Tayyib Parrish 
Such world class customer service will never be achievable without having a corps of caring and capable support staff. It’s true that this is not an inexpensive model to put in place, however the value will present itself through years of brand loyalty (and referrals).
Your customer support team is the face of your company. Every interaction they have with a customer will help shape how that customer views your business.
Focus on People
Providing good quality customer service lies at the heart of any company that succeeds by building a loyal customer base, a company that excels at sales by customers referring business to others, and one that experiences consistent and sustainable growth in revenue. Customer service works only insofar as the team is properly-skilled and aligned to the customer’s needs; and it therefore makes sense to invest in providing training and reference aids in a variety of forms, from senior members of staff though to formal training courses to online reference. Customer service staffers should be able both to answer customers’ questions authoritatively about your products and services – and, if you communicate with your customers only in writing, they should be talented at sensing the emotion in crackly tone and rigid posture, because they communicate only via the written word, whether it’s email or chat. This requires empathy – and empathy really is catchy. It must be passed around like a virtual Silly String at a staff meeting because, otherwise, your staffers won’t know what it is. Regularly, you need to have human beings sit with real, human customers and tell their stories within the company – whether that’s by inviting them in for a town hall or by including it in an internal newsletter.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions
Anyway, you have to build relations with your customers and the way to do that is to be as helpful as possible and anticipate questions that they might have that you’ll get asked further down the line. This might mean sending them tailored, proactive communications with answers to frequent questions, links to resources for troubleshooting issues, or invitations to work with them on certain cases, for example. Questions can cause anxiety because it can signal to your coworkers that you’re insecure about certain aspects of your job – but that’ll probably just be their perception, and you can recast that as confidence by persisting through your anxiety and learning to ask more. Getting past anxiety allows you to be forthright in showing your coworkers that you care about your work, that you’re putting time and effort into learning, and are asking questions so that you can be better at communicating and making work better – and you might find that your coworkers feel the same way about you asking questions of them.
Take the High Road
Yes, when customers are angry, upset — take the high road, be classy, be professional, don’t take their anger personally, don’t swear back at them, don’t accuse them of anything. Providing customer service means being helpful and attentive to your customers, and making sure they are satisfied with your work. Showing a customer that he/she is important to you and you hear what that person is saying will go a long way. Report on actionable metrics, and metrics you can do something about. For example, if your goal is to drive case volume per agent down, set goals and track them over time! Or if your goal is to improve speed of response, start with reps’ individual results to determine what increases speed deliverable with the results you seek, and that is how you will achieve results faster.
Be Proactive
An exceptional customer support team is one that is not reactive. It prevents customers from reaching your team in first place and keeps everybody happy and in business. In order to be proactive, you first have to know your customers and their needs, and the potential of your workforce in relation to the operational realities of your business. Some companies might find proactive thinking easier than others; it certainly requires an intimate knowledge of those that buy your products, not to mention an investment in research to know exactly what to offer consumers, at precisely the right moment. A reminder to a customer that there’s something she left in the digital shopping cart is probably helpful; just how many reminders before it becomes annoying?
