to customer problems and try to solve them quickly and precisely. Then, submit cases to management if necessary for resolution.
- Manage and update financial account information regularly using certain software. Anticipating customer needs, following up on previous customer complaints to offer reorders, additional services or other solutions.
The Importance of Customer Service
Here are some understandings of why a business needs customer service, namely:
1. Customer Service Presentation of Brand Image
To create a good brand image, it is not enough to only display it physically, such as packaging or social media content.
A brand or company must have a customer service team to communicate directly with its customers. Of course, the customer service team must really be trained because it has a big responsibility as a representative of the company.
With customer service, the company also knows what is needed by customers and what expectations must be met by a company or a brand.
2. Customer Service as a Sales Media
Sometimes, in some companies, customer service is also responsible for making sales to customers. When a customer calls to ask or complain about something, a customer service can use it to sell the company’s services or products if the problem from the customer has been handled properly.
A customer service generally must be able to perform additional services in selling the company’s products and services after helping customers solve their problems.
3. Customer Service Produces Happy Customers
A happy customer service team can also produce happy customers. So, the company’s main task is actually to make the customer service team happy.
This of course also has an impact on customer satisfaction. The responsibility of the customer service team can be said to be quite heavy, to serve and also to deal with complaints from customers.
By providing training to the customer service team to always be professional, this can be a solution to having a good customer service team. If everything has been achieved, the customer will also feel happy.
4. Customer Service as Public Relations
Most of the customer service division has a role as a medium to build and strengthen the company’s relationship with external parties.
Customer service can also be said to be a representative within a company in the main contact line from external parties. Companies that have good customer service will also have a good image in the eyes of externals.
In fact, if the service provided by customer service is very good, then it can help improve the relationship between the customer and the company.
5. Customer Service as Customer Loyalty
One of the factors that customers will return to purchase is from a good, responsive and solutive customer service team. Customer service can be said to be the bridge between the company and the customer.
With a pleasant experience from the customer service team, there is no reason for customers to look for other brands. Usually, customers also don’t mind a higher price if the service received is very good.
6. Customer Service Becomes a Medium for Useful Feedback for Companies or Brands
The customer service team is fully responsible for knowing all the details of the brand or company where they work. This is so they can provide solutions to customers.
With their work that is always in contact with customers, the customer service team can provide solutions to problems that customers face. Not only that, the customer service team can also provide input for brands based on data collected from customers.
That way, companies or brands can improve themselves to meet market expectations and needs.
Skills that Customer Service Must Have
Being a customer service course must have supporting skills . Here are some skills that a customer service must have:
1. Respect
Respect or respect is the very first thing in being a customer service. You have to make customers feel like someone very important and also provide service sincerely.
In simple terms, respect can also be associated with the choice of words such as: sorry, please, and thank you. Even though all customers are not always right, a customer service must be able to handle it professionally.
Criticisms given by customers can be learning materials to improve in the future.
2. Communication
The ability to communicate well when working with customers is the main skill that must be possessed by customer service. If there is miscommunication, it can make customers disappointed and frustrated with the service you provide.
3. Knowledge of the product
Customer service can be said to be successful if they have deep enough knowledge about the working procedures of a product or service for their company. Without knowing deeply about the company’s products and services, you will certainly have difficulty helping customers who are having problems.
4. Understanding
Customer service must be able to understand, identify, and anticipate needs. That’s what customer service should do. The faster the customer service team can solve problems, the customer will appreciate the customer service team and the company.
Therefore, get to know customers so they can help and provide advice and anticipate their needs. That way, customers will feel valued because companies can understand their needs and end up buying the products offered.
5. Listening
A customer service certainly has to be alert and concentrate on what the customer is saying. Don’t forget to open conversations with customers and identify the answers they make.
Listen to the words of customers, so that the customer service team can provide the best advice. If customer service is online or on a website, then use a text box that can be typed, so that customers can submit complaints, suggestions and criticisms.
6. Time management
Successful customer service must know how to solve customer problems in an efficient manner. Therefore, it requires the ability to manage time well.
When you have this ability, you must be able to recognize when you are unable to help customers so that you can direct customers to other parties who can help.
7. Responsive
The key to good customer service is being responsive with all questions and even complaints that come in. If customer service has to face customers face to face, then don’t forget to show professionalism by speaking good words.
If customer service encounters a complaint about an online product, don’t forget to reply to it a maximum of 30 minutes after the complaint arrives. Give solutions that are solutions and don’t look like robots or templates.
8. Persuasion
Sometimes customer service also has to deal with situations where it has to offer products or services to customers. In this situation good persuasion skills are needed so you can convince customers that your company’s products are worth buying.
