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#1 Understand What A Code Of Conduct Is
First of all, you need to understand why you need a code
of conduct for your customer service. By understanding its importance, you
and your team members will be able to treat the matter seriously and compose a
code that will be the most effective for your organization.
A customer service code of conduct is used primarily to
provide a framework for your customer service department on the way customers
have to be treated. The code must take into account past issues and serve as a
guideline on how to act in different situations. A code of conduct should
correspond to your company values and guide employee behavior.
#2 Do Your Research Beforehand
To write the best code of conduct for your customer service
department, you need to fully understand how that department functions at the
moment. In addition to that, it’s also a good idea to check some existing
examples of customer service codes of conduct to know which essential elements
have to be included in your own document.
Think about the past cases your company had with your
customers and how those situations were handled. Take into account your company
values, principles, and practices. Focus on your customers and think about
their perspectives in different situations.
#3 Decide Who Will Be Writing The Code
It goes without saying that someone in your team will have
to be responsible for creating the code. It’s best to assign someone from your
customer service department who has first-hand experience dealing with
customers because a person like that will be able to describe the practical
aspects of customer service in the code.
That being said, you still need to consider your employee’s
writing skills. If they aren’t a good writer, they might not do a good job
creating the customer service code of conduct. To solve this problem, you can
hire a professional freelance writer by checking the top writing reviews who will work
with your employee to craft the most well-written document.
#4 Brainstorm Ideas And Discuss With Your Team
While you might have a specific vision of how your customer
service code of conduct should be created, you still need to take into account
the opinions of your team members. This is why it is so important to brainstorm
ideas and discuss the code with your team.
Do this both with your customer service department and any
other relevant department in your company (e.g. HR department). Your customer
service team has the knowledge and experience necessary to identify the key
points that have to be covered in the code as well as the common problems
encountered by customer support representatives.
#5 Create An Outline To Follow
Once you have done the research and brainstormed ideas, you
can create an outline
for the document (or rather, the person you assigned to do the job can do
this). An outline is necessary to give the code of conduct structure and
organize all the points in a logical way.
Of course, you don’t necessarily have to stick to the
outline strictly when you start writing the document itself. You can still add
or remove sections or even change their order. Nevertheless, an outline is
meant to provide you with a way to approach the writing process itself in a
more systematic and directed way.
#6 Write The Code Of Conduct Following The Outline
When the outline is ready, you can write the code of conduct
itself. You can do this either yourself (if you are creating the document) or
let your assigned employee do the job themselves. If you need to, you can find best writers to help you
during the process and make the most of your document.
Remember to follow the outline but be flexible if you need
to. Use an appropriate style of writing (i.e. official and formal) and keep
your formatting consistent. You can make any necessary changes later on, but
still, try to do your best job from the get-go.
#7 Proofread And Edit Your First Draft
When you finish writing, proofread and edit this first draft
of your customer service code of conduct. You can use different tools to help
you (e.g. Grammarly to find linguistic
mistakes, Hemingway Editor to keep your
writing simple). It’s also a good idea to let one or two other people take a
look at the text – new eyes can find the mistakes you didn’t see.
Don’t underestimate the importance of proofreading and
editing, but also remember that you might have to make major changes to your
document. If you missed some of the previous steps (e.g. didn’t brainstorm with
your customer service team), you might get feedback about missing major points
that should have been included. If this is the case, don’t hesitate to rework
and rewrite your code of conduct.
#8 Finalize Your Code Of Conduct
If you made all the necessary changes and you are certain
that the document is as good as it can be, you can finalize it. Assess it by
checking whether the practices outlined within the code correspond to your
company values and principles.
Eliminate any linguistic errors that were left, move around
some sections if it creates better structure, and so on. In other words, ensure
that your document is in the best version that it can be.
#9 Implement And Test Your Code Of Conduct
Now that your customer service code of conduct is ready, you
can start implementing it in practice. Let your customer service department get
acquainted with it and start actively using it in their day-to-day interactions
with customers.
This first implementation of the code will also help you
test it. If it is good, it will function the way you wanted it to. However, if
you see that there are still problems in customer service, then you will need
to address these issues.
#10 Make Any Necessary Updates
Last but not least, make any necessary changes to your
document… again. Indeed, if you see that the code is ineffective or only
effective to an extent, you need to find out why this is the case. In most
cases, the reason is either that your customer service department doesn’t stick
to your code or that the code itself is poorly composed.
If this is the latter case, then you should analyze and
remake your code immediately. Brainstorm with your team to find possible
solutions to the issues that have arisen and maybe even get a consultation from
a customer service expert. Then, add the updates to the document and start
using it again.
Final Thoughts
To summarize, writing your own customer service code of
conduct is not that difficult, but will definitely be incredibly useful to your
company in the long run. Use the tips in this article to help you write your
own customer service code of conduct and utilize it to improve the quality of
your customer's experiences with your business.
Author’s Bio:
Max Mitchell is a freelance writer. He is very passionate
about typing, creating complicated spreadsheets, and consuming an inhuman
amount of caffeine. Nevertheless, he is also the creative type of individual
who will always find a new perspective on topics of interest.