Customer service agents try their best to give their customers a wonderful experience.
They are patient and try to empathize with their customers with much respect.
Such values that focus on a customer-centric experience help everyone to grow. However, many support teams don't follow these values among each other.
Such customer service values aren't meant to be followed when interacting with customers. Enforcing these values into the company culture can help build a strong support team.
Let's look at the importance of these values in building a strong company service culture.
What is the Importance of a Team's Customer Service Values?
All employees know what are the core values of customer service.
When these values are followed within customer service teams, it becomes easier for agents to apply them in customer conversations.
It becomes easier to notice a continuous improvement in these skills when everyone follows them within the support team. When every agent strives to follow these values even when dealing with each other, it also improves the team's performance as a whole.
Here are some examples:
- When agents are used to being patient when interacting with their team members, it becomes easy for them to practice patience during customer interactions.
- Making accountability a part of the company culture helps agents to make better decisions when handling customers as they’ll be held accountable.
Any customer service team that embeds these values as part of the team's culture can see rapid improvement in the overall performance.
Companies like Amazon and Apple that focus on building a customer-centric team have gone a long way in building a team that tries to help their customers at all points.
Enhance Your Team's Customer Service Values!
Now that we've seen the importance of creating a culture that follows certain customer values, let's look at the best customer service values needed in a team.
What are the Core Values of Customer Service?
Many call center soft skills can help support agents understand and deal with their customers better. Incorporating these into your team will help agents improve customer experience.
Let's see the best customer service values for any support team.
1. Proper Communication
Apple is a company well known for communicating properly with its customers. If you look at the tweet, this is Apple's support account on X (formerly Twitter) informing customers on how their recording indicator works.
Communicating properly with other agents and as customers is a key element of delivering a great customer experience.
Proper inter-office communication can help customer-facing employees resolve customer problems faster.
2. Loyalty
Expecting loyalty from employees and customers is a two-way street.
Customers should feel that the company and its employees are committed to providing the best experience possible. A poor experience can drastically affect customer loyalty.
Similarly, when it comes to employees, everyone in your team should feel that you value them as people and not another task completing nobody.
Building loyalty with your customers and employees is not done in a day. Even though it takes time, loyal customers and employees are worth the effort invested in them.
3. Transparency
One of Apple's core principles is being transparent to its customers. In the case of the App Store, Apple lets users know what kind of data will be accessible to the developers.
This data is then divided into two parts - what data is used to track you and what data is linked to your identity. The second part is mainly used for advertisement purposes.
Agents should be transparent to customers during all support interactions. Customers deserve to know all details about their subscription, cancellation methods, and other caveats when dealing with your organization.
4. Patience
Patience is a key customer service value every support agent must have when dealing with customers. When agents aren't patient enough with the customers they're handling, it could go wrong in many ways.
Amazon-owned shoe retail brand is well-known for its approach to customer-centricity. The brand believes customer calls should last as long as needed to offer them a great service experience.
In 2012, Zappo made the news for having the longest customer service call 10 hours and 29 minutes. The agent who was talking on behalf of Zappo, Steven Weinstein, said that it was effortless to have such a long call.
He took a bathroom break during his long call, and his colleagues ensured he had food and water throughout the call.
While not every call needs to be as long as that one, every support agent should strive to be as patient as Weinstein.
5. Accountability
Customer conversations can be requests for help or seeking ways to rectify a mistake made by the company.
In cases of mistakes, accountability means that the agent should think about what the company would have done to rectify if they were in charge. This allows the agent to come up with a solution that aligns with the company's values.
Speaking about accountability, there's another Zappo story for you. Once, a customer received a defective shoe, and Zappo offered them a complete refund and two new pairs of shoes (one was suggested to be donated to charity).
Zappo's customer service values are a source of inspiration for every customer service agent.
6. Respect
Customer service employees should be able to respect their colleagues as well as their customers. When agents feel they receive the necessary respect, it becomes easier for them to reciprocate the same respect when dealing with their customers.
7. Trust
No healthy communication can happen without both parties trusting each other.
We're all humans, and mistakes do happen. Trust is built when people own up to their mistakes and accept them as a stepping stone for growth.
For agents to have trust in their managers, they should be allowed to do things on their own. Agents shouldn't have to ask their manager for permission to do everything.
Trust that the agents can take care of their responsibilities and managers will earn the required respect.
Help Your Agents Adopt the Best Customer Service Values!
8. Optimism
Wouldn't you like to walk around people with a positive attitude? Or do you not mind sitting with a group of people who keep on grumbling about their problems and don't do anything to fix them?
Being optimistic starts with meeting problems with the right attitude. Never feel that a problem can get the better of you.
Keep your mind open to suggestions, and try being positive that your support team will find a way to fix it.
9. Empathy
When we talk about being empathetic and understanding your customers, there's another story from Zappo.
Once, a customer forgot about their item return request because they lost a loved one. Zappo stepped up and sent the item free with a pair of flowers.
When you listen to all these stories from Zappo, it's easy to understand why their customers call Zappo happiness in a box.
Download our FREE empathy statements checklist.
10. Authenticity
No customer wants to speak to service reps who act robotic by reading a script.
Companies should encourage authenticity and ask employees to act as humans in their own lives.
When managers accept both agent and customer feedback to improve their customer experience, it comes off as authentic. Customers love to interact with brands that feel authentic and humane.
When these values are promoted among your customer service teams, agents can become more authentic and serve customers better.
Do you know what else can instill core values of customer service in your agents? What steps can your company take to become the likes of Apple and Zappo?
Automated coaching. Yes. you heard that right. Allow Convin to help you understand the relation between AI-generated coaching and awesome customer service.
If you are ready, book a demo right away!
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are good core values for customer service?
Some of the best core values for customer service include empathy, transparency, authenticity, and patience. When agents serve customers with these values, customers are satisfied with their experience.
2. What are the 3 most important things in customer service?
Customer service requires three major things - having a people-first attitude, great technical and critical problem-solving skills, and great personal and professional skills.
3. What are the 4 principles of customer service?
The four principles of customer service are the following. Deliver personalized experiences that have a competent and convenient solution in a proactive manner.
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