When you hear about a customer service interaction gone wrong your first reaction is “I can't believe that really happened to you!” or “Oh my goodness!” Yet, in reality, we are all too familiar with poor customer service interactions and these types of reactions are not too far off from what people expect you to say. However, there is room to change this and the industry could see tremendous success. You will no longer be hearing complaints about long wait times and various transfers just to talk to the right person. Creating good customer service is not always easy and will never be perfect but striving to do your best for all your customers is key. Here are four tools leaders use to create the best customer experience. 

1. Guide agents to do their best

Driven leaders who want the best for their employees run the most successful businesses and departments. They have a deep understanding of the customer and agent relationship and how that experience is a tell-all for a company. These leaders are familiar with the day-to-day struggles agents face and are proactively working to fix them through new AI tools. These AI tools are here to ease the workload of agents and also support them in different projects. Good leaders are able to guide agents to do their best daily while also recognizing pain points and addressing them with tangible solutions. 

2. Listen to the customers

The customer is the whole reason you are in business. Listening to them and their experience is key to understanding your business better. Companies should strive to have excellent customer service to achieve this. Having a strong leader who understands all the layers to the customer experience is key. Making the customer feel as if their experience with the company is smooth and simple is a key way to avoid customer complaints. Allowing customers to give feedback on how their experience was is fundamental to understanding where they feel it was lacking so you can improve in those areas. Having leaders who allow customers to voice their concerns and opinions are the ones who run the most successful teams because they are open to hearing shortcomings. 

3. Actionable insights

Actionable insights can be gathered from internal and external sources and are able to give a different perspective on how the company is doing. Getting information on actionable insights from an internal perspective can come from these two main things: employee feedback and data optimization. Employees are able to tell you where they see shortcomings in their positions and where new tools can be implemented to help them succeed. Having a leader who encourages open dialogues with employees so they can voice their concerns. The next way actionable insights are acquired internally is through collecting data. Data will be able to show you the trends that you may have not been able to identify on your own. Addressing those weaknesses will propel your company into success in the future. The main way you can externally get actionable insights is through customer feedback. Having them take surveys either via email or phone is a great way to see what they liked and disliked about their experience. Leveraging on both internal and external insights is a marker of great leadership and will make the employee and customer experience even better.

4. Teach your employees

Your employees are the foundation of your company and when they are growing at a sustainable and healthy rate is a marker of good leadership. Employees should be encouraged to learn new skills and leaders should be wanting to teach them and guide their employees. Giving your employees new skills will have long-term benefits for your business and your customers. 

Using these four tools leaders will be able to encourage employees to do their best and succeed in their positions while customers are getting the most from your business. Having a strong, supportive, and encouraging leader is the hallmark of a successful leader and in turn business.