Nearly 32% of field service businesses fail to hit the 80 percent mark when it comes to customer satisfaction. Why? Applying the same customer service improvement strategies to all customers is ineffective.Every customer is unique. And so, all customer relationships cannot be handled the same way. Placing too much emphasis on mere feedback surveys will only cause well-devised ideas to improve customer service to go down the drain.What’s more, everything from the way you collect feedback from your customers to the process you use to store and maintain your customer records will have to be streamlined to improve customer service in field service. If you’re looking for ways to improve your customer service experience, then you’re at the right place.To provide better customer service, field service businesses need to snap out of their traditional customer service practices and adapt a modern and collaborative approach.Here are 5 effective customer service improvement strategies for field service businesses of all sizes.
1. Always collect customer feedback
Customer feedback surveys help field service measure customer satisfaction. Honest, unsolicited feedback can pinpoint problems in the service and highlight opportunities for improvement. If done properly, feedback will not only improve customer engagement and loyalty but also unlock valuable, actionable insights.How to do this: You can either use a survey tool like survey monkey or an inbuilt surveying module in your field service management software to collect customer feedback.
2. Empower your customers with self-service
Tech-savvy customers of today don’t want to get in touch or reach out to the service provider’s customer service team every time they need information. They expect uber-like experience from their field service providers enabling them to find the answers they are looking for. Providing them with the gift of self-service options will ease the burden of your back-office staff.How to do this: In addition to giving your customers a user-friendly booking experience, send your customers real-time ETAs and notifications about their service requests.
3. Maintain good customer records
When your documentation system is siloed, you will be left searching for customer information across multiple spreadsheets and databases. What’s more, the information your back office has will not be accessible to your technicians creating a wedge in your customer service experience.If you’re looking for ideas to improve customer service, then the first step you need to take is migrating all your customer information to a cloud database. In addition to streamlining your customer information storage, it will help your staff (back office and field technicians) get well informed to answer your customers and ultimately solve their problems sooner.How to do this: Storing and retrieving all up-to-date, customer-related information (basic profile, service locations, assets, etc.) in a centralized field service software can help your stakeholders access customer data anytime, anywhere, on any device.
4. Make it easy for customers to follow up
Life is all about the follow-up. Especially when it comes to customer service. When your customers have a hard time following up with their previous requests, it is a real problem. Some customers feel so overwhelmed to the extent that it negatively affects the experience they had with your businesses up until that point.How to do this: If you simplify the process of follow-ups and instead offer them important service-related information proactively.
5. Create service plans for repeat business
Offer your first-time customers unbelievable levels of service to make sure they return back to you. While special deals and coupons can help you entice your customers for a bit, giving them priority service will make them stay loyal.How to do this: Make plans to focus on improving company customer service this year, and offer your customers bonus and special deals like referrals, gift cards, and more to ensure repeat business.
Ways to improve customer service with field service automation
Better customer service is not just restricted to the way you handle customer service requests. Customer service improvement strategies often include keeping your customers satisfied and making your customers feel like they are an active part of your business operations.To enhance the customer service experience, businesses need to look far beyond just the aspect of feedback retrieval. Most often than not, the culprit in your customer service experience problem is your outdated field service tool. Manual field service management solutions such as paper forms and spreadsheets cause an array of disruptions to both your customers and your employees.Whereas, automation makes customer service in field service management consistent and smooth. It also provides accurate insight on how to solve common customer service problems. An automated field service management solution like Zuper can help businesses value their customers by offering them visibility into the progress of their service requests.
