Ever heard of the old saying, you don’t miss something until it’s gone? That should be the mantra when it comes to providing customer service to your broadband customers because you always want to keep them happy to ensure that they stay since staying IS the name of the game. So, what happens when they are a bit disgruntled or encounter a problem? One of the best customer service tips and pieces of advice I can offer you is how to take care of your customers – the right way.

How Fast Do You Respond?

Response time is essential when dealing with any issue. Even if you don’t have an immediate solution to a problem, you have to promptly acknowledge the problem and let your customers know that you are working to find an answer. If you act right away, customers are more inclined to believe that you genuinely care about their misfortunes and will do everything to correct the issue. Or, you can think about it this way – in the age of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, it only takes 5 seconds and 140 characters for customers to tweet about the horrible service they are receiving. Your reputation is on the line, and you want to protect it.

What Types of Responses Do You Provide?

Some customers scoff at the idea of canned messages because it doesn’t make them feel that their issue is being individually addressed. Of course in cases of a wide spread outage of some sort, canned messages are fine, but what about those individual issues? When providing responses, try to make the response, whether it’s via phone conversation, email, chat, social media, etc., as personable as possible. Case in point: I placed a call the other day for support on an issue I was having with my cell service. My issue wasn’t resolved on the call, and after I disconnected, I received a series of text messages asking me about the customer service that I received on a scale of 1-10. I responded that the agent was a 10 but their voice service was horrible with a capital H. I received a lovely canned response of “Great! How likely are you to recommend our services to a friend or family?” Customer service fail because at that point, I was likely to cancel my contract and move to the next provider.

Updates, Updates, Updates!

Leaving your customers in the dark on issues only make them frustrated, so keeping them updated provides some solace while you’re working to correct an issue. Knowing the whos, whats, whens, wheres, and whys can mean the difference between calm customers and customers yelling into the phone (or typing in ALL CAPS) because they don’t know what’s going on. Educate your customers. For example, let them know that you’re working to address their modem issues or that you’re trying to figure out what’s causing those slow Internet connection speeds. Provide them with possible causes and solutions that you’re trying. Your ears will thank you!

Are you taking care of your customers the right way? Don’t let some other provider come in and do the job that you set out to do!