15 Customer Service Psychology Tips to Provide Better Support

We’ve seen popular brands create some of the most memorable and successful customer service stories.

And we’ve all tried to follow their footsteps.

But rather than following them, why not see what really worked for them?

Believe it or not, but customer service psychology is one of the driving factors for their success. Well, just in case you are thinking about how we actually work upon our customer service psychology, then it is important to monitor whether you’ve managed to achieve your goal of keeping your customers satisfied or not. 

So, when you think of satisfying your customers, you need to ensure that:

• Your operators are empathetic towards the customers
• You record and understand customer pain-points better
• Your operators create a positive experience for the customers

And it is because of these experiences the customers leave with a positive, satisfying feeling. 

In a nutshell, it is important for your operators to reflect on their behavior during an ongoing support process. That’s because it becomes a deciding factor to shape the customer’s behavior towards your brand and whether they’ll return or not.

That’s why we aim to explore customer service psychology in detail and different tips that can help you create a better support experience.

What is Customer Service Psychology?

Defining Customer Service Psychology: The core of customer service psychology lies in the comprehensive understanding and anticipation of customer behaviors and emotional responses. It involves an analytical approach to predict and navigate the ever-changing spectrum of customer emotions, ultimately empowering customer service professionals to deliver superior service in diverse situations.

However, handling the ever-changing customer emotions can become a challenge for your operators, and so does providing customer service as per the needs of the customer. But once you get hold of a range of customer behavior patterns, it becomes easier for you to come up with a solution for each hassle-free.

In short, understanding the customer’s psychology plays a huge role in your business to create strategies that build an amazing experience for all.

This effort not only helps you understand how to handle difficult customers but also allows you to create delightful customer journeys.

The Essence of Impeccable Customer Support: Top 15 Customer Service Psychology Tips

Now that we know what customer service psychology is, it is time we deep dive into some of the effective tips for the same to help your business offer impeccable customer support experience to all!

1. Recognize & Clearly Define Your Customers’ Needs

According to NewVoiceMedia, feeling unappreciated is the #1 reason for customers to switch away from products and services.

And why shouldn’t they, especially when brands fail to recognize and clearly see what their customers really need. So to avoid making the same mistake, investigate customer psychology. Learn what they need from your brand.

For that, you can collect customer feedback. It will help you learn what they came looking for and why they need your product or service in the first place.

To collect feedback, you can:

• Track social media pages for comments and reactions
• Send surveys to your newsletter subscribers
• Use a feedback button on your website
• Use pop-up surveys that help you learn the exit intent of your potential customers

Other than these, you can also try using post-chat form, to capture valuable customer feedback once a chat comes to an end. The form will look something like this:

This strategy itself gives you the option to capture feedback instantly. That means you do not have to wait for the customer to log in to their inbox and find your survey email. What’s more, you get more time to come up with effective ways to actually work upon your products in order to meet the needs of your customers faster.

2. Brand Your Business to Improve Customer Retention

Loyal customers represent the base of a stable business, and that’s why you should pay attention to them when branding your business. So, to establish a brand that will help you retain customers and grow the community of loyal clients, you should consider two important recommendations:

• Share Your Brand Story With Your Customers

Nothing can motivate your customers to engage with you and trust you like sharing your story with them. Storytelling is an especially powerful engagement trigger if you use it to talk about the ways your products or services helped someone overcome their issues and fulfill their needs.

• Help Your Customers Identify With Your Brand, Values, and Culture

To identify with everything your brand represents, your customers first need to trust you and feel good about buying your products or services. Once they are totally comfortable with it, you can count on them sticking with you and spreading the word about the exceptional experience of your brand.

Now, to achieve this effect, apart from addressing their needs with your product and sharing your story with them, you should also:

• Constantly work on improving your customer service, 
• Check up on them every once in a while to ensure they are satisfied.

3. Adapt Communication Skills as per Customer Expectation

The way your business communicates with customers has a major impact on their impressions of your brand. According to McKinsey, 70% of the customers’ journey is impacted by the way they think you treat them.

