How we provide customer service excellence

Without customers, we wouldn’t have a business. And that’s why, for us here at Bizik, customer service excellence is everything. The customer always comes first—and we’re not just saying that; we really mean it. 

We’re on a mission to become the UK’s #1 telephone answering service provider. That means we want to be the most experienced, professional, and trusted option on the market. But most of all, we want to pride ourselves on customer service excellence. Keep reading to learn exactly how we do that at Bizik.

We look after our people

You can probably think of a time when you called a business and spoke to a support agent who sounded grumpy and unhelpful. Well, that’s a sign of an unhappy workplace, and if the team is unhappy, customer service suffers. 

At Bizik, we appreciate that we wouldn’t be able to provide customer service excellence without productive, passionate, and best-in-class PAs. So, to ensure that customer excellence radiates within our business at all times, we take the utmost care in treating our people fairly and with respect. 

• See also: Six ways to boost employee wellbeing
• See also: 9 tips on answering the telephone professionally
• See also: How we answer your calls explained

To put it simply, we treat them exactly as you’d expect us to. That means fair pay (we are the only telephone answering provider to be part of the Living Wage Foundation), genuinely rewarding benefits, and mutual trust.

Unlike our competitors, our PAs are not overly focused on the numbers. We don’t set rigid or ambitious performance targets that put our people at risk of stress, anxiety, or job dissatisfaction. 

Instead, we trust them to manage their own time and focus on the conversation. Ultimately, we think customer excellence and satisfaction are far more important objectives to keep our eyes on. 

Lastly, we respect that everyone has a personal life and commitments outside of work. That’s why we offer fully flexible, remote working patterns that allow our team to enjoy a healthy work/life balance. 

By valuing our team and their wellbeing, we’re proud to say that we foster a happy and healthy environment at Bizik. As a result, we’re able to maintain customer service excellence. 

We’re empathetic

Our PAs understand that every customer is different, and everyone they speak to will have different needs. That’s why, to achieve customer service excellence, our team is empathetic, emotionally intelligent and resilient. 

Unlike traditional call centres, Bizik PAs never use templates or pre-written scripts to interact with customers. Sure, we prepare on-screen prompts to help our PAs remember key information about the client, but the conversation is always genuine, natural, and human. 

How exactly do we do that? Well, when we pick up the phone, we’re great at sensing the customer’s tone. 

If they’re frustrated, we’ll acknowledge their feelings, reassure them, and offer proactive resolutions to turn that frustration into satisfaction. If they’re happy and simply want to ask a basic question, we’ll smile with them, provide a prompt answer, and end the call in a positive way. 

Our PAs’ emotional agility allows them to provide every caller with a bespoke, attentive, and meaningful service. We believe this is one of the key elements that sets us apart in our market and helps us achieve customer service excellence. 

We’re responsive

As market leaders, we know just how vital response times are to customer excellence. Customers base their first impressions of a business on these, and if you don’t get that spot on, that customer will never call again. 

Did you know the industry-standard call response time is 20 seconds? If you time yourself doing nothing but waiting for 20 seconds, that’s a long time. In reality, we only have around seven seconds to keep customers interested and happy. 

With that in mind, we answer all our calls within five seconds. That way, our customers feel heard, valued, and reassured that we want to help them as quickly as possible. It also improves our likelihood of capturing important leads for our clients. 

Also, our PAs take care not to take on too many live chats at once, as this risks diluting their attention and, therefore, reduces the quality of customer excellence they’re able to deliver. We firmly believe in quality over quantity. 

We work in a distraction-free environment

Bizik PAs are based all over the UK and work from the comfort of their own homes. Flexibility is not only an important part of our company culture, but it also allows us to handpick the best-in-class PAs from all over the UK who can help us become the leading provider of customer excellence. 

But while we’re not all sat in office cubicles, we ensure that all our PAs’ working environments are professional and distraction-free. This means adequate desk space, high-quality equipment, a reliable connection, and access to privacy. So, when they speak to a customer, there’s no background noise to muffle conversations and no connection issues to disrupt the conversation flow. 

We hold regular customer excellence coaching sessions

Consumer trends and expectations evolve constantly. Adapting to these changes is essential to achieving growth, stability, and customer excellence. That’s why we run monthly coaching sessions to ensure our PAs update and nurture their customer excellence skills and knowledge over time. 

Coaching is led by our exceptional Senior Trainer, Kirsty Smith, who joined Bizik earlier this year and has a background in customer care and quality assurance. Once a month, Kirsty spends one-on-one time with each of our PAs, reviewing their calls and chats and ensuring that every interaction is positive. 

If any fine-tuning is required, we have a powerful and skilled team of customer excellence experts to guide and train our PAs. 

We know that customer excellence drives business performance

According to the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI), which benchmarks customer satisfaction (CSAT) rates at over 275 of the UK’s leading organisations, the nation’s CSAT score as of July 2024 is 75.8 (out of 100). That’s a decline of 0.8 points year-on-year and the lowest score since 2010. 

While some may pay little attention to such insights, we acknowledge their importance in a customer-facing industry. And that’s because CSAT is directly linked to business performance. 

The UKCSI clearly shows that the companies that consistently secure high CSAT levels achieve continued financial stability and discipline. Let’s take a look at the baking sector, for example. 

The firms that scored at least one point more than the January 2024 average registered an average of 30,434 net current gains. In contrast, those who have scored at least one point below the average experienced a net loss of 4,119 current accounts. 

Furthermore, the report found that a third of UK customers want excellent service—and they are willing to pay more for it. That’s because high-quality service is the fundamental way to build trust and reassurance, and that’s exactly how we strive to define Bizik. 

Ultimately, we’re a business, and like any other company, we want to grow and drive performance. However, we know that’s impossible without prioritising customer excellence, and that’s why it’s our number one goal. 

We offer a personalised service

Listening is crucial to providing customer service excellence. When someone signs up for our services, we hold an onboarding session to truly understand their business and how they’d like us to handle their calls. We take the time to understand their business language, style, and audience. 

Based on that information, we match them with a suitable virtual PA (or team of PAs) trained to become an extension of that business. So, when a customer gets in touch, they’ll never know they’re speaking to an outsourced agent. This allows us to deliver a personalised, seamless, and superior customer experience. 

Achieve customer excellence with Bizik

Bizik’s purpose is to restore faith in customer service. We strive to do that by looking after our people, expressing empathy and responsiveness, providing regular training, and working in a professional and focused environment. 

If we do say so ourselves, customer excellence is in our DNA. Don’t believe us? Try Bizik free for 7 days and see what our wonderful PAs can do for your business.