Welcome, once again, to the Ultimate Black Friday Guide for Repair Shops. Black Friday inches closer every week, and we’re here to help you get ready for it. This week, we’ve got a primer on customer service for you.
The RepairDesk Ultimate Black Friday Guide for Repair Shops
- Marketing
- Presentation
- Offerings
- Customer Service
- Delivery & Expectations
- Reviews & Feedback
What keeps customers coming back is the kind of service they receive at a retail store. The more positive it is, the more you can be sure that customers will want to come in again. But Black Friday is tough on workers, and getting everything right can prove stressful. Luckily, this guide will help you with the best ways to prepare for the holiday shopping spree at your cellphone or computer repair shop.
The Customer Service Experience
Customer service is a critical part of the shopping experience. It deals with the interaction that the customer has with a particular business’s representatives, and it weighs heavily on retention. According to a study, around 70% of customers are willing to support a business if they deliver great customer service. So, you can imagine how vital it is for the success of any retail store.
The essence of good customer service boils down to politeness, knowledge, and service insight. If your attendant at a shop has a pleasant attitude and helps you out, you’d naturally want to visit their store again just to interact with them. The opposite works as well – get bad customer service, and you’re never going to want to go there willingly again.
The main thing that we learn from this is, good customer service gets you the money. People are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, and that makes it important to have a strong presence on Black Friday. To give your customers the best experience possible, you’ll simply need to keep a couple of important things in mind when dealing with them. Let’s have a look at what they are.
Assemble your team
The first thing on your list should be to do is to assemble the right team for the job. The people working at your repair shop need to be put in the right position and given the right directions. Who is going to man the counter, who takes care of the inventory, who is going to be the attendant? Get these roles squared away right at the beginning.
Every staff member brings something unique to the table and has their own expertise. Using their collective knowledge, you can assemble a great team to manage all your customers on Black Friday. Make sure that they’re all well aware of the tasks at hand, the products and services offered, and the procedures to follow.
Resolve issues before they even begin
There are so many things that can go wrong come Black Friday. Items may run out, service may be slow, systems may go down, and customers may even walk in disgruntled in the first place. To give your customers the best service, you’re going to have to foresee these problems and work on a plan to fix them.
Here, it’s a great idea to draw from your previous experiences. Try to recall what sort of issues you had last time, and work on taking care of them in 2020. Make provisions in advance, so you don’t have to deal with messy situations on the day of. It would also be a great idea to play different scenarios in your head, so you can mentally prepare for any unforeseeable circumstance.
Remember, always have a Plan B!
Plan for rush hour
What happens when your store gets flooded with customers on Black Friday? That’s a question that you need to think on and prepare the answer for. Rush hour is inevitable even if you don’t believe your repair shop sees much business, and you need to be ready for it.
If you have RepairDesk, you can get the information about your rush hour with an intelligent KPI dashboard. Go, check it out.
And when you get the idea of your rush hour, be sure to create protocols for when there are way too many customers to handle. Fast checkouts will need to be priority, since people who are all ready for checkout will want to be processed quickly. Reassign some of your team members so that they can help customers make their selection if they’re looking for an item, or check out if they need quick service. Having an iPad POS would definitely help in this regard, since they’re portable and can checkout customers remotely.
Implementing a token system for checkouts can help as well, since it will streamline the experience for everyone. Just remember to give the customers what they want, and you’re golden.
Give customers the best treatment
They say “customer is king”, and treating them like one on Black Friday is going to be important. As we’ve mentioned earlier, customers like polite, helpful staff members, and having your team serve them pleasantly will go a long way.
Make sure that every employee knows how to please their customers. Have them smile and call customers by their names (first or last). Let them know that customers need VIP treatment, and giving them good service is going to be great. Lastly, using pleasantries can really leave a great lasting impression. Saying “Thank You” with a smile can prove to be a really powerful tool to impress customers, so don’t take it lightly. The more courteous you are, the better your case is served.
Have fun
This may seem like odd advice, but always remember to have fun. Black Friday can be a stressful time for staff members, since customers are so demanding. But if you have fun doing work and bring a little holiday joy into it, you’ll be all the better for it. Enjoying the time cuts through the tension and really brings you into your element, and that’s exactly how you want to serve your customers.
Make sure your employees are having fun. Crack jokes, play good music, have running bets, and bring some camaraderie into the mix. You’ll end up boosting your team’s morale, and have them serve customers with a smile naturally. Remember that your team are people as well, and they need good service too, so be sure to give it to them. And remember to keep it lighthearted for yourself as well.
Use Black Friday to give your best customer service experience
The holidays are all about giving, and the best gift you can give to your customers is stellar service. Black Friday is a chance to brush up on your skills and leave a good mark on people. You can use this opportunity to make lifelong customers with a focus on good customer service. It’s a great way to get the word out that your store takes care of its customers, so use it to its fullest advantage. Your repair shop’s customer service experience should absolutely be considered the best.
To give your best, you need to get the best as well, and RepairDesk gives you exactly that. Our repair shop management system is here to help you with creating repair tickets, managing inventory, generating invoices, ordering items for your stock, collecting customer payments, and taking care of virtually everything your repair shop needs. Use any of our 40+ integrations to make life easier for yourself, and remove the hassle from everyday work. With RepairDesk, you’ll have everything you need to make your repair shop a success this Black Friday. Sign up now for a free 14-day trial.
