What customer service skills improve retail business growth?
Retailers seeking to drive profits need to focus on three key customer service skills, according to customer intelligence company Infiniti Research.
Retailers failing to improve customer experience end up losing customers to competitors and damage their brand’s reputation, according to Infiniti. Even if retail companies have been in the business for some time, Infiniti advises they are still required to leverage cross-selling and upselling opportunities to extract more value from existing customers.
The three key customer service skills are:
Genuine empathy
Understanding customer needs and pain points thoroughly is one of the most important customer service skills that companies in the retail sector need to possess to improve customer experience, according to Infiniti. This not only helps retail companies to understand the way customers think and personalize communications but also helps in providing better customer support services.
In addition, Infiniti says empathetically analyzing the emotions of customers helps retailers to devise strategies that make customers feel valued, boosting retention opportunities.
Develop flexibility
According to Infiniti, it is crucial for retailers to be flexible while dealing with customers to make them happy. This might require retail companies to go against their business policies, but can help to improve customer experience in case the company has failed to meet customers’ expectations.
Effective listening
The third critical customer service skill cited by Infiniti involves effective listening to understand what the customer has to say. This requires retailers to interpret correctly what customers have to say and analyze what has been left unsaid by the customer. At times, it might happen that companies misinterpret what the customer is trying to convey. This causes miscommunication and leads to customer dissatisfaction and frustration.