Customer experience may arguably be the most important thing for any business or brand. Most importantly, customer service experience is the single most important priority. Here’s why - statistics reveal that in a large segment of customers, approximately 86% of customers tend to pay extra if the experience is excellent.
To make it even better, whether you meet their expectations or not, the experience will make them buy from you. It’s quite obvious the opposite of this is worse. That is to say, if you are unable to offer a good experience, you will start to permanently lose customers.
It’s quite an overwhelming aspect and requires precision in strategy and training for perfect execution.
Nevertheless, the customer experience you provide will determine the success of your business and your profits alongside that.
Defining Customer Service Experience
Defining customer service experience is a bit tricky. That is to say, in its essence customer experience is the total embodiment of all the interactions your customer will have with your business.
This includes all sorts of communication, direct and through other channels. Yes, this implies that even your omnichannel marketing is part of the experience. To further clarify, are your ads tailored to your customers? Your marketing campaigns need to align with the requirements of your customers.
Apart from that, the checkout process and talking to your sales reps is also part of the experience. Finally, even refunds and returns. Meaning, how convenient it was for the customer to return a product and how were they treated.
The Importance of Customer Service Experience
Above all, customer service experience directly impacts your customer’s loyalty toward your brand and how they represent your brand to others. For instance, if you gave a customer a great experience. They will tell others how friendly or interactive your business is.
While on the other hand, if they have any sort of trouble, they will be sure to advise others not to purchase from you.
Studies reveal that getting new customers is five times pricier in comparison to sustaining your present customers.
Therefore, for better profit for your business, you must ensure a satisfying experience for your buyers. This pays off in multiple ways such as sustainable income, positive feedback, and referrals.
What Measures As Customer Service Experience?
As aforementioned, multiple aspects combine to create the overall customer service experience. However, if you are to break them down into individual pieces, the main points are as follows:
- Sales Representative Communication: How your sales rep communicates with clients/customers and acknowledges needs and wants.
- Social Media Marketing: Ads and content you display for your target audience and current customers.
- Emails and Newsletters: Personalized content based on segmentations that you curate for your buyers.
- Support Staff: Chat, email, and phone call support counts as customer service experience. How your support team treats the customers and addresses their pain points.
- Direct Communication: Any sort of direct communication you have with customers as the owner.
The above-mentioned five points are what combine to create a customer service experience.
Four Key Advantages of Good Customer Service Experience
The kind of customer service experience you will offer your customers will determine their loyalty in the long run. However, remember that it significantly contributes toward your customer base growth and profits.
Here are the four major benefits for your business for offering an excellent experience:
- Customer Relations: Positively impact your customers’ trust and build stronger relationships.
- Feedback Where it Matters: Customers who had a good experience will leave positive feedback and word of mouth will bring in more customers.
- Brand Identity: The way you treat your customers and personalize their experience will differentiate you from other businesses and brands.
- Product and Service Improvement: Your business will thrive on returning customers and loyal customers will let you know which areas you can improve without leaving any harsh critique that would damage your brand reputation.
How to Ensure an Excellent Customer Service Experience
The road to creating the perfect customer service experience is quite bumpy. Not everything will go as planned. For instance, you may have the best and friendliest sales rep on call but if the line breaks or connection times out, it will be hard to recalibrate the momentum with customers.
Here’s a short list of things you can do to provide an excellent customer service experience:
- Implement a Customer Feedback Management System,
- Offer customer service support through omnichannel,
- Always stay proactive in your customer service, reactive is not good,
- Keep the customer service consistent, avoid any abrupt changes,
- Manage customer expectations, meet those that you can, and handle those that might not be possible at the given time.
It is important to note that point five requires you to understand customer expectations rather than meet all of them. Realistically, it is impossible to meet all expectations of customers. Therefore, managing requires you to address their expectations and offer alternatives or tackle the customer based on their personality.
Making any irrational decisions and introducing something to meet a certain expectation will only result in a loss for your business.
Final Thoughts
There is enough data and evidence to prove that customer service experience is among the main pillars of a business or brand. Ensuring quality service and care for your customers will make them return to you even if you are unable to satisfy them with your products.
It is crucial to note that implementing a customer experience requires the right strategy based on your target audience. One small error in offering a quality experience can result in great loss.
Nevertheless, customers with great experience will develop further loyalty and refer your business to friends and family. All in all, investing in creating a customer experience is a profitable investment.
