Improving customer service experience key to sustaining profitability

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This article was published 05/04/2025 (196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We have all been in situations when we thought we knew exactly what we needed, but when we went shopping for it, we became more confused than satisfied.

Customers come to your business to buy your product or service because they want the benefit you’ve promised. Your staff’s knowledge about the products is critical to ensuring a customer purchases the correct product for their need. It’s one of the essential elements to ensure a customer will say they had a good customer service experience.

In a previous column, I pointed out customer satisfaction scores are typically a reflection of overall responsiveness, knowledge, empathy and problem solving. Last month, I drew attention to how you can ensure an appropriate level of responsiveness in customer service delivery. Today, I will describe the importance of product knowledge and how you can gain and share knowledge to provide superior value.

Typically, staff are trained by someone with knowledge on product attributes, technical aspects and other sundry, yet important details. And yet, there are far too many times when a customer asks for assistance and employees don’t know the answer. Worse, they don’t try and find someone who can help the customer.

The ensuing frustration creates a bad customer service experience and forces customers to find a solution elsewhere.

The level of importance for the lack of product knowledge in a business-to-business scenario only increases, when deals with exceptionally large purchases ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars come into play.

In my work, I have seen several instances where a customer was looking for assistance selecting a significant product and was sold components that would not operate together.

In one case, the customer didn’t know this because they believed the sales person was knowledgeable and had their best interests at heart. Regrettably, the salesperson was only focused on their own best interest.

A new sales rep from a competing company was referred in for a different product and instead of just trying to sell something, they brought in their technical experts to assess the entire customer environment. Not only did they uncover the inoperable products, they uncovered other areas of functional errors. They earned the trust of the customer and became the new vendor of record.

If you don’t know how your product or service works, you are providing a disservice to your client, because you will not be able to provide a complete story about the capabilities and limitations. Having access to an employee knowledge base enables the employee to ask the right questions of the customer to better understand their needs and ensure the best-fit solution is recommended.

While customers expect employees to have the requisite knowledge to answer questions and guide a purchase, they also don’t want to feel humiliated because they don’t know certain things. This ability to demonstrate knowledge without appearing superior is a key element in establishing and delivering a memorable and positive customer service experience. We appreciate people that can explain complex solutions in simple ways, so we can understand them; so do your customers.

Here are three ways that you can build up your employee knowledge base to provide a superior customer service experience:

Core product training is always the starting point. For a comparison, tradespeople go through specific product training and then apply their new knowledge in apprenticeship situations until their skill reaches specific levels. Therefore, every sales and customer service employee that has customer contact should know the basic operations of the products or services they will be dealing with. They may not need journeyman-level expertise, but they need to know enough to be able to provide answers and ensure a rock-solid experience.

Second, ensure continuous learning and ongoing development. Knowledgeable employees build their learning base by collecting customer experiences they can apply to future situations. By sharing what you learn from one situation, you can often apply it to provide additional value in another.

Third, build a strong team and mentorship environment where experienced staff pass on knowledge to younger staff. One of the most powerful tools is to create an environment of sharing and caring. When they willingly share knowledge to aid a colleague in delivering exceptional customer service, it is a “win-win.”

Tim’s bits: In today’s tariff turbulent business environment, delivering a superior customer service experience is key for sustained profitability. The elements of customer service I have described should be fundamental in your company’s customer acquisition and retention strategy.

Tim Kist is a certified management consultant, authorized by law, and a Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Manitoba

tim@tk3consulting.ca