One thing that every sales team needs to prioritize is customer service. Customer service is the voice and face of the company, especially when it comes to outside sales. 

Your salespeople represent the company in the eyes of the clients. As such, inappropriate handling of clients can damage the reputation of a company. 

While small businesses are expected to provide excellent customer service, not all of them train their teams well enough to do so.The quality of customer service that an organization offers can break or build a new relationship with potential clients.  

The following are tips that can be used to train your reps on handling customers and offering exceptional customer service.

Build a Culture of Positive and Open Communication Within Your Team

As your sales team interacts with different personalities every day, they can be exposed to certain levels of negativity. Whether it’s addressing complaints from unpleasant and unhappy customers or regularly facing rejection, the morale of your team can be affected by these unpleasant situations. Take some time to encourage your team and recognize their achievements. Your reps will appreciate these simple words of affirmation.   

Work with your sales team to create a positive environment. Creating a collective team mentality will make it easier for your employees to work together and strive for better customer service skills.

Regular team meetings can go a long way, especially meetings where employees can learn from each other as well as from team leaders and managers. These meetings will create a positive space where your team can share their experiences with customers and gain feedback for the future.  

Demonstrate Positive Behavior from the Top to Bottom

Every organization strives to create a customer service culture that cultivates growth and cohesion. In order to ensure this strong culture, company owners and managers should demonstrate the behavior they want their team to pass on to existing and potential clients.

As a manager, you should hold your team members accountable and communicate the overall expectations and goals of the company. This can best be accomplished through frequent and open communication via chat messages, emails, meetings, etc. 

Excellent customer service comes from salespeople that are provided with clear expectations and goals. Your team should always know what is expected. 

There are several great applications created specifically for work related communication. These applications will help keep everyone updated with announcements no matter where they are. As you choose one of these, remember that the goal is to create better communication between each member of the company, regardless of seniority or team. 

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Recognize Outstanding Achievements and Services to Promote Improvements

It is crucial for managers to acknowledge their customer service teams when they demonstrate exceptional service. Recognize your team members for milestones such as years of service, perfect attendance, or outstanding services. 

As a reward, managers may offer top performers free lunch, casual dress days, or paid time off for their achievements. Likewise, this can motivate low performers to improve their customer service skills to match the performance of those being rewarded. 

Encourage Involvement with Clients 

Organizations should think of their workers as the eyes and ears of their operation. 

Your reps are the first people that potential customers will meet, meaning that your front-line reps will notice when clients aren’t immediately happy with their services. Similarly, unhappy sales reps will affect the overall experience of customers. 

As such, reps should take time to collect suggestions and feedback from customers, and use that information for the implementation of procedures and policies to improve business operations. 

This comes back to communication. As you create a setting where your reps are comfortable candidly discussing with you their experiences working with customers in the field, you will find out different ways in which you can improve your team’s sales process to help establish and grow customer relationships. 

Track Customer Feedback to Identify New Opportunities

Use resources such as surveys and interviews to measure the satisfaction of your customers. Some of the useful tools that companies can use to measure customer satisfaction are surveys, which are also a great way for sales teams to identify new market opportunities. 

Other great ways to collect feedback are through follow-ups and feedback forms. Keep an eye on social media and customer review sites to see what people are saying about your company. These resources are easy ways to address customer concerns and adapt future strategies accordingly.

Interact with Your Team in a Positive and Encouraging Manner

Many companies keep their teams hidden behind cubicle walls. While managers may not have an abundance of interaction with their team members, appreciation, and acknowledgment can go a long way to improve their performance.  

Some of the ways to promote communication include team meetings, where senior managers open the floor for suggestions, questions, and comments from their team. These meetings allow your team members to communicate and interact with each other, while also enabling them to coordinate and cooperate to overcome obstacles they encounter in their daily routine. 

Senior managers might also consider spending time with their reps to observe how they work. This creates an opportunity for top managers to see things from the perspective of their reps and identify strengths as well as areas for improvement.

Success means training and taking care of the people that represent your business. As customer service improves, your business will thrive. It all begins by applying these tips to grow and motivate your team, while implementing a process that empowers them to succeed.