Regardless of how much we know today – that a business is only as strong as its customer service team – there are still some businesses that don’t realise they are offering bad customer service. There is nothing worse! Business growth can be completely trashed, when the client is expected to contend with terrible service.
The best marketing strategies, sales plans, and business tactics all go astray without a professional, positive, happy, well-trained customer service team. Here it pays to remember that the customer is king, and if he cannot be taken care of correctly, sales do not increase, and neither does brand loyalty. If world domination is the deal, and client care doesn’t feature big in that deal, then the best laid plans will go astray. The saddest thing is that many firms already believe they are offering the best care that they possibly can.
Let’s face facts; no-one wants to believe that they are bad at what they do. There is a customer client relationship, and like in most relationships; partners don’t like admitting that they are at fault. It is rare in the extreme for a firm to admit that their clients are not being serviced well. Much like a spouse rarely admits that they themselves are a terrible spouse. It is the human condition for people to believe what is expedient to believe.
These days most service agents are veiled behind powerful web-based tools. The same tools that are used to administer requests from the customer, are the tools that are used to manage the teams’ individual, as well as group success. Savvy web-based tools are just that, they are not human beings, and do not necessarily deliver an amazing customer experience. Conveniently, it becomes easy for management to jump to the conclusion that if the tools are working fine, then customer satisfaction is fine.
All growing, thriving, successful companies place a huge amount of emphasis on the actual customer experience – whether this is delivered in person, in live chat, on the telephone, or using other smart web-based tools. They want to know how and why their customers hare happy, and what their perspective is on the service they receive. Smart tools don’t automatically assume that a customer will be left happy, excited or gratified. The onus is on management to ensure that they assume nothing, and have all facts at hand.
The average online and even normal shopper is looking out for a memorable experience. Mediocrity just doesn’t cut it. Businesses that take cognizance of this, offer a memorable experience, and they do this with very good purpose in mind.
Todays’ successful business understands that offering fabulous customer service costs less than advertising does. They understand that training their team to be top of their game is vital – much more vital than managing damage control. It is much simpler to stop fires from starting, than it is to put out fires when a customer or two blows a fuse.
Therefore it is not state-of-the art web-based tools that are used to keep customers happy, but the experience of doing business with a company that pays attention to getting it right. Being amazing matters, where brand loyalty is the knock-on effect of making sure that the client feels good with the choices they have made.
