A good customer service isn’t just about effective customer management, is it? It’s rather more about providing an experience at every active moment or interaction, just as excellent service reaps loyal customers who are worth ten times as much as their first deal according to HelpScout.

It is not a secret that customer service has the capacity to build or destroy a business. In a statistics revealed by ReachLocal Blog, 89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company because of a poor customer service experience.

As an entrepreneur, HR executive, administrative head, or team lead, it’s important to understand that every employee is a representation of the company in a way, which makes ‘customer service’ more demanding for every employee than the work of just a ‘support team’.

Whether it’s because people are making complaints, or offering suggestions for future improvement, or enquiring about a product or service, it all means that every staff attending to customers have important roles to play in the release of information and ensuring that every customer receives the level of service they desire.

In an age where companies are accessible through several mediums, where everyone has to be able to help customers and potential customers, every staff needs the skill to deliver effectively, a commendable customer experience. Below are four reasons why customer service skill is important for every employee:

Language and Cultural Barriers

It is interesting to know that globalization and technological efforts are bringing people closer together as people travel the world networking and exploring, and consumers also across the world are as a result, communicating with each other via social communities. Hence, employees have the tendencies of meeting customers of different languages and cultural backgrounds, and miscommunication may likely ensue.

Every employee, therefore, needs to be well trained and equipped with multicultural communication skills that can help them serve better and mollify enraged customers. This also helps companies solve tribal and cultural barriers in the workplace.

Accurate Knowledge of the Product

It’s not every single employee that will be there to build a product from scratch but rather, they all should know the alpha and omega of how the product works, just like any active user would understand the product. Without understanding everything about your product, your employees won’t know how to help your customers when they run into problems.

Having accurate information about every product is crucial for every employee according to Help Scout support team member Elyse Roach. She said, “Having that solid product foundation not only ensures you’ve got the best tricks up your sleeve to help customers navigate even the most complex situations, it also helps you build understanding about their experience so that you can become their strongest advocate.”

Improving Employees’ Social Skills

A top employer once shared the things he looks out for in any recruiting exercise. He said, “I often focus on a candidate’s communication skills, starting with our first interaction.”

Every employee and potential employee are going through stuffs, in their homes, relationships and family. Many times, if not well-cultured, they carry these burdens and lash it on customers and end in a poor delivery of service. “In everything you do in the recruiting and selection process, I strongly think you’re looking for people who demonstrate throughout that process, that it’s not all about them. It’s a lot about other people,” says Joseph Michelli, Ph.D., an organizational consultant and author of several books on companies that excel in customer service.

Attentiveness

Listening is not a skill important for just entrepreneurs and team leaders, it is also important for every employee, knowing that the ability to truly listen to customers is so crucial to delivering great service.

Furthermore, not only is it important for employees to pay attention to individual customer interactions such as the terms and language codes used in relaying complaints or reports, it is also important to be sensitive and attentive to the feedback.

In all, customer service doesn’t begin and end with a support team. It is important to ensure that all employees in every department are well-trained and equipped with the right and necessary knowledge to deliver excellent customer service.