The 10 most common customer service mistakes? Read what often goes wrong here.

1. Moderate, poor or even inaccessible:

Long waiting times first, of course. A common mistake is not to be easily accessible. Not checking and managing reachability regularly. We still see companies every day that actually have no idea how reachable they actually are. Customer service mistakes naturally start with poor reachability.

2. Weird opening hours:

Opening hours like 09:30 to 12:30 and 14:00 to 16:30, for example. This is really out of date. People generally work and can't always call customer service during their work. Tune your accessibility to your target audience and make sure you are available when they need you and not when you happen to be available. Read here Why you want to adapt your opening hours to your customers.

3. Insufficient flexible capacity:

Every customer service has busy and quieter times. We often see that many organisations are not set up or cannot cope with this. They have too many people sitting around doing nothing when it is quiet and too few staff available when it is busy. The result is overcapacity and thus excessive costs in quieter periods and long waiting times and dissatisfied customers in busy periods. So 1 of the common customer service mistakes is not having the right capacity at the right time.

4. Moderate, poor or untrained staff:

Customer service mistakes are, of course, also about people. A customer service representative must be well trained. He must be able to work quickly with systems and know the products/services. Untrained staff causes irritation especially with more technical or complex products or services.

5. Unfriendly staff:

Maybe not quite customer service specific but definitely counts. Staff who are not customer-friendly do not belong in customer service. Unfriendly staff cause irritation and can completely escalate a difficult conversation. Unfortunately, we still often see that customer service does not have the most customer-friendly staff.... This even though it is the department where that is most important. Read more here customer-friendliness.

6. Not the right channels:

Target groups differ. It is important to adapt the channels through which you reach your customers to their needs. One customer group would like to be able to contact you by phone and another would like to be able to chat. The mistake we often see is that needs are not inventoried but filled. Ask your customers which channels they need and set them up (properly). You can read more about channel selection here.

7. Not listening to the customer:

Not quite customer service specific either. Most people barely listen but in customer service it is more or less your profession. First listen, ask questions and only when you fully understand the customer's question seek an answer or solution. Unfortunately, this happens too rarely and customer questions are not understood and half-answered.

8. Inadequate or no follow-up:

If you promise to call back tomorrow, do so by tomorrow at the latest. If you make promises then keep them or, better still, exceed them. Set clear expectations and meet them. This prevents irritation and customers from contacting you again. Maybe not only customer service mistakes but that might apply to every department?

9. Lack of empathy:

customer service calls are often the result of something gone wrong. This does not penetrate many customer service staff sufficiently. You are there to solve the customer's problem, which requires empathy. You have to put yourself in the customer's shoes and not look at everything from the organisation's point of view. That often happens and causes the customer service employee and the customer not to understand each other.

10. Insufficient solution orientation:

Customer satisfaction sometimes takes precedence over following rules etc. Sticking to processes and procedures and thus showing insufficient flexibility in seeking a solution.

Many of the mistakes we encounter in practice are the result of not or not sufficiently adapting to the wishes and needs of the customer (=customer experience). Always start with the customer's needs and try to shape your customer service on that basis, not the other way around. Don't shape your customer service and expect your customers to adapt to it. We can help you with that!

Customer service mistakes, how to avoid them?

By being aware of what the most common mistakes are, you already don't have to make them. Think carefully about what you expect as a customer and not just what you can offer as a company. Try to look at things from the outside in rather than the other way around. Can't figure it out? Then ask for help.