8 Ways Small Businesses Can Improve Customer Service

Psst. Hey, business owners, customer service is kind of a lot, are we right or are we right?

But what is exceptional customer service meaning these days? It’s not just about making a sale; it’s about building lasting relationships that turn one-time buyers into loyal advocates. Investing in customer service isn’t just a nice-to-have, but a critical part of your success. As a business owner or startup founder, are you getting 5 stars? 

Many small and medium-sized business (SMB)s attribute their success to the relationships they’ve nurtured with their customer base. But as you grow, maintaining that personal touch can become challenging, especially when you’re building new teams.

Let’s explore eight viable ways your SMB can improve its customer service to stand out from your competition.

What we’ll cover:

1. Prioritize prompt resolutions
2. Speed up response times with AI
3. Provide self-serve knowledge bases
4. Unify your customer data
5. Conduct feedback surveys after interactions
6. Maximize positive reviews and referrals
7. Reach out to former customers
8. Be ready to scale

1. Prioritize prompt resolutions

Visualize a bustling online marketplace where every website represents a different business. In this vibrant digital landscape, one website stands out — yours — not because of its flashy design, but because of the warm, welcoming interactions provided by prompt and timely service (and sales!). Every interaction is marked by attentiveness, empathy, and a genuine desire to help. As customers complete their purchases, they experience the joy that is xceptional service, and share their positive experiences on social media and through word of mouth, drawing more people to the site. Easy, right?

Customers want prompt service. Period. Whether it’s a call, message over email, live chat, or social media, 77% of customers expect an immediate response from someone when they contact the business. While it’s common for some teams to refer customers over to other departments, specialists, or managers, this can create friction — and frustration. The customer can be reluctant to reach out again if they know they have to jump through multiple hoops before they have their answer.

As an SMB owner, you should arm your customer service teams with both the right information and authority to handle any situation. This’ll enable you to solve a customer’s pain point quickly and efficiently — without having to transfer them to multiple people. 

2. Speed up response times with AI

Time is a limited commodity, and yes, the current on-demand nature raises the bar for SMBs to deliver lightning-fast response times. Faster response times can give you a competitive edge. It builds trust among shoppers who have more faith that if they run into issues, your growing business will be quick to acknowledge receipt and provide consistent communication. This ensures they won’t end up shouting into the void and looking into what your competitors offer.

Data shows that 88% of consumers are likely to repeat the purchase if customer service is good. But they also expect faster, personalized, and better responses. Luckily, with artificial intelligence (AI), it’s still easy to provide quality customer care at this stage.

Source: The Sixth Edition State of Service Report

Incorporate AI tools like Agentforce and train your employees on how to use AI. This can help you reduce your response delay. In fact, 40% of customers prefer AI over agents for faster service and responses. We can help with training on our free online learning platform, Trailhead where you can get all types of support and even build your own AI agent. 

3. Provide self-serve knowledge bases

Service teams aren’t required to always cater to customers personally. That’s why building detailed knowledge base articles can help deliver a complete and proactive customer experience. Product tutorials, technical documentation, white papers, how-tos, and a page answering frequently asked questions (FAQs) are all excellent starting points. You can create a central hub of information that customers can access 24/7. Here are several ways of creating knowledge bases:

• Add an FAQs section: Create a list of frequently asked questions to provide quick answers to common inquiries. For example, “What are your shipping options?” or “How do I reset my password?”
• Include helpful articles: Develop a library of in-depth articles that address specific product features, troubleshooting steps, or best practices. Ensure these are easily searchable and well-organized.
• Offer guides and reports: Provide downloadable guides and reports that offer valuable insights and actionable advice related to your industry or product. This’ll also help you position yourself as a trusted resource.

4. Unify your customer data

Prospects and customers engage with you using multiple customer service channels and managing that is part of your growth process. One day, it can be live chat with the agent directly on your website. A week later, it can be a phone call for a different issue. If you don’t track all these touchpoints, providing quality service in subsequent interactions can be hard. This can frustrate customers who are asked to re-explain their issue, and can destroy ‌your previously established rapport.

