Understanding the Link between Effective Communication Skills and Good Customer Service

Brian Kazungu, 01/06/2023

One of the most important things to remember when it comes to customer service delivery or good customer care is that it is hinged on good communication skills.

Communication skills are important when dealing with clients because: Customers are social beings (they enjoy good company). They are people, just like you (they can be emotional too).

As such, they need and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in your engagement with them.

You can show them respect and uphold their dignity through the way you communicate with them using all the different mediums of interaction which are at your disposal.

In order for you to appeal to your clients in your interaction with them, and to arouse them towards continued patronage, you must consider using Effective Communication approaches that are based on good Information Packaging – You must pay attention to Language, Tone, Gestures.

Thelanguage, tone and gestures which you use conveys a certain message to your customers and thus must be done with consideration or else, as a business, you will lose touch with the same market that you want to serve.

You can only be good at communicating with your clients when you equally understand the meaning of communication in the same way that you understand the meaning of a customer.

Basically speaking, communication in general or effective communication to be specific, is the intentional and purposeful exchange of mutually beneficial information (data) using common or easily agreeable symbols.

In simple terms, information (data) refers to the signs and symbols that are used for decision making.

As such, in engaging your clients, you must use a language which they can easily understand. You must strive to use the right language (signs and symbols) in a way that makes the client to correctly and quickly interpret your message.

There is always a language that is unique to a certain group of people, and as such, using the wrong language, tone and gestures can negatively affect their interpretation of the message which you are trying to convey.

The tone and gestures that you use when interacting with some people can be interpreted differently compared to what happens when it’s used on people from other communities.

As such, you must therefore try as much as possible to have a general understanding of the communication preferences of the type of people that you serve as a business.

When you are communicating with your clients, you must remember the following components of a message;

1. The intention – why do you want to share this information with the client?
2. The specific benefit – What do the parties involved benefit from such communication?
3. Common or easily agreeable symbols – do the signs and symbols that you are using to communicate with them have the same meaning on both ends?

The above-mentioned approach helps you to come up with a brief but effective message which you can efficiently convey to your clients when you communicate with them.

Always remember that you are going to use a mutually understandable language to: Express your awareness of a client’s value and importance to you and to the company.

In order to achieve this, you must use mechanisms that make your clients aware that you appreciate their patronage and that you also respect them as they are, plus that you wish them a good shopping experience and a fulfilled life.

A good customer service is not an expression of mutual liking, but it is rather a reflection of your ability to effectively manage both the good and bad characters that you deal with towards mutual benefit.

It is actually a confirmation of your maturity in engaging with people in their diversity.

This humane approach of dealing with clients has the miracle effect of transforming you to become a good person even outside the scope of your work, because in life, we become what we repeatedly do.

In essence, when it comes to customer service, you do not only treat a customer in a good way when he/she is good to you, but you treat the customer in a good way because it is good for you and for the company to do so.

You also treat customers in a good way because you have learnt and mastered the benefits of being a good, open-minded and flexible person.

When you start to understand that people who come from different backgrounds and professions have different expectations and attitudes, you will develop a certain degree of flexibility and open-mindedness which enables you to handle them without getting and feeling frustrated.

The added advantage of giving good customer service is that after you have mastered this art, you are most likely to adopt this same humane approach in dealing with other people that you interact with in the other spheres of life towards a peaceable co-existence.

When you value your customers, they get tickled when they see your product, they get excited when they consume it and they get passionate when they refer others to buy your products.

There is definitely a certain unique and almost indescribable feeling that customers get when they engage a person or a business which cherishes them.

Such a feeling makes them want to continue patronizing your business. It makes them want to always visit your premises or to regularly browse your website etc. You become part of their world.

This is because the experience and satisfaction which they get when they buy from you or when they consume your product is a unique signature that you imprint in their hearts and minds.

Adapted from The Universal Customer Service Manual written by Brian Kazungu

Author Profile: https://www.amazon.com/author/briankazungu