Excellent customer service is one of the most important things any business can provide its customers. Unfortunately, many companies see it as a burden or obligation, and that attitude can lead to some significant adverse results. The quality of your customer service can make or break your company’s bottom line, so you want to make sure you always put your best foot forward.
With that in mind, let’s look at seven of the most critical ways that good or bad customer service can affect your business.
Customer support has a direct connection to retention.
Earning customers in the first place is an incredibly time-consuming and challenging task. The last thing you want to do is lose them because of bad customer service. That doesn’t just include the vocal minority who will air their grievances online, as most dissatisfied customers simply won’t come back. Providing customers with consistently excellent customer and support services will go a long way toward increasing your retention rate.
Subpar customer service can cause customers to change their minds about purchases they already planned to make.
Retention isn’t the only concern you have when it comes to bad customer service. If customers were already in the process of making purchases, they could quickly be canceled if customer service becomes a concern. This is especially true with expenditures that include an ongoing relationship with your company, such as a SaaS, TV or internet service, or insurance product. Your customer service team needs to be aware of their importance in nurturing and growing existing customer relationships.
Bad customer service experiences are tough to recover from.
There’s an old saying in the service industry that your success is only as safe as your last satisfied customer. Especially nowadays, customers are a lot less forgiving and much more prone to making their complaints public knowledge. It can be challenging to regain a customer’s trust after they feel as if they’ve been wronged, if at all. Make sure you avoid having to do that kind of damage control.
Your company’s reputation can be tarnished by lousy customer service.
As we discussed a couple of times already, unhappy customers have a way of being vocal about what they didn’t like about you. One of the tough parts about customer service is that most people won’t comment on the service you provide at all unless they don’t like it. Customers are more empowered than ever to make their displeasure over bad experiences known online on platforms like Twitter, Yelp, and Google.
Take this into consideration and treat every customer interaction like the most important one you’ll ever have. Enough negative interactions go public, and soon you’ll have people think twice about doing business with you. When you do get negative feedback, use it to take appropriate action to improve your operation.
A reputation for excellent customer service can draw in new customers.
While it’s a lot less common, you will also occasionally have customers who have such a pleasant experience with you that they want to tell the world. This can be an incredibly valuable way of drawing new customers in, and you don’t need to spend a penny on it. Testimonials on your website, positive online reviews, or simple word-of-mouth can promote your business and counteract negative reviews when they happen.
High-quality customer support can justify an increase in prices.
It’s no secret that customers gravitate from companies that provide poor customer service to ones that offer excellent service. Nobody wants to feel like they aren’t getting their money’s worth, and most consumers are willing to spend more if it means exceptional customer service. If you have a reputation for excellent customer service, you can justify a reasonable increase in price to go along with it.
AI chatbots are the future of customer service.
Artificial intelligence isn’t just for science fiction anymore. Instead, it has become an essential element of customer service strategies of many global companies. The best AI chatbot systems don’t just direct customers based on word recognition. Instead, they can intelligently learn and adapt to customer inputs. This allows them to respond to customer inputs they weren’t explicitly programmed with, and assist customers with greater accuracy than ever before.
Conclusion
Quality customer service is paramount to the success of your business. The customer experience directly affects your company’s bottom line for better or worse, so make sure you always put your best foot forward. Remember, not all unhappy customers will tell you, so always look for ways to improve to gain and retain paying customers.
