5 Reasons Why Customer Service Is Important in 2020

Relationships between customers and businesses can be very fragile. It is hard to establish strong business relations, and it is even more difficult to support them. A close connection between clients and companies comprises many aspects. One of these aspects is customer service. Here, we’ll explore the reasons why customer service is important in 2020.

Before we consider the main reasons why customer service is important, let’s imagine a situation. If I were to ask you, what’s the best place to eat pizza in your area, what would you say? Or to be more precise, how will you rate all the places in your area to give the best one out of the list? Would you think about:

• the food quality?
• the ambiance?
• the hygiene?

…or all of the above?

But, there is one thing that I’m sure you’ll think of the most: customer experience.

Why Customer Service Is Important in 2020? – Business and Support Quality Statistics and Facts

With the substantial growth in social media and social media marketing, it has become really easy for customers to reach out to companies. But, in most cases, it becomes really difficult to keep track of customer questions. Let’s have a look at an example.

A customer tweeted about how an Old Spice cologne gave him rashes and needed assistance regarding the product. Although Old Spice was really quick in replying to the customer’s tweet, but alas:

The number offered wasn’t available.

Let’s take another example:

A customer, Hasan Syed, booked a flight with British Airways and regretted it later. After his trip from Chicago to Paris, his father lost his luggage. But, once he contacted the British airways customer services, their inability to deal with the situation made him lose his mind. Here is a tweet to explain this situation better:

If a customer tweets this, you would expect the airline to reply to the tweet instantly. But, that is not what happened.

British Airways took a sweet 8 hours to respond to this tweet, and they did not do a good job. Check it out:

No matter how trained your customer service team is or how good software you deploy to improve your customer experience, one bad customer can affect your company in the long run.

A Thing to Remember

So, the first thing that every company must understand is: neglecting the importance of customer service comes with a heavy price for businesses.

According to Bain & Company, companies that realize why customer service is important and take action to provide stellar customer experience can drive 4-8% higher revenues than their peers.

The expectations of customers have also risen considerably in the digital age. If these expectations are not met and customers have a poor experience with the brand, they simply look for other brands, without even letting you know where you lack.

And so, in a technology-led world, businesses have to keep up with not only the latest innovative trends but also the changing customer expectations. As the market grows and expands, and new players enter various industries each year, they are placing much more emphasis on understanding how to communicate with customers and how to increase time on site. It is one thing to hear your customer out and not do anything about it, and an entirely different thing to actually listen to your customer questions and give them an accurate resolution.

Top Reasons Why Customer Service Is Important

It goes without saying that listening goes a long way in creating a large, loyal customer base, but there are various other reasons why customer service is important as we move on to 2020. Let’s take a look at five statistics-backed reasons why customer service is important in today’s day and age.

1. It Bridges Gaps Between Companies & Customers

According to Dimensional Research, positive customer service experience drives 52% of people to make an additional purchase from a company. This goes on to highlight that it is impractical to downplay the importance of customer service in business any longer.

A business can build strong relationships with its customers by delivering value to them, not just in terms of the product or service it offers, but in terms of the experience that it creates for them. And in today’s shape-shifting world, this covers more than just the traditional customer support tools.

Big and small businesses around the world are using customer service help desk software to streamline their customer service and engagement. Be it the tech biggies or the neighborhood supermarket; such time-saving tools enhance the experience of customers, who are looking for a quick resolution.

How do they do that?

By deploying help desk software, they convert every customer question to a ticket. Now, they have a team of support agents who are dedicated to offering resolutions to each and every customer question. With a quick and accurate resolution on the beam, every customer will always stay delighted with your customer service.

Therefore, customers are more likely to stick to the business that realizes the importance of customer service and promises timely satisfaction and value.

Pro-Tip: Deploy a help desk software that comes with all the features needed to connect with your customers anytime, anywhere. Also, it enables you to take control of your customer questions and ensure a delightful customer experience every single time!

2. Customer Service Increases Customer Retention

One thing that is really important for every company is to have a large, ever-growing customer base and generate referral traffic on your website. But, it is equally important and far more difficult to retain the ever-growing customer base.

Research shows that good customer service increases the likelihood of repeat purchases by 60 to 70 percent. Moreover, it only makes sense for businesses to grasp the importance of customer service since it costs six to seven times more to acquire new customers than to retain the existing ones.

Customers normally return to a brand or business when it meets their expectations. And they are more likely to be loyal when their expectations have been exceeded – the quality of customer service is the key differentiator here.

For instance, when deciding between two e-commerce sellers that are offering similar products and prices, the customer would consider other aspects like ease of placing an order, delivery time, ease of exchange/return, etc.

If the buying experience goes hassle-free, the e-seller would have a stronger chance of retaining the customer. So, it is essential for you to pay heed to the customer’s buying experience and minimize any hurdles in the process.

