Customers and clients can be a fickle and demanding lot. Their expectations and demands can shift with the weather and it can often be quite a challenge for a company to keep up with what is currently happening. So, aside from the myriad of balls you must keep balanced in the air everyday, it seems that your customer service must be on constant alert for any shift in the wind.
- According to a Gladly 2018 customer research poll, over 1,000 consumers were polled regarding various aspects of the buying journey. The research found that 54% of those polled stated that the customer service skills of a particular business was key to their purchasing decision and that early 20% of them based a buying decision on customer service alone.
- Not a shock was the 98% who would rather talk to a person that an automated system or a chatbot. Too many companies, especially the giants, don’t care about that and continue to use automation. Your chance to compete with, and dominate, the big boys and girls, is to take the time to have a human staff and to train them properly. In addition, nearly 70% of the respondents stated that they would be willing to pay more for a product or service if the company had an outstanding customer service component.
- Finding and training competent customer service people is like recruiting and training your sales staff. Because, that is what your customer service people are; sales reps and negotiators. You skimp here and you are going down. The Gladly research found that while 75% of the respondents will give a company a second chance after a bad customer service experience, 30% are going to your competitor after two bad experiences and nearly 95% are headed to your rival if they hang around long enough to experience three poor interactions.
- Online reviews are important as half of the respondents claim that reviews are a key factor in where they will buy yet less than ten percent said they were swayed by advertising. They say this but they are misguided and misinformed. Advertising has always worked and will continue to work but don’t neglect your customer service.
- In the end, customers and clients want consistency and they want to be recognized and appreciated. That doesn’t seem all that out of line now does it?
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
