How to Avoid Providing a Bad Customer Service Experience

We’ve all been there. One negative experience with a brand can affect our future relationship with a company. If your customer service team is unable to transform a negative interaction into a positive one, it could mean the loss of that customer. And every customer is a precious commodity you cannot afford to lose. So, how do you avoid a poor experience for your customer?

What is Bad Customer Service?

First, let’s define what that may be. If your company fails to meet a customer’s expectations, that’s poor service. And that can happen anywhere that a customer can interact with your brand – on your website, with your teams, on social media, anywhere. Bad customer service experiences cost businesses billions of dollars per year. That’s right, billions. And according to one study, 86% of consumers who have a positive interaction would be more likely to do business with that brand again. And 66% would remain more loyal to that brand.

What Could Happen

That translates into revenue, whether you are losing it or keeping it. Let’s address some of the resulting issues from poor customer service:

1. Decreased Customer Loyalty
   • If a user has a more positive experience elsewhere, they will likely leave you and go with that other brand. It’s harder to retain customers than to develop new ones, so this is a weighty matter.
2. High Customer Churn
   • Churn is the rate of attrition, or losing more customers than you are bringing in. This typically means there’s a high level of dissatisfaction, either with your products and services or with your responses to customer issues.
3. Fails to Meet Expectations
   • This could refer to your response time on resolving issues, product or service quality, connecting with a representative in a timely manner and more.
4. Dissatisfied Customers = Negative Experience
   • And where do people like to go to complain? Social media. You need to monitor your social channels and respond to any customer issues quickly, so the bad reviews don’t spread like wildfire across web.

How to Make Sure You Offer Good CX

The most important element of a good customer experience is remembering that the customer always comes first. They are the lifeblood of your business, so focus on proactively tracking and solving problems to ensure customer success. Nothing beats a customer who feels appreciated and thus loyally supports your brand. Here’s a few ways to create a successful experience strategy:

1. Omnichannel Approach
   • Your customer may interact with your brand in numerous ways – on your website, on the phone, on chat or on Twitter. Meet them where they are and help address their issues quickly for a satisfactory resolution.
2. Trained Empathetic Agents
   • That voice on the other end of the line can make all the difference in how an interaction plays out. If the agent is well-trained and understands both the nuances of empathy and your brand, they are more likely to provide a positive customer interaction. Helping the customer to feel heard and valued can make all the difference in retaining that valuable relationship going forward.
3. Quick Response Time
   • Acknowledging an issue and offering solutions in an expeditious manner is the key to keeping customers happy. We’ve all been victim to the runaround, where you are passed from department to department but never actually get a real, live person on the line. These are the types of issues that can make or break your customer loyalty, so try to set up ways to resolve problems in a timely fashion, from wherever the customer reaches out first.
4. Efficient Systems and Processes
   • Having the right foundation will make everyone’s job easier. If the path to swift resolution is built on the right systems and the processes are clearly defined, it will help your teams to manage expectations and serve your customers’ needs successfully.
5. Customer Feedback
   • The most valuable feedback is direct from your customers. Find ways to implement surveys and polls, in the moments directly following customer service interactions, to discover ways to learn and improve.

Stay on Top of the Data and Insights

It’s all well and fine to cull data and insights at different points in a customer journey, but if you aren’t analyzing and assessing that information to improve your customer experience, you’re missing the point. It’s not just about revenue and conversions, it’s also about creating a sense of loyalty to keep the customers you already have. How does that information offer opportunities for change and progress? Find the time to regularly review your data and insights to enhance and enrich your customer service capabilities and ultimately your customer experience.

It takes time, effort, and care to address customer issues effectively and satisfactorily. Put yourself in their shoes and find ways to resolve concerns swiftly and accurately. A positive customer service interaction could easily transform someone with a problem to a lifelong brand loyalist. What can you do today to transform your customer service program into the success story of your company?