In today’s highly competitive business market, many entrepreneurs are thinking of creative ways to stand out. With limited product features that separate one company from the next, sharp business leaders focus on providing exceptional customer service to rise above the crowd.

Good customer service involves much more than just being friendly. There’s some science behind delivering exceptional customer support, and it’s critical for a business to find the right potion to please their customers. It’s simple, put in the effort to ensure total customer satisfaction and watch the revenue grow fluidly. 

Let’s go over the reasons why good customer support is so critical for a business.

Importance of Good Customer Service

A focus on providing exceptional customer service isn’t just a trend. Consumers have experienced great customer support and a buying experience that left them feeling happy and cared for. 

So, customers’ expectations are rising, and if you want to stay in the game and rise above your competition, you better deliver outstanding customer service. Here’s why:

1. Builds Your Brand’s Image

A company’s brand image is how people view the organization. A brand is essentially the face of a business. If you want your brand viewed in a positive light, you must ensure your customers feel valued, supported, and overall satisfied with their purchase. 

If you want to leave a long-lasting great impression on your customers, ensure they receive exceptional service. Long after a sale, people tend to forget about things like the good deal they received, but they rarely forget about how you made them feel. 

Consumers often make a purchase based on their emotions. How they view a brand long-term is based on the positive interaction they have with it. So, deliver service that makes your customers feel good and happy, and that’s how they view your brand’s image. 

2. Increases Customer Retention 

Simply put, if you want to retain your customers, provide good customer service that meets (or exceeds) their expectations. Customers will return to a brand when they know they will be taken care of and have a positive buying experience. The level of trust and confidence builds strong bonds with a brand. 

The truth is, consumers will pay more for a product when they know they will receive great service. So, exceptional customer service optimizes revenue and profit generation. Companies like Disney and Amazon have taken this business model head-on, and it’s paid off big time. 

Making a customer’s buying experience pleasant and painless, and they will return. Customer retention rides on the expertise and service delivered. 

3. Increases Referrals 

Customer referrals are one of the best lead generation sources out there. A friend or family member telling someone about the awesome products and services they received builds instant credibility with your brand. 

Without a doubt, customer referrals are the best form of marketing mainly because, well, it’s free! Word of mouth and referrals don’t pull from your marketing budget, so that alone is music to every business leader’s ears. Also, referrals close at a higher rate than other leads since they’re already sold on your credibility.

Consumers talk about their experiences with a brand, whether good or bad. So you want to ensure your consumers have only great things to say about your brand to get the referral leads flowing. 

4. Improves Company Culture 

People want to work for companies that do good business, including great customer service. Focusing on providing exceptional customer service adds to the employees’ job satisfaction, and they’re more likely to be on board to deliver. 

Happy customers that are satisfied with your company are much easier to work with than upset customers. Really, satisfied customers add to the positive morale in the office and increase employee retention. On the flip side, negativity is contagious, and dissatisfied customers bring down the company morale. 

Focusing on great customer service helps the entire organization since your team will interact with happy customers who will return to purchase again and refer others. It boosts job security where employees feel confident in the successful future of the company. 

5. Gives a Competitive Advantage

Besides cost, there’s not too much difference between many companies in the same industry. One company might offer products in different colors than others or an extra feature. But, overall, there’s not much that separates the companies.

Providing outstanding customer service gives a brand a competitive advantage in a way that builds a following of raving fans. The care a company puts into their customers is an added bonus that can win over even the most difficult customers. 

Companies that continuously deliver first-class service build a reputation are often talked about in a positive light. Get people talking about your brand, in a good way, by providing kick-ass customer service to strengthen brand awareness and watch your revenue grow. 

6. Increased Customer Lifetime Value

The lifetime value of a customer is how much one spends with you from the start to the last transaction. When a company provides good customer service, it will retain more customers for longer. 

Hands down, poor customer service will cause churn fast. Progressive companies put a strong focus on customer service and customer experience to increase retainment and customer lifetime value. 

After all, customers are likely to spend more with you the second time around since your company has proven itself. So, ensure your customers feel valued and cared for every time they interact with your brand, so stay loyal. 

7. Positive Online Reviews

Let’s face it: online reviews can make or break a company. Many people read online reviews about a company before even thinking about buying from them. Online reviews are on the web for the world to see at any time. So, be sure your customers only have awesome things to say about your brand. 

When a company leader understands the importance of good customer service and implements the best practices for doing so, customers feel it. When you’re delivering exceptional care, your customers are likely to become loyal to your brand and possibly brand advocates. 

Loyal customers are likely to want to support a brand and go out of their way to write favorable reviews online about a company. Sometimes, you need to ask happy customers to write a review as people, in general, are more likely to tell when they’re not satisfied vs. when they are. 

8. Increased Revenue

The critical steps taken in business have an end goal of bringing in revenue. One thing is certain, delivering good customer service will bring in revenue organically.

Sharp business leaders understand the importance of good customer service directly affecting their revenue. Loyal customers who spend more, referrals, and positive word of mouth results in cold-hard revenue.

A business can get by without spending a dime on advertising. Well, that is if they provide outstanding customer service and a buying experience that leaves people feeling totally satisfied, they spread the word.

Customers are an excellent marketing source as they’ve experienced working with your brand first hand so ensure they get treated like gold and watch your revenue grow. It will take less effort and strategic planning to close a referral lead, and they’re likely to spend more than a prospect that came from another source like a paid ad.

Delivering Good Customer Service

Consistently providing good customer service is no walk in the park. It takes the right attitude, expertise, and strategic planning. It’s really a never-ending battle that needs tweaking and going off-script at times, but it totally pays off in the long run.