So, to avoid losing customers due to poor communication:

• Define your primary communication channel following your customers’ preferences (for instance, 62% of customers prefer communication via emails),
• Pay attention to the vocabulary and communication style you use (depending on the nature of your business and your target audience, you should decide how formal your communication should be),
• Provide clear, precise, and reliable information, and do your best not to sound biased and subjective.

4. Use Social Media to Build Stronger Connections With Customers

Social media has become one of the major factors of business visibility, so you shouldn’t avoid this communication channel when interacting with your customers. Not only will you make it more convenient for them to reach out to you, but you’ll also get a chance to create a stronger bond as you’ll be interacting with them in a more relaxed way.

Now, when using social media for communication, to get the most out of it, you should consider:

• Including your customers in the process of content generation. (As its consumers, they should help you understand what type of content they enjoy most.)
• Avoiding too promotional posts and relying on some purely educational and engaging content as well. (You don’t want to seem like a relentless seller but a brand that understands their needs.)
• Replying to their posts and comments and addressing their requests. (You don’t want to make them feel neglected or unappreciated since they may end up unfollowing your page and/or giving up on your brand.)

Read More: Do’s and Don’ts of Excellent Customer Support on Social Media

5. Make 24*7 Availability a Reality for Customers

Nobody likes waiting for a response for ages. And that’s why this tip has a special place when analyzing the psychology of customer service. The less time your customers wait for your reply, the more chances you have to increase their satisfaction levels and keep them loyal and engaged.

Now, to be sure your brand provides optimal availability, you should focus on:

• Providing a reply to every message/request/concern that you receive.

No matter how simple and obvious the answer may be for you, you may be doing a great favor to your customers by replying to it. So, while you are encouraged to address the issues you consider priorities primarily, it doesn’t mean that you should neglect their simpler requests and concerns. 

• Providing a prompt reply whenever it’s possible.

There is a reason why 38% of Leading CX experts are currently using a live chat to deliver instant support, while 26% are planning to use one. They understand that customers like instant solutions to their troubles. So, to avoid jeopardizing your customers’ experience and satisfaction level, do your best to address their concerns as fast as possible. 

Use a live chat to manage this time efficiency even when your agents aren’t online, you can rely on the use of chatbots or a knowledge base.

6. Use Live Chat Software to Skyrocket Customer Service Efficiency

Numerous studies have shown that the use of live chat tools help you increase your resolution speed. This way, you’re directly positively impacting your customer psychology as they’ll feel good about you solving their issue immediately.

• Use canned responses to provide instant response to simpler and more frequent requests.
  
  
• Integrate knowledge base to create your knowledge repository where you’ll share the articles covering more complex topics and offering actionable tips that will increase your customers’ self-help possibilities. Then, instead of typing a thorough reply for each request, you can simply link your knowledge base in your live chat session.
• If you have a larger number of agents that are specialized for different areas, make sure to have customers’ requests reach the right agent as fast as possible. You can do this by making your customers choose the type of issue they are experiencing (or the department they want to reach out to) before connecting them with an actual agent.

7. Try Solving Customers’ Issues During the First Session

This tip is especially important if you want to impact your customer psychology positively. The less time your customers spend waiting on your response and the fewer messages you exchange, the happier they will be once you’ve handled their request. 

The importance of this suggestion is reflected in the fact that there’s a metric named First Contact Resolution measuring your success in providing response during the first interaction. It is calculated by simply dividing the number of cases solved during the first interaction by the number of all requests.

So, to be able to solve a larger number of cases during the first interaction (and, therefore, improve your FCR), you should:

• Pay more attention to discovering customers’ major pain points.

In other words, if your agents constantly struggle with fixing the same issue for a large number of users, consider fixing that issue once and for all.

• Increase your agents’ autonomy.

