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In a world with an increasing amount of priority being placed on the customer, making the most out of every single interaction matters. Businesses never truly know what conversation will spark an expansion opportunity or referral dialogue, so nailing your customer communication on a frequent basis can separate the “good” from the “great” companies.
These essential conversations may be unpredictable, but you can still refine your tactics to be prepared for them when they do pop up. Here are 5 tips for having highly impactful customer conversations and how to make the most of these important discussions…
1) Optimize your own communication on a personal level – Refine your speech so it gets noticed and has lasting value. Removing verbal crutches such as “um” and “like” from your vocabulary over time will help you reach your point faster and communicate more clearly. You can’t rely on every customer having patience (or a long attention span) so being punctual with what you say is important.
2) Choose your words wisely and efficiently – In an era of rapid communication, the specifics of what you say still has a big impact. Sometimes the words you choose can unlock customer conversations and open doors to resolving issues that may have stayed close otherwise. For example, saying “that’s interesting, I’ve never thought of it that way” rather than “none of our other customers have this issue” encourages conversations that bring new ideas and concepts to the surface. This can result in a persistent problem turning into a long-term solution.
3) Always be conscious of your tone of voice – Use your voice to take your words to a different level and alter their meaning. Saying “I’m sorry” in a stern voice can indicate a lack of empathy, while saying this phrase in a dramatic tone usually correlates to insincerity. Make sure your tone of voice can shift quickly and accurately depending on how the conversation changes to avoid awkward situations. This may seem like a low impact tactic, but it’s actually it’s essential for getting customers to truly fall in love with your business.
4) Choose a channel that matches the conversation – Understand which channel is best for a specific type of discussion. For example, live chat isn’t great for showing empathy because this emotion doesn’t convey well through text, a phone call is usually better in this situation. On the flip side, email can be excellent for highly technical conversations as it provides a direct point of reference for complex details.
5) Leverage sentiment analysis technology – Sometimes we misinterpret conversational signals, especially written ones, and this can create unnecessary issues in a professional setting. To help avoid this scenario, leverage customer success software with a sentiment analysis solution built in so you’ll always have a neutral “second opinion” of the conversation in real-time. This technology can determine the emotions of a message – such as happy or frustrated – and also how strongly that emotion comes across. In addition, sentiment analysis is a great feature to have for instantly viewing how different customers are feeling so you can prioritize and plan your responses to them.
In short, having high impact customer conversations all comes down to mastering your own dialogue based on the situation. Word choice and tone of voice can have incredible power when leveraged properly to persuade or calm as needed. Selecting the right channel and displaying confidence in your speech are also important in conveying the desired message. Lastly, sentiment analysis is an excellent use of technology to reaffirm your conversational instincts and to prioritize customer responses as needed. Thanks for reading and we hope these tips helped to improve your customer communication!