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How to build a customer service plan, with a template

By Griffin LaFleur

At the foundation of any successful business is a well-crafted and defined customer service plan that establishes policies and guides about how to handle customer interactions and create a positive CX.

Customer service can be a core competitive differentiator in the marketplace and is often the great equalizer for small and medium-sized organizations to compete against their larger counterparts. By focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty, businesses can enhance their brand reputation, improve retention and drive revenue growth.

A customer service plan supports these goals while empowering teams through clear communication and actionable guidance. It also lets organizations build better long-term customer relationships, address concerns efficiently and create consistent, high-quality interactions across all touchpoints.

Benefits of a customer service plan include the following:

• Builds a positive brand reputation.
• Enhances customer loyalty and retention.
• Increases customer lifetime value and profitability.
• Streamlines internal communication and collaboration.

What is a customer service plan?

A customer service plan is a framework designed to outline how an organization manages interactions with customers across various channels. It serves as a roadmap that service teams can use to deliver consistent, high-quality service with the goal of meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Customer service plans that are strategically thought out should include key elements like service policies, defined roles and responsibilities, performance metrics and training programs to equip teams with the skills and knowledge to address customer needs in an effective way.

Foundationally, a customer service plan identifies the organization's vision for customer service as it aligns with the broader business goals. With this alignment, customer service can reinforce the brand's values and support overall CX. Whether the plan aims to respond to inquiries, resolve complaints or proactively engage customers, it provides clear guidance on how to stay professional and develop trust.

Why is it important to have a customer service plan?

A strong customer service plan can help businesses achieve and sustain customer satisfaction. As a cornerstone for loyalty and trust, customer service plans are essential for long-term success. Without a structured approach, organizations could create inconsistent experiences, not meet customer expectations or damage their reputation.

A customer service plan can formalize the entire service process in the following ways:

• Improves consistency. A plan should lay out a uniform way that service reps should approach or treat customers, regardless of the channel or internal resources.
• Enhances efficiency. Service reps should have clear procedures they can follow to reduce response times and improve overall resolution rates.
• Supports scalability. A proper plan acts as a foundation that service teams can scale alongside the organization and to accommodate increasing customer demands.
• Drives customer retention and growth. Customer service teams should prioritize customer satisfaction, which can increase repeat business or referrals.
• Aligns internal teams and resources. A customer service plan can create a shared understanding of service objectives across different departments and encourage collaboration throughout the customer journey.

How to create a customer service plan

These nine steps can help service teams create an effective customer service plan.

1. Create a service strategy

A customer service strategy should include a vision and policies. The vision should identify the type of customer service the organization will use, while the core policies direct how the department operates.

Get input from several teams and departments, as well as feedback from customers or additional market research to include various perspectives during development. Multiple perspectives can also help align and embed the vision and policy across the organization, including expectations and execution. Service teams should review this strategy regularly and adapt to evolving customer expectations.

2. Set customer service goals

Goals should be reasonable and identified early. Best practices for setting goals include the following:

• Define specific goals by taking the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound) approach, with each goal focused on a single area of the customer's experience.
• Ensure that goals are achievable but still challenging, and identify when they tie back to business objectives.
• Develop a plan, method and frequency to measure goals.
• Reassess goals on a periodic basis and make sure objectives are relevant as business goals or customer demands change.

3. Create a customer journey and service design map

Create a customer journey and service design map to clarify the steps to assist the customer. The journey should come from a customer-facing perspective and include their activities, touchpoints and pain points.

Customer journey analytics can help streamline this process and offer deeper insights into pain points and touchpoints. The service design map should consist of steps from an organizational perspective, such as aligning customer touchpoints, communication channels and interactions between systems and pain points. These maps should also be dynamic documents and updated as necessary.

4. Analyze customer interactions

Use the customer journey and service design maps to assess where to improve the experience. Additionally, the use of AI and other analytics tools, alongside frontline worker feedback on customer interactions, can create a better understanding of customer emotions and feedback trends.

While analyzing this feedback, teams should be able to answer these questions:

• When in the customer journey do they reach out for assistance? Why do they reach out?
• How often do customers contact the organization? What channels do they use?
• What were the pros and cons of the customer's experience? This is a good place to use any gathered customer satisfaction.

