On the surface, Customer service is important because it inspires customer loyalty and makes employees’ jobs easier. This, in turn, helps businesses grow. By providing great customer service, organizations can recover customer acquisition costs, retain talent, and foster brand loyalty.
Many brands may have upped their investment in customer service in the last few years, but customer expectations are still not being met. According to a recent survey, over 50percent of consumers have not noticed any improvement in customer service. And 23percent have said that customer service has gotten worse. What is the Importance of Good Customer Service to an Employee? For employees, excellent customer service can lead to increased productivity, less stress, and greater job satisfaction.
Increased productivity
When agents can provide great customer service, they can solve issues faster. This means they can spend less time on each customer interaction — a win for both the customer and an agent (whose compensation often reflects their resolution time).
Giving agents a way to solve problems fast is vital as many customer agents complain of heavy workloads. Whether it’s maintaining a database of consumer information or troubleshooting issues, customer service professionals feel like they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. A great customer service experience does not happen accidentally. It requires the right environment, skills, and tools.
Agents frequently spend a considerable amount of time trying to understand the issue that a customer has encountered. Even when they can pinpoint the problem, communicating the next steps to a customer can be challenging. Customer service software like RemoteHQ lets customers share their accounts via a co-browser, making it easier and faster for an agent to resolve customer issues.
Reduced stress
Customer service is a stressful job. Not only do customer service professionals have to deal with complicated problems, but also they are also typically under time pressure. Throw an angry customer into the mix, and burnout is never far away.
Unsurprisingly, turnover rates for customer service agents are between 30percent and 45percent globally. What’s more, the average entry-level agent will leave their job after just a year. Some of the stressors customer service teams have to deal with are easy to fix. Nearly 60percent of agents say they do not have the knowledge to provide a better customer service experience. Here, customer service training can help.
Another 72percent of customer service reps wish there was an easier way to access customer information via customer service tools. Whatever software for customer service you choose, make sure it lets agents search for all the information they need to assist customers.
Improved job satisfaction
When customers are unhappy, customer service agents suffer. Having to listen to complaint after complaint on a daily basis is not only annoying, but also over the longer term, it can also be demoralizing and can contribute to bad company culture.
Few employees will stay at a job where they feel stressed out and underappreciated. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. When customers are happy, customer agents’ satisfaction with their jobs is also likely to be higher. Happy customer agents create a virtuous circle for their employers. Research shows that when agents are happy, this typically leads to happy customers.
What is the Importance of Good Customer Service to a Business?
Exceptional customer service is a powerful business asset. Businesses that consistently deliver excellent customer service benefit from higher revenue, customer retention, a stellar reputation, better resilience than competitors, and deep product insights.
Increased revenue
Treating customers well has a big impact on a business’s bottom line.
More than 7 in 10 buying experiences depend on how customers feel they are being treated. As a result, strong customer relationships can mean the difference between making a sale and sending a prospect into the arms of a competitor. Being there for your customers can increase their confidence in buying from you. It can also make them spend more. Research shows that 68percent of consumers are willing to pay more for services and products from a company that delivers a better customer service experience.
A “better” customer service experience is one that is personalized. Over 70percent of customers expect customer service agents to work together so that they do not have to repeat themselves. With remote collaboration software like RemoteHQ, agents can consistently deliver a personalized experience to customers by accessing their customer information in real-time and resolving issues immediately.
When agents know each customer’s needs, they can also find more opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, further contributing to profit growth. Customers are more inclined to try additional products or services from a company known for providing stellar customer experiences. In the end, organizations that offer superior customer service experiences grow their revenue by 4percent to 8percent above their peers. The opposite is also true. Bad customer service can put profit into a downward spiral.
Competitive advantage
It is not just price and quality today’s brands are competing on. When two companies sell a similar product or service, excellent customer service can give them the competitive advantage they need to stand out. The vast majority of people admit they are loyal customers of a brand because it delivers great customer service.
On the other hand, 61percent of consumers would switch to a competitor following a single bad experience. After two negative experiences, more than three-quarters of customers are ready to call it quits. They likely will not return, either. Most customers will not go back to a company they had a bad experience with, even if a friend tells them that the service has gotten better.
Improved ability to retain customers
Customer service plays a central role in most retention strategies. The reason why is that customers will not stay loyal to a brand where they do not feel valued. Bad customer service can destroy customer lifetime value. Retaining existing customers can be anywhere between 5 and 25 times more affordable than attracting new ones, so raising the bar with your customer service is well worth your while.
Customer service is especially important when customers are adopting new products or services. The more support they have, the more likely they will stay engaged with a brand. By increasing your customer retention by just 5percent, you can grow your profits by 25percent. This is because repeat customers spend a whopping 300percent more with a brand. Current customers are also likely to spread awareness about your brand and inadvertently bring you new customers through word-of-mouth advertising and referrals.
Better reputation
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos famously said, “make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”
Customer service professionals are a company’s link to customers. As a result, customer service can either make or break a company’s reputation. More than 93percent of customers say online reviews, whether on social media or review sites like Trustpilot, affect their purchasing decisions. Just one subpar interaction between a customer service agent and a customer can lead to a negative review that influences thousands of people. As many as 94percent of customers say an unfavorable online review made them avoid a business.
Likewise, a stellar brand image can attract more business—1 in 2 people become a customer of a brand due to their reputation for excellent customer service. A good reputation can also entice investors, employees, and partnerships.
Resilience
Running a successful business isn’t easy. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20percent of small businesses fail within a year of starting, about 50percent fail by the five-year mark, and 70percent shut their doors by year 10. While many factors can contribute to a business failing, not meeting customer expectations when it comes to customer service is one of the more critical ones.
In a tough market, buyers whose concerns are not addressed will quickly move on to a competitor. Conversely, customers who feel seen will reward a company with repeat business, even if things occasionally go wrong. Close to 80percent of consumers say they would forgive a brand for making a mistake if they had excellent customer service. In contrast, only one in five people will forgive a brand after a poor experience if its customer service is not great.
Product insights
One often-overlooked advantage of good customer service is that it can help companies make better business decisions. Front-line customer support professionals have direct access to customers. This allows them to collect feedback that may prove useful in future product or service development/improvement plans.
Whether its product UX, missing or underutilized features, or even the customer support experience itself, the kind of feedback customer teams frequently receive can be invaluable for proactive businesses that want to better understand their customer base and their desires. As a bonus, when customers feel like their suggestions have been taken into consideration — or even see their feedback implemented — they are much more likely to remain loyal to a brand.
Business Success Hinges on Great Customer Service
From meeting customer expectations to retaining employees and growing revenue, there are many reasons why customer service matters in 2022. However, they all boil down to one thing: long-term business success. With some of the most successful brands today excelling at customer service, meeting customer needs and providing superb experience is non-negotiable for companies that want to make it big.
Although many brands are still struggling to get it right, customer service is not that challenging. By following best practices like valuing customers’ time, being friendly, and using the best customer service software, every business can delight customers and win them for life.
>>>the writer is an operations supervisor at Skybreak – Bland Group. She can be contacted at [email protected]
