Irrespective of the type of job you are performing, having good customer service skills has become the need of the hour. You may be dealing with customers daily as part of your job or you may never interact with them, but hiring managers want to know if you are considering customer’s best interest and whether it is critical to you or not. A common question these days in interviews is ‘What does Customer Service mean to you?’ Let’s find out the best answer to this question.

Firstly, what is Customer Service?
Customer service is the process of providing professional service to the customer before, during and after buying a product or service. A good customer service is not always about giving everything the customer demands. It has got to do with ensuring that the user or prospective user of your business has a positive experience by way of prompt response and resolution. Not all complaints can be fixed but, the executives have to ensure that they handle the situation in a professional and polite way and ensure that you put in the best effort to resolve the issues.

What Entails Good Customer Service?
Knowledge of Product: A good customer service representative (CSR) is one who has in-depth knowledge of the products on offers and the inventory. A CSR who is aware of the products or service in your business will then be able to guide the customer to make the best possible choice. Many times, customers are frustrated with the customer service of a company as the CSR is not aware of the application or product, gives wrong or inaccurate information or leaves the user more confused than before. In case some of the queries asked are not known as new issues or scenarios crop up, the customer service should find out and get back to the customer with the right response.
Friendly Approach: A good customer service will ensure that they treat the customers with respect and have a helpful attitude. A CSR should make sure that they care for the customers and not act like they are being bothered. The customer should be made to feel important and well-respected. A CSR should have the ability to stay cool when the customers get angry, should not take things said personally or accuse the customer back. These are some of the qualities that are looked for in a customer service executive.
Efficient Handling: A good customer service resolves the questions or issues efficiently in a helpful and friendly manner. Apart from having the right knowledge and attitude, timely resolution is the key to customer satisfaction. Making a customer wait for a long time is not a good scenario and if you are not able to solve the issue, the situation can go out of hand. If the problem cannot be immediately resolved, ensure that you communicate to the customer that you are working on it by giving frequent updates about the progress.

A great customer service leads to happy and satisfied customers as the customer expectations are met. But a bad customer service can lead to a decrease in sales as you are likely to tell others about the bad service and take the business to other competitors.