‘Your Call is important to us’, 3 lessons in customer service

"Press 1 for data plans, Press 2 for value added services, Press 3 to subscribe to our hello tunes, Press 4 to listen to latest Bollywood hits, Press 9 to go to next menu, Press 7 to go back to previous menu "

When you finally reach the option to speak to a customer support representative, all you get is "your call is important to us" being played on an infinite loop. And by the time you get to speak to a human after five to seven minute wait, you either forget what your problem was or you are on the verge of exploding.

We are sure many of you have gone through the above ordeal. If you are a service provider you know what we mean. Being a service provider is not an easy task. As your company grows it becomes difficult to influence your team with your passion and enthusiasm.

Here are three lessons which will be instrumental in taking your customer service to the next level and make sure your customers become your biggest marketing channel.

1) Be Human: It is obvious that the customer is angry and they do not want to talk to a machine. Get a real person on the other end. Reassure the customer they are being heard. `How may I help you?’ will go a long way to hold on to your customer.

2) Be Funny: Humor is the shortest distance between two people and being funny won't cost you anything. It may not solve the issue at hand but will go a long way in creating goodwill for your company. Below is a great example to show how an employee of Netflix used humor to deal with a customer. You will notice the issue still wasn't solved but the customer was happy to have engaged with the employee.

3) Don't be defensive, empathize with the customer: This is where most of us tend to fail. Agreeing with the customer makes them feel you are on their side. They feel you will go a long way to help them, thus putting them at ease.

Here we show how Mike, an employee of Netflix, championed customer service.

Do comment about your adventures in customer support with us and how you learned from them.

Image credits: here.