5. Create an action plan

Taking action on issues should benefit the customer and the service team alike. Creating an action plan begins with setting strategic objectives and identifying any outstanding issues. Then, develop a detailed plan that defines the actionable steps, due date and who owns the project. This lets service teams identify and prioritize quick wins and long-term improvements within the plan, which can build momentum while addressing existing issues.

The action plan should also identify what constitutes success and how often to measure analytics. Before any work begins, it's essential to align with the other teams involved and communicate with all stakeholders when implementing the plan.

6. Determine KPIs

With goals in place, determine the appropriate metrics or KPIs to track. The KPIs provide a look into how well the customer service team is doing. Teams should select and follow a few customer service KPIs from primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources

• Customer satisfaction score, which measures the overall customer satisfaction with a product or service.
• Net promoter score, which provides insight into customer loyalty and the likelihood of a customer recommending the business to someone else.
• Customer effort score, which measures a product or service's ease of use.

Secondary sources and contact center metrics

• Response and hold time.
• First contact resolution.
• Average resolution time.
• Number of issues to be tracked and the nature of issues.
• Active and resolved issues.
• Customer retention rate.

7. Assess and build a customer service team

Beyond traditional customer service skills, organizations must identify additional skills their teams need, such as product-related training. This process includes the following steps:

• Evaluate what skills are required to successfully do the job -- in the current and future state vs. skills assessment of the customer service team.
• Identify training and development opportunities based on the gaps between current and future conditions.
• Empower the customer service team to assist customers beyond traditional service parameters and without using canned responses.
• Create career development pathways for service team members to retain talent and increase their engagement.

8. Establish how and when customer service teams work cross-functionally

Striving for an expanded team can break down operational silos and improve communication and clarity. A customer service toolkit is often used to lay out the approach and clarify operations, including when handoffs happen between groups.

Customer service platforms, like CRM software, can facilitate seamless collaboration between the teams. Additionally, cross-departmental meetings can proactively address common customer challenges.

9. Innovate

As the product or service evolves, so should the customer service team. The team should innovate based on the changing needs of the customer to meet customer expectations. They should have customer feedback loops in place, such as surveys and focus groups, that can drive innovation. Teams should also consider technologies like self-service portals, chatbots and other AI tools.

In order to innovate, service teams should answer the following questions:

• What is and what is not working in the service delivery?
• What is impeding or helping customer loyalty?
• Are customer expectations being met at a basic level? How does this compare to that of any competitors?

How to implement a customer service plan

Implementing a customer service plan requires clear communication, training, ongoing evaluation and collaboration between teams. Additionally, gaining buy-in from senior leadership and employees can help align the plan to business goals.

Customer service leaders should take the following steps to properly implement a customer service plan:

• Accommodate different personas, with instructions for different channels.
• Appropriately train members of the team, so they understand the policies, processes and overall expectations.
• Choose the right tools, such as CRM systems, knowledge bases and playbooks -- or templates -- to follow.
• Pilot the plan on a smaller scale to gather initial feedback after rollout and refine it prior to a full launch.
• Establish clear metrics to monitor performance and create feedback loops.
• Review these results to identify areas for improvement and any additional changes.
• Recognize and celebrate successes to keep teams motivated. This will reinforce the plan's importance and increase engagement across the team and adoption within the company.

These steps can build an actionable and impactful customer service plan that enables consistent and positive customer experiences.

Customer service plan template example

This guide includes a customer service plan template to serve as a practical framework to design and implement a service strategy. The template is structured to help teams create a process that meets their business needs that they can modify to fit different use cases or scenarios.

The template includes dedicated sections to set measurable goals, outline team structures and workflows, define tools and technologies, and input customer personas. It also features space to document important policies, procedures and continuous improvement plans.

Service teams can use this template to do the following:

• Clearly define objectives and metrics.
• Tailor service strategies to meet unique needs of different personas.
• Document processes and responsibilities to improve efficiency.
• Create a collaborative workspace to share between departments.

Customer service teams are at the center of CX and often make or break the perception of an organization and its service or product. As such, creating a strong customer service plan is paramount for long-term success.

Editor's note: This article was originally written by Sandra Mathis and expanded upon by Griffin LaFleur.

Griffin LaFleur is a MarketingOps and RevOps professional working for Swing Education. Throughout his career, LaFleur has also worked at agencies and independently as a B2B sales and marketing consultant.