Each year, U.S. Businesses lose 41Billion USD due to poor customer service. When a customer has a bad experience with your brand, they’ll most likely take their business elsewhere, or even badmouth your brand to a friend, costing you a possible loyal customer. And even worse, 34% of people who’ve experienced bad customer service will take action by posting on social media — bad rep for your company= losses.
Examples of bad customer service:
- Feeling unappreciated- people don’t like to feel unappreciated. Your customers will feel this when you just sell them things without showing them that you appreciate their business. Having a loyalty program is a perfect example for you to target this problem.
- Rude or unhelpful staff- learn how to train or hire staff that will exemplify good customer service. They should be cheerful and kind, and know how to help customers in need. They are the very first brand ambassadors of your business, next to your customers.
- Speaking to multiple agents- fix your system so that problems can be resolved once they appear immediately.
- Lack of staff knowledge- there is nothing more irritating than the staff who doesn’t know anything about the product. When you ask them relevant questions, they aren’t able to answer. Make sure that the staff that is hired is put through
- Kept on hold- people in general don’t like waiting. Make sure that once problems arrive, the staff are able to solve these problems at once.
As a business owner, you should be aware of the adverse effects of having bad customer service. A study by bain & co. found that 80% of businesses believe that they offer top notch customer service, as compared to 8% of customers who believe that businesses do offer excellent customer service. This stark contrast shows that businesses should try to focus on being able to perform in this facet of their business.
Why improve customer service
You’ve seen how poor customer service leads to a business losing its customers. Now what you need to see, is that once you’ve taken care of your customers, the customer’s, in turn, will take care of your business. Businesses should always remember that their customers are the one’s keeping their businesses afloat.The infographic basically showed that after a positive customer experience: 69% would recommend the company to others, and 50% would use the business more frequently. One way of improving customer service is by showing them that you care and appreciate them. So you need to implement a loyalty program that will reward your customers to come back for more
Loyalty through service
The facts tell you that bad customer experiences is costing your business a lot of money — good customer service on the other hand, will earn more money in the long run through retention of customers, and new referrals. You not only increased the life time value of a customer, therefore earning more from their business with you, but you’ve also earned a brand ambassador willing to tell others about your business, and why they should buy from you. People are much more willing to try out a business through word-of-mouth, so take care of your customers!
Customer service in the Philippines — does it breed customer loyalty?
Here in South-east Asia, Philippines, excellent customer service is not the norm. Staff are taught to be cheery and to always smile at the customer saying good mornings and good day’s. But they aren’t taught how to give value through fixing customer’s problems. By implementing a loyalty program, this will increase the chances that you would be able to provide good quality customer experience, thus creating the refferal effect and also increase repeat customers. PICA is one such loyalty program that provides all of these. It is an app that provides tools to businesses in order to acquire, and retain customers through rewards programs. Download the app now and start providing excellent customer service, remember, if you take care of your customers, the customers will take care of you!