To provide customers with a more cohesive experience, you can enlist a customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Starter Suite. This can help you ‌combine every piece of information related to a customer into a single dashboard. That way, the next service agent a customer interacts with can pick up where they left off. It simplifies the customer service experience and increases their satisfaction with your brand.

5. Conduct feedback surveys after interactions

To discover how to improve your customer service, ask customers for feedback right after an interaction. Use email automation by integrating it into your AI powered CRM to send guests surveys about their latest experience with your brand.

Several post-touch prompts include:

• Chat pop-ups: “Hey, Jane, did you enjoy your new sneakers? Can you share your experience with us?”
• End call surveys: “Thank you for calling! On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied were you with the support you received today?”
• SMS messages: “Hi [Customer Name], your order has shipped! Track it here: [Tracking Link]. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”
• Triggered emails: “Welcome to [Brand Name]! Here’s a special discount code just for signing up: WELCOME15. Start shopping now!”

The real-time nature of these surveys ensures the details are still fresh in the customer’s mind and allows you to align the survey to a specific call, chat, or email. Starter Suite for Service can help you set up your emails and automate the whole process, saving your time for important matters.

6. Maximize positive reviews and referrals

Most customer service teams are excellent at solving problems and engaging with the audience. An underrated reward for quality customer service is what clients do on your behalf afterward. Beyond post-touch customer satisfaction surveys, there’s also an opportunity to turn satisfied customers into brand advocates who participate in word-of-mouth advertising.

Send new and current customers prompts to leave product or brand reviews. Offer them incentives to refer new customers your way. When they tell their friends, family, and others about their positive experience, they further reinforce their love for your brand. Also, the more they tell their friends, the more your business builds its reputation for best customer service.

Here are a few prompts you can send to your customers directly to get reviews or referrals:

• “Leave a Google review and get 20% off your next purchase!” 
• “Refer a friend, and get 50% off your next order.” 
• “Give us a 5-star review and get 3 free months of our subscription service.”

7. Reach out to former customers

Our research shows that 43% of customers can walk away from your business due to poor customer service. In such cases, when you’re unable to reverse their negative sentiment toward your brand, give them time and let the dust settle. Meanwhile, spend time analyzing common reasons behind customer churn to find out how your SMB can improve retention.

Source: State of the AI Connected Customer Report

After your team decides on the underlying issue, reach back out to the disappointed customer to reengage them. They might openly have a candid (and less emotionally charged) conversation about what you can do to improve the customer experience and win back their business.

Here are a few examples of how you can reengage ‌customers:

• Apologizing: “Dear [Customer Name], We’re sorry your experience wasn’t great. Tell us how we can improve? Here’s a [discount/gift] as a token of apology.”
• Proactive phone call: “Hello [Customer Name], I’m calling from [Company Name] to apologize for your recent experience. Can you tell me more about what happened and how we can make it right? Your feedback is important.”
• Post-resolution follow-up: “Dear [Customer Name], Following up to ensure the issue is resolved. Any further feedback on how we handled it? Knowing what we did well is crucial for us to provide better service in the future.”

8. Be ready to scale

Customer service reps might fall into the habit of relying on pre-written scripts and templates. While these tools help with the heavy lifting, it’s important for to evolve with ‌customer needs over time. 

Encourage your team to experiment with creative ways to engage customers and new, more efficient paths to customer happiness. By providing AI agents with the opportunity to pilot their own ideas and evaluate the results, they can help lead meaningful change as customer needs evolve. Sometimes, the most innovative solutions start with your frontline support staff.

Recommended Trailhead learning:

• Communication Skills for Customer Service Agents
• Artificial Intelligence for Customer Service 
• Agentforce for Service

Ready to improve your SMB service?

Good customer service can bring you more customers and strengthen your sales pipeline through good relationships. And as your business grows, you need to have all your data, leads, and resources in one place. That’s where Starter Suite comes into the picture, and helps you organize data, manage customer relationships, and gain valuable business insights. 

Everything starts with Starter Suite. Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations today to try out Agentforce.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.