Pro-Tip: Have a customer retention strategy in place. With all your customer questions, start taking pre- and post-question resolution feedback from your customers. This way, you not only make your customers feel valued but also ensure you know where you lack and improve upon your services. 

3. It Creates Brand Endorsement Opportunities

The importance of customer service in business has increased manifold in recent years, making it almost necessary for commercial success.

Imagine this: you search your favorite brand for skinny black jeans. You finally find the perfect pair and order them online. But, once they reach you, you realize that the jeans look nothing like they did on the website. So, what do you do?

You contact their customer care number, but to your surprise, they weren’t of any help. After a few tries, you give up. But, with all this effort, what’s the one thing that you’ll know for sure?

To never order from that brand again!

Not only that, but you also will tell your friends and spread the word of how bad your experience had been.

Only when a brand can exceed customers’ expectations with its services, the buyers become a dedicated mouthpiece for it. Positive word-of-mouth, influencer marketing, and endorsements drive sales and become an integral part of the brand’s image.

In the world of online shopping, positive ratings and reviews have become the Holy Grail for sellers.

Let’s take another example, on an online platform, a product that has been recommended by more people would appeal more to a first-time buyer. Sellers who get “why customer service is important” will seek to deliver high-quality CX to garner more positive social proof. The new buyer is now more likely to make a purchase after seeing and reading these satisfactory shopping experiences.

Pro-Tip: Ask your customer questions yourself and know what they expect from you. Without knowing what your customers need, it’ll be impossible to meet their expectations. So, send out customer email surveys regularly. 

4. Customer Service Reduces Employee Turnover

Reduction in employee turnover is yet another reason why customer service is important. Since customer retention is often an outcome of good customer experience, the employees feel motivated as well. They feel a greater sense of contribution to the business and derive higher satisfaction from their jobs.

Let’s see a few posts of happy customers that keep employees motivated and fulfilled at their jobs:

Here’s another:

With so many customers praising you and your service, employees feel motivated to work harder and better. In turn, they are rewarded for their exceptional services. Having a good employee reward structure also goes a long way in ensuring delight customer experience and motivating support agents.

Additionally, a good perception of the business in the market – a result of its continued customer satisfaction – makes the employees stay with the company longer, even through business challenges and economic changes. This obviously reaps long-term benefits for the company.

Pro-Tip: Delightful customers = delightful employees. Deploy software that helps you monitor agent performance so that you can give appropriate incentives to your employees. It is, however, important to have an incentive chart that defines how much an employee gets post achieving a goal.

5. Customer Service Keeps Business Resilient

According to Microsoft’s State of Global Customer Service report, around 54% of all consumers globally have higher customer expectations than the previous year. So, meeting these expectations can be a game-changer, especially in this digital era.

The rise of customer service help desk software in recent times is proof that companies are not neglecting this aspect.  More and more businesses are investing in resources that teach employees how to communicate with customers. In many cases, the software integrates customer interactions across phone, email, and social media and provides omnichannel support. Using the right tools for customer service comes in handy during peak seasons when large volumes have to be churned out, but the quality of service cannot be compromised.

One tool that every company has in their toolkit and has been leveraging is help desk software. Such tools have all the features needed to keep tabs on your support agents’ performance and make sure all customer questions are answered instantly.

A few features you must look for when searching for the right help desk software for your company are:

• Canned Responses
• Integrations
• Shared Inboxes
• Custom Fields
• Reporting
• Issue Tracking
• Ticket Management

Pro-Tip: Keep up with the digital era and adopt an AI-powered software that enables you to perform all customer-related processes easily. Right from customer acquisition to retention, it is important to pan out strategies for every phase to have an international customer base who is always delighted with your service.

Importance of Customer Service: The Final Word

As customers finally claim their rightful places, “why customer service is important” has become a rhetorical question. Whether it is an online business or a brick-and-mortar store, customer service experience will continue to define a business’s success.

Right from when a customer lands on your website or comes into your store to when they leave, it is essential to ensure they are always engaged with your company. You can do this in many ways, such as sending out surveys, emails, or reaching out to your customers via call, but it is also important to know how to revert to customers when they reach out to you!

So, how businesses utilize emerging technologies to their own and the customers’ advantage will be a defining factor in their growth.

Therefore, you need to stop asking why customer service is important and start devising ways of integrating customer service within the business model. Also, it is also important to make sure you are available 24/7 and answer customer questions instantly.

Companies that respond to the changing trends will thrive, entering into the year 2020 and beyond. So, make sure you research on the new customer service trends and incorporate it into your business so that you stand out from the crowd.

It is essential to know what tools are designed to cater to customer management and resolve their questions easily. Look for a robust help desk software that enables you to:

• Create tickets related to customer questions
• Track all customer questions on one dashboard
• Split complex tickets into child tickets
• Monitor agent performance

With all these benefits, you can easily take control of your customer questions and always meet every customer’s expectations easily.