The Daily Freelancer: Customer Service
I’m sure that when I say “customer service,” you have super mixed reactions. Yes, I love customer service! Or, plleeeaaasssseee don’t make me… Or, the third option: I’ve had some really terrible customer service.
Customer service is a skill, and something you need to enjoy doing to do well. I don’t believe it’s something that can be taught; you can learn the information you need to know in order to provide the information you need to provide, but that excitement about engaging with someone who needs your help is something inherent.
Info Desks and Online Chats
I’ve spent sixteen years in customer service roles, and I do enjoy it! I’m no Apple Store customer service level — goodness gracious, I would love to be! — but I hold my own.
I spent ten years as a bookseller helping people find books, giving them suggestions, ringing them up, and all those things, and I recently went back to being a bookseller because I actually missed it. Bookselling is way different than other frontline retail in that you really need to have an expansive knowledge of book titles, and know what and how to recommend books at a moment’s notice.
I also spent six years as the first point of contact for incoming MBA students at a well-known business school, fielding emails, phone calls, and running a (very fun) live chat. I needed to know everything about the school in order to answer any kind of question that came my way, from financial aid to the classroom experience to on-campus housing to what we served in the dining hall. I also volunteered to pilot the school’s student center information desk (since I pretty much did that virtually anyway). One of my points of pride was that I didn’t use an auto-respond on the program’s email account, because I always responded within a few hours, by end-of-day at the latest. I unknowingly started giving other departments a bad rap because I was so quick with my turn-around!
Customer Service as Two-Pronged
In thinking back over those two experiences, there are two forces in play when it comes to customer service.
The first is intrinsic motivation, or the desire to want to help customers with the knowledge you have. This is what I said can’t necessarily be taught, but it’s something you have to just enjoy doing. It’s cutting your conversation with a co-worker off mid-sentence to give your attention to your customer. It’s proactively asking them if they need any help. It’s offering to track something down for them and get back to them with the answer. It’s returning their email quickly, or giving them the contact of someone else better suited to answer the question.
The second is the extrinsic understanding that you’re representing the brand. In both instances, a customer’s interaction with me may be their only interaction with the greater brand: I am not a customer service rep, I am a brand ambassador. With the business school, there was an added level to what I was doing: yield. My handling of a prospective student could contribute to them choosing to come to our school, or going somewhere else. Part of my quick responses, friendly tone, and above-and-beyond work was because of that brand representation.
Customer Service in Freelance
As I’ve been doing more and more freelance work — essentially as I’m my own boss at this point, running my own business — I’ve been thinking about this notion of customer service, and what that now looks like. Gone is the second prong: The extrinsic motivation to represent the company I work for. Well, actually, that’s shifted now, because the company I work for is me, and my customer service directly reflects myself and my business, which is me. And if I do terrible customer service, I won’t just get talked to by my manager. I lose income, and, most importantly, reputation.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Have a “How can I help?” mindset
When you communicate with potential clients, approach with a “How can I help?” mindset. (Cue Dr. Goodwin from New Amsterdam.) This is beneficial for a few reasons. First, you’re ultimately helping them solve their problems, so already it positions you in the right way. Second, just like someone at an info desk, it shows you’re the person with the information and skill to show the way. Third, it’s just kind and nice to hear.
Be timely in your response
I mentioned above that I prided myself on replying to emails within a few hours, and I always had the chat open during work hours to be immediately available to anyone with questions. This communicates a few things. The first is that you’re making them a priority. We’ve all gotten auto-responders and had to wait days to get a response sometimes. If you reply immediately — within a few hours at the most — it shows your clients that they’re important. It also shows them that you’re available to help, which builds trust and authority.
Find your tone, but most importantly, be human
Short of getting an auto-responder, you can also tell when someone’s response is really formal and scripted. I’ve replied to thousands of written customer service requests in my day (and wrote from scratch every single one), and I utilized a certain voice: Friendly, authoritative, knowledgeable, human. For example, I would never reply with “Thank you for contacting us.” It was always, “Thanks for reaching out!” (Yes, you can use exclamation points.) Look, there’s so much automated stuff out there that people are looking for human connection, human voice, and a little lightheartedness. It goes a long way to cultivating relationship and trust.
If you don’t know, offer to find out
In other words, be honest with your clients and the people you’re working with. If there’s something you don’t know, don’t fake it, or lie. People are incredibly responsive and accepting of you saying “I don’t know, but let me find out.” It also makes you more human (see above), and it’ll also let them know that you’re putting in extra effort for them (bonus!).
It’s Ok to chat with your client
There’s a lot of value in a quick small-talk exchange before your get to business. It could be as simple as “How’s your day going?” or “What’s the weather like there?” Back when I had 1:1s with a manager, I would come into our weekly meeting with my to-do list ready to go. And she’d ask, “How was your weekend?” And I was like, “I HAVE A TO-DO LIST.” And she’d be like, “Put that away. How was your weekend?” What it did was create more of a human relationship between us, which made for better work. Do this with your clients — doesn’t have to be a lot — but you’ll find that you have better connection, and may uncover a commonality!
But here’s where the analogy fails: You can help your client, go above-and-beyond for your client, be responsive to your client — but you should never get stepped on by your client. Those of us who have done enough customer service have experience the occasional customer who, honestly, abuses you, requires you to do inhuman things, yells at you, oversteps boundaries, or takes advantage of you. In that case, as a freelancer, you can do what you couldn’t do as a customer rep: You can just fire them.
Hopefully this gets you thinking a bit more about ways to go about delivering customer service to your clients.
Hi! I’m Jessica, and I can write your content. Head to my For Hire page, and work with me today!