Just as we all know, without doubt, there are businesses that offer excellent customer services and there are some that really don't care about customer service.

From my researches and experience, I discovered that we'v all grown accustomed over many years to receiving "ordinary" service. So when someone show an outstanding level of customer service, its very impossible not to notice.

As I believe, there is no better way to build a profitable business in any field than by being absolutely committed to offering the highest levels of customer service possible.

I created this thread to put you through some of the customer service tips that will eventually ease achieving your aspirations in your business by keeping your customers and attracting new ones.

Enjoy....

1) Always put yourself in your customer's shoes: This simply means that you should always look at every aspect of your business from your customer's point of view. Start looking at everything that your business does as if you were a customer, you ll be surprised by how enlightening this can be.

2) Create time to talk to your customers: People love to talk to the owner of a business- its a mark of respect for them and for you.
No matter how busy you are, always create the time to talk to your customers. Ask them how they are finding dealing with your business. A few minutes conversation with your customers gives you a lot of information. It is important to note that, there's no business without customers.

3) Encourage your customers to give you their opinions: You need feedback from your customers. You need to know if you are really giving them what they want. Every business should encourage its customers to give their opinions on their experiences.
In most cases, unhappy customers don't complain about a problem. Instead, they simply don't come back, so the challenge is to identify any problems before you lose them.

Here are few effective ways to get feedback from your customers:
-Ask them
-Have a suggestion box
-Do a follow-up call after a service is rendered
- Have a questionnaire on your website

4) Smile: Some people seem to struggle with the concept of smiling. It really is the basic principle of customer service, yet it seems to be an area that does't come naturally to a lot of people. Nothing breaks down barriers more quickly than a big smile. Before you pick up a phone call, smlie; when someone walks into your shop, smile. And as crazy as it may sounds, a smile can be felt through a telephone line and on the pages of a letter.
If at the end of the day, you are an entrepreneur who can't smile at customers, you may need to think about your future with your business.

5) Appearances: Looks are very important even in businesses. Imagine two plumbers coming to fix a fault in your home. Plumber one is wearing a neat, pressed uniform and carrying a tidy tool box. The second plumber arrives wearing a crumpled pair of dirty overalls, with pockets full of tools. Both plumbers may be good equally, but its more likely that the first one will be invited back again because he looks more professional.
In the same vein, going into a restaurant and being served by a dishevelled member of staff gives the impression that they don't take their job seriously and they really don't care about their customers.

6) Cleanliness: There is nothing worse than going into a business that is dirty. Of course, it is hard to keep some business spotless but there is a huge disparity between being filthy and being messy in the course of doing your work.

Customers expect clean business. Meet this expectation and you are well on the way to really satisfying your customers and most importantly, increasing the chances of them coming back

7) Say 'Thank you': When a customer leaves your business after making a purchase, it's nice to say, 'Goodbye. Hope to see you again', but it's also very important to thank the person for their patronage.
Its simple: Stop for a second, look the customer in the eye, thank them for their patronage and say 'Goodbye'.

Consistency: One of the greatest ways to ensure that your customers are really satisfied is to be consistent in all aspects of your business. Offer good levels of service consistently, open at the same time consistently, have the same faces behind the counter consistently. Consistency is a powerful tool that all customers like and feel secure with and if you can meet this expectation, you are well and truly on your way to really impressing your customers.

Thanks, I would like to elaborate and add a bit on the discussion from an online business perspective. With most of the business using the internet as a base for their business operations, choosing the right customer service channel for their apps and web-apps has become vital.

While deciding upon the right channel to use, studying the process of interaction between the client and company is essential. In the following parts of this post, we will discuss the major customer service channels that can be integrated with a business website and app

Voice

The biggest advantages of voice are the attention to detail and the large volume of information the executive can process while attending to a client. Executive’s access to the user data and ability to interact with users on various voice channels is vital.One doesn’t need to set up a dedicated phone number and call center infrastructure. If you’re a small/medium business, a Skype Call Button widget on your website can get things started in no time.



E-mail Forms

E-mails work really well in both B2B/B2C customer service operations. A website integrated with an HTML form where the user can key in their concerns/issues related to any of the product/services is a convenient and clean way of serving customers. For instance, look at the following screenshot from Amazon’s customer service page:



Web-Chat

Web-chat provides businesses the ability to directly interact with website visitors. Furthermore, businesses can interact with multiple users at the same time. As a result, wait time is reduced and users get a better experience.



Messaging Apps and SMS

We have iterated this countless times, the no. of mobile devices have surpassed the no. of Desktops. Hence, it makes perfect sense to integrate mobile messaging apps as a customer service channel in the mobile version of your website.



Following are some benefits of using messaging apps as customer service channels:-
-Handle multiple users at the same time
-Personalized and clean experience for the user
-Chat history is readily available. Easy identification of returning users.
-No spam and unwanted subscriptions

In a nutshell, whether you’re a startup in initial stages or an established organization with customer service agents, a study of user experience and interactions is essential to determine the right customer service channel.

References
http://www.zealousys.com/blog/customer-service-channels-business-website/

This thread is still in the wilderness