10 Tips for Improving Your Customer Service Content
September 30, 2022 - 11 minutes readHow to level up your customer service communications.
Your customers are the beating heart of your business. As a retail store or eCommerce business owner, providing a flawless customer experience (CX) should be one of your top priorities.
While many businesses focus on being as responsive as possible across every channel or touchpoint, many overlook one vital aspect of effective customer service—the content.
By crafting practical yet inspirational content and communications, you will build an instant bond with your audience. In turn, you’ll foster a level of trust that will boost your customer loyalty rates and accelerate your commercial growth.
Did you know? 75% of customers want a consistent experience regardless of how they interact with a company.
If you take the time to improve your customer service content and communications, you will provide a consistently engaging experience across every channel (from email to social media and online chat), scoring plenty of loyalty points in the process.
Here are ten tips for improving your customer service content.
Be personal
If you want to level up your customer service content and really speak to your audience, adding a personal touch to your words is the way to go.
These days, consumers expect brands to offer them personalized offers, recommendations, and content. When it comes to customer service content, you’re usually solving a practical problem—but that doesn’t mean you can’t be conversational.
One of the best and most personable ways to craft customer service content or speak to your customers in real time (via online chat or social media threads, for instance) is by mimicking.
What we mean here is that you should look at all of the user-generated content (UGC) you have at your disposal and study how your customers speak or interact.
Do they use common words or phrases? Are they more laid back or more formal? Seek answers to these questions, and you’ll be able to speak to large portions of your audience in a personable way that strikes a positive chord, working wonders for your reputation.
Be empathetic
Expanding on the last point, you should aim to be empathetic as well as personable. Whether you’re writing an FAQ answer, a helpdesk article, or an email support response, it’s important to lead with an empathetic stance.
To let your empathy shine through, you should first place yourself directly in the shoes of the consumer. It’s also important that you lead with either a nod to the situation (we understand this must be frustrating) or an apology before offering a direct solution to the problem. You should aim to leave any supplementary information until the end.
Be consistent
This may sound obvious, but it counts. It’s vital that you keep your tone and style consistent across all channels and touchpoints to maintain a strong brand identity.
Without working on consistency across channels, your customer service content and communications are likely to seem disjointed, which could have a negative impact on your loyalty rates. Why? Because today’s consumers want to believe in the brands they invest in.
Read: Our essential 10 tips on building a strong identity for your brand to make your customer service content more consistent.
Add personality
In addition to being personable, consistent, and showing empathy, a little personality will go a long way when it comes to crafting customer service content, especially articles and FAQ-style communications.
It’s worth noting that you should never use humor when a customer is angry or if you’re writing about a particularly sensitive subject.
However, in most cases, adding a little pizazz will inspire people to stick around and invest in your products or services again.
The best way to add personality to your customer service content is by writing it as if you were producing your marketing copy. Remember, your brand voice is not exclusive to marketing or sales.
This brand crafted a practical, user-friendly help guide and seasoned it with a few amusing references that are likely to inspire some laughs and keep the customer engaged.
Sweat the small stuff
When it comes to customer service content, it’s good to sweat the small stuff.
When we say small stuff, we mean the tiny strands of messaging or captions known as UX and microcopy. Whether it’s a complaint form, an in-app chat service, or a service-based web page, those little nuggets of content can help your customers navigate their journey more smoothly while making them feel valued. Focus on the small stuff, and you’re likely to enjoy big returns.
Read: Our essential guide to UX & microcopy writing to make all of your customer-facing “small stuff” sing.
Don’t waffle
There’s no room for industry jargon or long-winded explanations in customer service content. As mentioned, add personality, but don’t waffle on. If you do, your customers will get increasingly frustrated, leave a bad review, and go elsewhere.
To avoid waffling, trim out any words or phrases that aren’t essential to helping your customer. Repeat the process until your content is natural, snappy, and likely to make sense to everyone.
Read: 7 copywriting principles for the modern age to keep your customer service communication sharp and snappy.
Try an FAQ page
If you haven’t done this already, you should create an FAQ page to power up your customer service offerings.
An FAQ (frequently asked questions) page is a powerful piece of customer service content because it minimizes service queries across channels and helps make you more popular with search engines, which will bring more customers to your online store.
Pinterest’s FAQ section is an excellent example, as every potential query is broken down into easy-to-navigate subsections. When you do click on a specific subject, you connect with a practical, personable answer to your question.
Try a knowledge base
Did you know? Thirty-one percent of customers want instant online help, while 40% expect to receive help or find an answer in less than five minutes. Cue knowledge bases.
Essentially an extensive version of an FAQ page or section, a knowledge base is a hub of easy-to-find articles, videos, and how-tos that help customers troubleshoot common issues and get more from a brand’s products or services.
Here is a hand-picked video guide that will help you get your knowledge base content off to the right start:
Use technology
We live in a tech-driven digital age with access to powerful technologies at the swipe of a screen or the click of a button.
If you want to make your customer service content as responsive, fluent, and efficient as possible, using technology is a wise move.
When it comes to customer service content, there are several options at your disposal, including:
- Chatbot platforms for pre-programmed conversations with your customers
- Email content management and scheduling platforms
- Online store builders to make creating FAQ or service pages quick and easy
- AI services like Grammarly that offer tailored wording or phrasing suggestions based on your brand voice or tone
Take advantage of the right mix of technologies to maximize your customer service content across channels.
Test. Test. Test.
Last but not least, checking and testing your wording or creations is essential to improving your customer service content.
To ensure that your customer service content genuinely connects with your content, you should test it with specific segments of your audience.
By gathering constant feedback from your customers across channels, you can discover whether the content you’re producing is personable and valuable enough.
To gather continual feedback, you can:
- Host feedback workshops and focus groups
- Incentivize your customers to fill out surveys in return for a discount or offer
- Offer chances for your customers to leave a “thumbs up,” “thumbs down,” or comment at the bottom of your FAQ or knowledge base pages or after phone or online chat conversions.
Gathering this vital feedback will give you the power to make your customer service content as valuable, personable, and inspirational as possible.
“Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.”—Lisa Masiello
If you take the time to improve your customer service content, you will reap great commercial rewards. You’ll not only craft content that helps across the board but also stand out from the crowd, which is essential in our ultra-competitive digital age.
We wish you the best of luck on your journey. For more business-boosting advice, read our guide on creating a whitepaper for better brand awareness.