So what does good customer service look like? While it’s different for each company, in the end, it’s a happy and satisfied customer. Many companies have spent years evaluating their service to determine their best practices and what it takes to please their customers. Let’s go over some of the best practices for delivering good customer service and support.

First things first, you’ll want to get some answers. Ask yourself some questions to determine what is needed at this time to provide good customer service.

1. How can we better help prospects through the exploratory process of their shopping? 
2. How can we better help customers through the buying process?
3. How can we better assist and support customers after the sale?

When you come up with ideas to best help your customers, you’re on your way to delivering great customer service. But what you do next is what really matters. You must implement a plan to improve your processes and provide customers with support.

Here are some ideas to improve your brand’s customer service:

Effective Training

A company is only as good as the employees they keep. Ensure all of your customer service agents understand your expectations of delivering exceptional first-class service every time. It’s reckless in business to assume your team knows how to provide outstanding customer care. 

You must ensure your team knows the best practices for providing good customer service, how to handle upset customers, and are fully trained on your products. Some customer service agents are natural people pleasers and build strong relationships with customers effortlessly. Other agents can get up to speed by providing great customer support after a bit of training from an expert. 

Recording and listening to customer service calls will help give some insights into which agents need more training and on which areas of your processes. Just as you ask customers for feedback, it’s just as important to get it from your employees. 

Happy employees who have job satisfaction and are dedicated to the companies’ success are more likely to go above and beyond to provide great customer service. 

Track and Monitor

Monitoring each agent and getting customer feedback after each interaction will help you know how your team is performing and how well they satisfy your customers’ needs. If you don’t measure customer satisfaction, you’re merely just assuming your customers are happy with your brand.

Sending customer surveys is an effective way to hear directly from your customers how happy they are with your brand and the service they received. The surveys can easily get automatically sent after an interaction through any channel such as phone, email, or online chat. Customer surveys should be short and super easy to complete so your customers are more likely to do it.

When tracking, you want to look at each agent’s average handle time and first contact resolution stats. Customers want their issues solved quickly and with as few transactions as possible, one being the goal.

Use the Latest Technology

To provide a great customer experience, you must maintain up-to-date technology that helps your processes run smoothly. The latest technology will give your business a competitive edge by making your buying process easier and customer support more efficient. Quicker is definitely better when it comes to satisfying your customers’ needs.

Consumers just don’t want to wait. They want the purchase process to be quick and easy and they want efficient and fast service. To meet their expectations, you’ll need the latest technology to keep up with the demand.

Omnichannel Support

The days of customers solely picking up the phone to call a company for support are out. Nowadays, customers want service through the channel they prefer. Your team must be available through multiple channels such as phone, email, SMS, social media, and online chat to deliver excellent customer service.

Consumers also expect service when it’s convenient for them no matter day or night. Having a customer service team available 24/7 gives businesses the advantage of supporting their customers when they need it, without delay. 

Outsource Customer Service

Businesses of all sizes choose to outsource customer service to the pros that know what it takes to satisfy customers’ needs quickly and efficiently. A customer service outsourcing provider has the technology and expertise ready to provide the support your customers expect.

Outsourcing customer service cuts costs to improve the bottom line and gives the in-house team the time to focus on core business functions and growth. The outsource customer service provider works their magic and solely focuses on delivering exceptional customer support. It’s a win-win for all. 

The customers get their needs met fast, and the business scales by improved focus and increased customer retention.

Personalized Service

Nobody wants to feel like just a number when working with a company. Providing personalized service is key in today’s business market. It makes a customer feel important, and it builds stronger relationships with them. 

In business, relationships play a huge role in its success. Close relationships with customers translate to increased loyalty to your brand and more revenue in your pocket. So, provide a friendly service that’s personalized and friendly to keep them coming back for more. 

Ensure your team has the proper tools to see the customer’s information and purchase history on one screen while providing support will help ensure your customer doesn’t feel like a number. You can also personalize the ads shown to them based on their likes and history. 

Product Quality

The quality of products provided adds to the customer’s experience. By ensuring your company delivers high-quality products, you are saving your customer service team from constantly handling upset customers. 

Listen to customer feedback on the quality of products provided by your company and fix any issues that are causing dissatisfaction. By doing so, you are helping achieve total customer satisfaction. 

Effects of Poor Customer Service

OK, so we’ve gone over the importance of good customer service. Let’s touch on the negative effects of poor customer service. 

So what is poor customer service? Bad customer service is not friendly, ineffective, and slow. Making customers wait to receive support or getting service that doesn’t satisfy their needs is poor service and leads to unhappy customers. 

Just one upset customer can cause a lot of drama that will trickle down to the entire organization. When a customer feels they’re not getting the quality service and being cared for by a company after purchase, they talk. Unhappy customers typically tell more people about their poor experience than happy customers do about their positive one. 

Dissatisfied customers will go online and write negative reviews about your brand for the entire world to see. One unhappy customer can really do some damage to a brand’s image. Unfavorable reviews and word of mouth can be detrimental to a company, and it can be extremely hard to revolver from.

Conclusion

The importance of customer service cannot be expressed enough. Customers are the bloodline of a business. Focus on providing totally awesome customer service that’s fast and efficient, and your revenue will grow.

Delivering exceptional customer service takes the proper tools, expertise, and strategic planning. Having the latest technology helps your customer service team provide the level of service consumers expect.

Are you ready to improve your customer support and deliver the outstanding service needed to take your business to the next level? If so, contact Awesome CX today, and we’ll show you how it’s done successfully! 

Sources:

American Express Study Shows Rising Consumer Expectations for Good Customer Service | Inc.com

Want More Customers? Get Quality Referrals From Existing Customers. | Entrepreneur.com

The Secret Ratio That Proves Why Customer Reviews Are So Important | Inc.com