Besides technology and innovation, customer service has become increasingly essential in the growth and development of modern businesses. Customer experience is a discipline that has morphed out of customer service and now includes customer relationship management, social media platforms, and brand management. It is essential to develop and improve customer support in order to attract customers to the business. Businesses that focus on providing excellent customer experiences always thrive and become leaders in their industries.
Due to the increase in online interactions and shopping, customers today can simultaneously shop, request a real-time chat with a company representative, browse websites, and post company reviews about their experiences. As a result, clients expect businesses to provide better convenience, accessibility, and value. For this reason, tracking and optimizing the customer experience is more important than ever. Further, contact center leaders should recognize the importance of building a strong and positive brand image.
Servant Leadership in Customer Service
The positive correlation between employee satisfaction and customer service quality is based on servant leadership principles. This is because in organizations with a serve-first mindset, the leaders focus on empowering and elevating their employees. In addition, servant leadership facilitates the creation of a cohesive work environment where team members feel included and valued.
Servant leaders show humility instead of brandishing authority and always aim to enhance the development of their staff members in ways that open up potential, creativity, and a sense of purpose. As a result, having dedicated employees working for the company results in better and long-lasting customer relations.
Principles of Servant Leadership
Businesses can incorporate the following principles of servant leadership to improve customer experience:
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Active Listening
Effective servant leaders actively listen to customer needs and are willing to learn from the customers. The best way to provide the best customer service is to understand what your customers want. Being passionately curious about your customers and basing your product development around their expectations and needs lets you enhance their customer experience
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Stewardship
All servant leaders have the social responsibility that their institutions work for the greater good of their customers and the society at large. As a result, the perspective of your company’s products and services should demonstrate ethics and focus on more than just profits.
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Empathy
Empathy is a quality that enables servant-leaders to show compassion, keep an open mind and strive to understand their customers’ perspectives and expectations. Identifying with your clients helps you to understand their likes and dislikes, so you can better know how to respond to their needs and act accordingly on feedback received.
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Foresight
Customer feedback is a vital source of information on their experience with a product or service. Servant leaders reflect on the outcomes of prior decisions and of past customer experiences to speculate about the likely outcome of any future decisions. The future decisions can then be geared towards exceptional customer experiences, credible reputation, and increased customer retention, which ultimately determines the long-term success of your business.
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Nurturing Personal Growth of Your Colleagues
Servant leaders inspire and encourage hard work among their colleagues. By enlisting your team’s personal and professional growth as your determined commitment, you focus on helping them develop new skills and get them to be more dedicated to excellent performance in customer relations.
Commending employees who demonstrate customer service excellence and those recognized by customers for superior performance empowers them to promote company goals within customer service objectives.
Benefits of Servant Leadership in Customer Service
Under the right circumstances, servant leadership, as opposed to the authoritative style, can be highly effective for creating a customer service-centric culture. Servant leadership helps contact centers to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction in the following ways:
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Happy and Motivated Employees
Happy employees make happy customers. By having an emphasis on employee support, servant leadership results in more comfortable customer service agents and higher profitability rates. These factors contribute to customer satisfaction.
Cultivate trust in your employees by ensuring their freedom of expression. When employees are treated well, they are more likely to contribute and represent the brand more effectively. Your customers will in turn also receive a much more personal and engaging customer service.
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Well-trained Customer Service Agents
Servant leadership among customer service staff helps to create more highly skilled and effective agents, which can improve performance, such as reduced waiting times. The servant leadership model also ensures that agents receive hands-on training in telephone etiquette, conflict resolution skills, and techniques that can positively impact the customers. Employees are also encouraged not to take the customers’ anger and negativity personally.
Giving your employees guidance and helping them in getting to know your business better is an excellent way of ensuring they comprehend brand values and get what you are trying to do for the company. The brand is the core of what makes the business, so the more you and your employees can understand this, the better the company will be in the long run.
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Culture of Service
Servant leadership creates, supports, and sustains a service culture where serving others comes first every day. Excellent customer service is second nature to servant-leaders. In the modern workplace, servant leadership continually enhances the harmonious drive of employees for their work and customer orientation. In a servant-leader organization, those at the top of the organizational structure see themselves as directly in service to the customers. The people most responsible for the customer experience are empowered to do their best.
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Improved Interactions with Customers
Customers must be treated with the utmost respect, empathy, and appreciation. Etiquette in dealing with customers makes them feel comfortable and valued. Servant leadership allows for more positive communication between customers and brands, leading to increased loyalty, a positive brand image, and profitability.
Embrace the Opportunity to Serve
With all of the rapid changes in the business world, contact center leaders must be willing to acknowledge the increased need for enhanced customer interaction and outstanding customer service. The sooner contact center leaders take time to practice servant leadership techniques in customer service, the sooner they will reap the fruits of customer retention and satisfaction in every part of the organization.