The fewer permissions they have, the more they have to interact with their superiors, and, accordingly, they require more time and individual interactions to fix a certain issue. So, instead of making your agents completely dependent on their managers, provide them with knowledge and training that will help them make more decisions on their own.

• Avoid transfers as much as possible.

If you have to choose whether you’ll spend an extra five minutes to find an answer to a certain issue or redirect your customer to another agent, then stick to the first option. Don’t frustrate your customers by making them have to explain the same issue over and over again.

Read More: How to Reduce Customer Service Response Time

8. Improve CX With Proactive Support

Thanks to the use of advanced technologies that are usually built in a well-developed live chat software, you can easily keep track of your customers’ behavior and their navigation through your website.

This way, you can practically see when they get stuck in the middle of a process. So, thanks to smart use of live chat solutions which comes with proactive chat invitation feature, you get a valuable chance of showing your customers that you care about them by reaching out to them first, without waiting for their initial message.

Again, if your support agents can’t handle monitoring a large number of website visitors at once, you can always delegate the initial phase of this task to your chatbots.

Depending on the nature of the complication a customer experiences, either your chatbot can fix it, or the customer can be redirected to a real agent.

9. Improve Brand Reliability

To position your company as a trustworthy brand that customers can rely on, you should create a customer-oriented ambiance in all your departments, among all of your employees (and especially your support staff), and focus on improving emotional intelligence. 

Some of the main ways for you to seem more reliable and positively impact customer psychology are:

• Improving employees’ internal motivation

Educate your employees on the importance of making customers feel satisfied and create stimulative work conditions at their workplace.

• Keeping promises

If you’re not sure if you can do a certain thing that customers ask you to do, then don’t make a promise. To make your customers trust you, you should give them a reason. Never forget that it’s better for your business reputation and customer experience to underpromise and then overdeliver.

• Being expressive

While you may be relying on chatbots and automation when providing support and communicating with customers, don’t forget to provide them with a human touch and friendly vibe, as well. Your customers will highly appreciate an empathetic and understanding approach. Besides, if the nature of your business allows, you can also use witty questions, humor, nostalgia, etc. to impact them emotionally.

10. Check-In With Customers and Take Follow-Ups

If you only pay attention to your (potential) customers before they make a purchase, you will likely ruin or seriously damage your business pretty soon. 

Spotlighting customers’ needs and expectations more than ever, the modern market requires you to pay way more attention to your customers not only when gaining their trust before a purchase is made but also after they’ve started to use your products or services.

Checking in with your customers and collecting their feedback on the quality of your products or services has become one of the essential tasks for all serious companies:

• On the one hand, these occasional follow-up activities will make your customers feel appreciated and more emotionally engaged with your brand. 
• On the other hand, they will help your management investigate potentially critical aspects of your products, services, or pain points in your customers’ journey.

11. Act Professionally When Handling Negative Feedback

The most important thing when handling your customers’ negative feedback is not showing your personal frustration or anger, as it may only provoke negative publicity and increased criticism. Instead, you should act professionally, keep calm, and show that you appreciate their reaching out to you. 

Sometimes, offering a friendly and empathetic reaction to negative reviews may even make your customers change their minds (or at least make them feel less annoyed if you didn’t meet their expectations). 

Besides, instead of feeling bad or criticizing your employees for not being able to fulfill some of your customers’ needs, you should try to make use of their comments and, relying on them, improve the pain points in your customers’ journey.

Read More: Importance of Collecting Customer Feedback

12. Appreciate Customers for Their Loyalty Towards the Brand

There’s a diversity of ways for you to say thank you to your customers, so you shouldn’t miss doing this. Not only will you make them feel good but you’ll also strengthen your bond with them.

Some of the most popular ways in which you can gain their sympathy and trust if you’re willing to invest in your relationship are:

• Providing them early access to your new products or services and letting them test those innovations before anyone else;
• Inviting them to a specially organized event to empower your community of your loyal customers;
• Rewarding them for spreading the word about your brand by offering a referral bonus;

Now, not all the businesses are financially capable of providing gifts, vouchers, and discounts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t show appreciation to your customers. If this is your case, you can show your appreciation by checking up on your customers, sending them birthday cards, personalized emails, or sharing any type of exclusive content. 

