The failure or success of a customer relationship depends on the customer’s overall experience with the company’s customer service. Customers tend to stay when they have positive experiences and leave for a competitor when the service was inadequate or frustrating. According to Zippia, 91% of customers are willing to leave a business for a competitor after one poor customer service.
So, aiming your support team toward meeting or exceeding customer service expectations is key. But do you know what the customer service experience is or how to implement the most effective strategies?
In this article, we will take you through creating a strategy for the best customer service experience and the benefits of implementing one.
What is customer service experience?
The customer service experience refers to customers’ overall feeling and perception of a company throughout their interactions with it.
It involves every touchpoint a customer has with the business, both online and offline. This includes:
- Ease of use and completeness of a company’s website
- Any pre-purchase contact initiation
- The purchasing process
- Issue triage, problem resolution, and customer support
- Customer follow-up, feedback, and post-service relations
Companies that prioritize excellent customer service are more likely to establish brand loyalty in their clients and create a positive brand image. Conversely, poor customer service can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative reviews, and potential loss of customers.
Tips for delivering the best customer service experience
Improvement of the customer service experience is an ongoing commitment that involves consistent dedication rather than a one-time attempt. Thus, it is important to plan effectively.
Following are a few steps and strategies to implement in order to enhance your customer service experience.
Understanding customer needs
This strategy involves identifying, meeting, and having thorough awareness of the wants, preferences, and pain points of your clients.
This can be achieved by:
- Collecting and analyzing customer feedback
- Sending out customer satisfaction surveys
- Conducting market research and interviews
- Checking social media mentions and comments
Once you’ve identified your customers’ needs, you can discuss them with the appropriate teams and departments, tailor product features, and implement customer experience optimization strategies. This can help you meet your customers’ expectations and gain insight into what drives your customers’ satisfaction.
Going beyond your customers’ expectations
Businesses can exceed customers’ expectations and leave a lasting positive impression on customers through:
- Delivering a product earlier than promised
- Providing an extra level of service that the customer didn’t expect
- Going the extra mile in helping customers when needed
Building a customer-centric culture
To develop a customer-centric culture, ensure that all staff members prioritize and value customer concerns and happiness.
This involves:
- Aligning your core values, procedures, and goals with customer satisfaction
- Personalizing interactions
- Training agents to understand client needs as well as take responsibility
- Promoting active listening and empathy in customer service
Empowering your employees
Provide your employees with the resources, confidence, and time to complete tasks and tackle responsibilities. Confident employees are proactive and productive, and they’re not afraid of sharing new ideas or making mistakes.
Therefore, providing comprehensive training and ongoing support will ensure that your frontline staff have the knowledge, skills, and tools to address customer inquiries, resolve issues, and make decisions autonomously.
Additionally, encourage a culture where employees feel valued, trusted, and empowered to take ownership of customer interactions. This leads to faster resolutions and higher levels of customer and employee satisfaction.
Offering proactive customer support
Anticipate the needs and concerns of customers throughout their journey and provide solutions to common difficulties that they may face. Employ preventive measures to minimize their impact.
Proactive customer service can include:
- Analyzing customer data for predictive patterns
- Integrating technology such as AI in customer support
- Tracking and implementing customer feedback
- Providing timely updates on order statuses
- Implementing solutions like knowledge bases
- Announcing product releases, service changes, and relevant industry news
By adopting a proactive customer support approach, you can prove to your customers how dedicated you are to customer satisfaction.
Providing seamless multichannel support
Offering multichannel support lets clients get same level of support via the means of contact with which they are most comfortable. Customers expect to communicate with businesses over a range of channels. Therefore, you need to provide 24/7 customer support on multiple communication channels to ensure customers receive assistance when they need it.
These channels can be:
- Live chat
- Social media
- Web forms
Importance of an exceptional customer service experience
Ensuring you deliver the best customer service experience has the following advantages:
Boosts word-of-mouth marketing and brand reputation
When customers are satisfied, they willingly share their positive experiences with people they know and online platforms. Positive experiences shared by the customers improve a brand’s reputation, fostering trust and credibility.
Additionally, positive customer service experiences acts as a key differentiator in competitive markets and often become the deciding factor in a customer’s purchasing decision.
Reduces customer churn
According to Khoros’s survey, 65% of customers leave for a competitor after a poor customer service experience.
Offering empathy and quick resolution of customer concerns can build customer confidence in your brand and significantly reduce customer churn.
This contributes to the sustainability and success of a business.
Builds customer trust and loyalty
Delivering outstanding customer service is essential to gaining lasting customer loyalty and trust.
When customers feel valued, heard, and supported, they are more likely to feel lasting affinity toward a brand. They will keep coming back to make more purchases.
Enhances employee satisfaction
Investing in the training, recognition, and support that give employees the ability to deliver excellent customer service also contributes to higher job satisfaction and morale within the business. Most people like being able to do their job well.
This leads to better customer interactions, positive attitudes, and favorable customer relations.
Examples of great customer service experiences
The following are the real-life examples of businesses that have proved to offer the best when it comes to delivering customer service experiences.
Zappos
Zappos is an online retailer for shoes and clothing that is known for its exceptional customer service.
According to this customer story on Consumerist, a customer named Jay purchased shoes on Zappos (since they were the cheapest) for a wedding he was to be the best man in. Unfortunately, his package was routed to the wrong location and couldn’t arrive on the day he was supposed to travel to the wedding location.
He called Zappos and shared his dilemma. The customer service agent immediately solved his issue by upgrading his account to VIP in order to send another pair of shoes to his destination.
He then said, “On top of completely taking care of my problem and adding the “VIP” bonus, she then issued a complete refund. Free shoes. Unbelievable. Zappos has earned a customer for life.”
This is a customer blown away by the great customer service experience he received. By sacrificing a small amount of profit in one transaction, Zappos earned a raving review from a newly loyal customer whose story was spread across the internet. That’s cheap, excellent marketing.
Disney
Disney is known for its magical experiences and exceptional customer service. They always go above and beyond to exceed guest expectations, whether it’s at their theme parks or on their cruise lines.
One example of their outstanding service is a story posted on LinkedIn by Liz Richardson, a Disney fan who had a disappointing experience with customer service at Disney World resorts.
Concerned, she sent a thoughtful email detailing her experience to the designated customer feedback address, but also, on a whim, to the president of Disney. Surprisingly, she received a call from the VP of Disney World within an hour.
The VP apologized and promised additional employee training.
Additionally, as compensation, Disney gifted her family a four-night stay, including park tickets and free dining. Richardson’s family were annual visitors to the parks, and this immediate response taking full responsibility and offering rectification not only kept them as annual visitors but maintained Disney’s top reputation with anyone who read her story.
Revive your business with outstanding customer service experience
The key to a great customer service experience is to make your customers feel valued at every touchpoint.
Therefore, it is important to perfect your customer service by implementing key strategies.
To enjoy the fruits of an enhanced customer service experience, you can also try using BoldDesk. BoldDesk is sophisticated help desk software that transforms your customer support system.
Organize your customer emails into tickets automatically, implement safeguards to make sure no customer falls between the cracks, and provide knowledge bases to let your agents and customers easily access information they need.
Schedule a 30-minute live demo to discuss and see for yourself how BoldDesk can improve your support team’s workflow and customer service. Or start a 15-day free trial to let your team test out BoldDesk’s features. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact BoldDesk’s support team.
Please share your thoughts and experiences with different customer service strategies in the comments section. Your feedback is highly valued!
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