9. Serving
Serving may be interpreted by keeping promises. For example, if the customer service team promises to provide a maximum of 60 minutes of news, the customer service team must be able to fulfill it before being billed by the customer.
With the best service from the customer service team, the company or brand will of course move forward and become increasingly known for their good service.
Tips for Providing the Best Customer Service
Working as a customer service team in a company is not alone. The customer service team will work in a team to share tasks. The bigger a company or brand, the more teams it has and the more complaints it receives.
To maximize the work of the team and maintain customer satisfaction, it turns out that the key comes from the work environment. What needs to be done by the customer service team in order to provide the best service, including:
- Work together in teams
- Listen and share
- Be friendly and support each other to build empathy
- Being honest improves empathy
- Learn more about the product
- On time
Customer Service Career Prospects
The following are career prospects for a customer service:
1. Entry level
A customer service will start his career at the entry-level as a customer service representative or associate. Both of them will work on the “front line” to answer questions and also respond to complaints from consumers.
There are also media used when dealing with consumers, which can be via telephone, chatbox, e-mail to social media. Even so, in general, the time needed to advance to the next level varies, depending on the company and skills possessed.
2. Mid-levels
In the mid-level stage of a customer service there are various options that can be considered.
3. Customer Service Specialists
A customer service specialist is a customer service specialist who has expertise in a product or service provided by the company. Of course, if you want to become a specialist, you need to have a good track record in customer service.
A specialist will handle cases that are more complicated or unresolved by representatives. The customer service specialist will become a reference for other team members and also prevent churn from occurring (consumers stop using a service).
4. Product Experts
Product expert is a profession that will handle abnormal cases such as major bugs, glitches, and other fatal product deficiencies that cannot be handled by a customer service representative.
If you are interested in this career choice, of course you must have extensive knowledge of a product or service from the company.
5. Developers
Developer is a career that is more classified as a career in product management.
6. Implementation Specialist
An implementation specialist is tasked with working with consumers and ensuring they get a positive experience with the products offered.
Implementation specialists will assist consumers in the onboarding process when using products and provide solutions on a per-project scale. Like product experts, implementation specialists also need to have in-depth knowledge of the product.
However, this profession needs to promote its products so that they often address consumer expectations.
7. Managerial
At this level, you will assist entire teams or departments, provide training, set goals, and improve operational efficiency. Professions at this level include:
a. Customer Success Manager
A customer success manager will work directly with consumers as partners. You will assist consumers in product onboarding, implementing the tools they have, and creating campaigns for sales and marketing.
As a customer success manager, you will follow up with consumers on a regular basis by checking progress in using the product, and acting as an advisor.
In addition, this profession ensures that consumers can optimally use the company’s products or services.
b. Customer Service Manager
One of the duties of a customer service manager is to lead the customer service team. You will recruit and train new customer service representatives and answer their questions about their jobs.
A manager will set targets for his team in accordance with the company’s vision. In general, this profession will supervise and guide the entire customer service team and will only engage in interactions with consumers when necessary.
c. Customer Service Operations Manager
Customer service operations manager is the profession responsible for the overall operations and efficiency within a company’s customer service department.
Usually, his duties include carrying out workforce management, operational procedures, interviewing and training new employees, and conducting performance reviews.
The customer service operations manager can also be responsible for the budget and be involved in strategic planning in his department.
As for what is included in strategic planning such as analyzing trends, performance, and team processes as well as making forecasts for the exclusive management section.
8. Executive-level
In the customer service career field, the executive level carries out the mission, vision and is also responsible for strategy, communication and experience.
The following are some of the professions at the executive level of customer service:
a. Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
A CCO works closely with other executives and leads the customer team in the company.
His primary responsibility is to understand the customer inside and out and represent the customer’s vision to the company’s executives.
The CCO is also tasked with creating new programs based on data in order to continue to improve the customer experience.
Not only that, CCO also ensures that the company has a customer-centric focus by building a consumer-first corporate culture.
b. Director Of Customer Experience
Director of customer experience is responsible for designing strategy, planning and executing on customer experience.
A director of customer experience must have an in-depth understanding of each team in the company’s customer service team and the customer service journey for each buyer segment.
This is so the director of customer experience can set goals based on the company’s customer experience metrics and find the help all teams need to meet those goals.
Thus the discussion about customer service, ranging from understanding to career prospects. Hopefully all of the discussion above adds to Sinaumed’s’ insight. Then, do you want to be a customer service?
If you want to deepen your knowledge of customer service, you can do it by reading the books available at sinaumedia.com .
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Author: Yufi Cantika Sukma Divine