13. Create Personalized Customer Service Experience

Personalized service is definitely a must-apply customer service psychology tip, having in mind that 80% of buyers are more willing to make a purchase if a company offers personalized service, while 74% of customers get frustrated when they are not offered personalized website content.

Some of the major recommendations that can help you make a strong positive impact on your customer psychology by personalizing your service are:

• Use your customers’ names when interacting with them.
• Provide them with a personalized loyalty program.
• Get in touch with them on special occasions (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.)
• Make product or service recommendations that suit individual customer’s needs.

14. Focus More on Value Than Price

If you really want to make an impact on customer psychology, you shouldn’t focus on the price of your product but on the benefits that it provides to keep your customers’ needs fulfilled.

Practically speaking, what increases their interest and provokes an emotional reaction is when you guide them through different processes, provide instructions, recommend different ways of using your products or services, etc. 

In other words, if you focus on providing them value rather than simply on readjusting your price, they will have more reasons to stay with you. If we suppose that your competitors offer the same product for the same price, the additional value that you provide for the same money is what will make your customers stay with you.

15. Pay Special Attention to Details in Your Communication

Sometimes, those who are in charge of your company’s communication with customers simply are not aware of the way they interact with customers. Moreover, in a large number of cases, some slight adjustments in your messages may completely reshape your customers’ experience and willingness to engage.

For example, just think about which of these calls to action would have a greater impact on you:

Call to action 1: Would you like to give a donation to our organization?

Call to action 2: Would you like to support our organization by giving a donation? We highly appreciate every cent.

Final Thoughts: The Essence of Customer Service Psychology

As you can see, to be able to provide impeccable customer experience, apart from offering a useful product or service, you should also pay attention to your customer psychology and their overall satisfaction level with your brand. 

The truth is, the way your customers see your brand and feel about your promotional campaigns may dramatically impact their final impressions. That’s why you should be aware of how important your customer service is, having in mind that your support staff are those who directly shape your customers’ experience with their communication skills. 

Apparently, to get insight into your customer psychology, you have to understand your customers’ needs and preferences and personalize your approach to their profiles. Besides, you should try to make use of their feedback as much as possible, and learn how to interact with them to make them feel more comfortable. 

Last but not the least, timely and precise responses represent an essential practice that your customers will highly appreciate as well. Prompt and informative feedback positively impacts their psychology, eliminating potential sources of their frustrations and, therefore, strengthening your bond. 

Now that we’ve understood the top 15 customer service psychological tips on providing better support, let’s take a look at some of the frequently asked questions below.

Q. How do you Stay Calm in Customer Service?

Well, it is advised to stay calm and do not take your customer’s attitude or remarks negatively. Also make sure to be a listener and empathize at the right time. In case the customer feels offended, apologize carefully.

Q. What are the Main Principles of Customer Service?

We believe that it is important for customers to feel that they aren’t talking to a wall, or for that matter to a robot. So emphasize on sounding more natural and personalize their experience with the brand by suggesting products based on their previous purchase history. Also, make sure that your operators acquire complete product knowledge to tackle any issues effectively. To know more about it here is a list of 22 customer service principles.

Q. How do you Satisfy Customers’ Needs?

To satisfy the needs of your customers, you should:

• Understand and the different customers your brand caters to
• Identify what’s important to them based on their needs
• Ensure timely product delivery or service to encourage them to stay connected with your brand
• Measure customer satisfaction rate in order to work upon customer service strategies further

Q. How do we Study Consumer Behaviour?

To study consumer behavior, make sure you:

• Know what’s your demographic focus
• Then study customer behavior in that specific demographic
• Use surveys to understand your customers further
• Once you have the results, observe them
• Then divide them into categories