Featured

In the modern business landscape, large teams and organizations face the challenge of finding the right balance between decentralization and centralization. Striking this delicate equilibrium is crucial to ensure efficient operations, effective decision- making, and streamlined communication. One innovative approach that Stames is pioneering combines decentralized operations at local stations with a centralized platform connecting the entire organization. This system offers a multitude of benefits for large teams, revolutionizing the way they operate and thrive in a dynamic business environment.

1. Empowering Local Stations:

One of the key advantages of the Multi Module System (MMS) is the empowerment it provides to local stations or branches. By decentralizing operations, each station gains autonomy and flexibility in managing their day-to-day activities. Local branches can respond swiftly to regional demands, adapt to local market dynamics, and make decisions tailored to their specific needs. This decentralized approach fosters a sense of ownership among branch managers and encourages innovation at the local level.

2. Enhanced Coordination and Collaboration:

While decentralization empowers individual stations, Stames acts as a vital bridge, ensuring effective coordination and collaboration between branches and the headquarters. The system serves as a centralized hub for communication, information sharing, and data management. It enables seamless collaboration among teams across different locations, breaking down silos, and fostering a cohesive organizational culture. By sharing best practices, knowledge, and insights, teams can learn from one another, leading to enhanced performance and efficiency.

3. Streamlined Data Access and Decision-Making:

Stames plays a crucial role in gathering and analyzing data from local stations. By consolidating data from across the organization, decision-makers at the headquarters gain a holistic view of operations, enabling them to make data-driven decisions. Timely access to real-time data, performance metrics, and market trends allows for quicker response to challenges and opportunities. This streamlined data access not only improves decision-making but also helps identify operational bottlenecks and optimize processes on a larger scale.

4. Scalability and Consistency:

As large teams grow, maintaining consistency across various branches becomes a challenge. The combined approach of decentralization and centralization provides a solution. Local stations can scale their operations according to their needs and local market conditions, ensuring agility and adaptability. Simultaneously, the centralized platform ensures consistent branding, adherence to company policies, and efficient deployment of resources. This harmonious balance allows for sustained growth while preserving the organization’s core values and vision.

5. Resilience and Risk Management:

In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, resilience is paramount. The decentralized nature of operations in this system adds a layer of resilience by reducing dependency on a single point of failure. In the event of a disruption at one station, other branches can continue their operations, minimizing overall impact. Moreover, the centralized platform facilitates risk management by enabling the identification and mitigation of potential risks across the organization, ensuring proactive measures are taken to safeguard against vulnerabilities.

The integration of decentralized operations and a centralized platform represents a paradigm shift in how large teams operate and thrive. This powerful system empowers local stations, fosters collaboration, provides access to valuable data, ensures scalability, and enhances overall resilience. By striking the delicate balance between decentralization and centralization, organizations can unlock their full potential, achieve operational excellence, and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving business landscape. Embracing this system can truly revolutionize the way large teams work, enabling them to navigate complexity with agility and seize opportunities for growth.

In today’s fast-paced digital age, businesses are constantly striving to provide exceptional customer experiences. Understanding the customer journey has become vital for success, and companies are turning to innovative techniques to gain valuable insights. One such method that has gained significant popularity is digital mystery shopping. This groundbreaking approach allows businesses to delve deep into the digital realm and unlock hidden opportunities for improvement. In this article, we will explore the concept of digital mystery shopping and its impact on shaping the customer experience landscape.

Unveiling the Digital Frontier:

Traditional mystery shopping has long relied on physical visits to brick-and-mortar locations. However, the advent of technology and the widespread use of digital platforms have opened up new avenues for businesses to connect with their customers. Digital mystery shopping involves the evaluation of online touchpoints such as websites, mobile applications, social media interactions, chatbots, and customer support services.

The Power of Digital Mystery Shopping:

1. Comprehensive Customer Journey Analysis: Digital mystery shopping allows businesses to comprehensively evaluate the entire customer journey. From the moment customers land on a website to their interaction with online customer service representatives, every step can be meticulously analyzed. By gaining an understanding of pain points, bottlenecks, and moments of delight, companies can optimize their digital platforms to provide a seamless experience.

2. Evaluation of Omnichannel Consistency: In today’s multi channel landscape, customers expect consistency across all touch points. Digital mystery shopping enables businesses to assess whether their brand message, values, and service quality remain consistent across various online channels. This insight empowers organizations to bridge any gaps and ensure a cohesive brand experience.

3. Uncovering User Experience Challenges: With digital mystery shopping, businesses can identify usability issues, navigation challenges, and areas of confusion within their digital interfaces. By pinpointing these pain points, organizations can enhance user experience, streamline customer journeys, and increase conversion rates.

4. Monitoring Online Reputation: Digital platform sserve as a breeding ground for customer opinions and reviews. Through digital mystery shopping, companies can keep a finger on the pulse of their online reputation. By analyzing customer sentiment, businesses can address negative feedback promptly, rectify issues, and foster positive brand perceptions.

5. Competitive Benchmarking: Digital mystery shopping also offers valuable insights into the digital strategies of competitors. By evaluating rival websites, social media presence, and overall digital experience, businesses can identify areas where they can outshine the competition and gain a competitive edge.

In the era of digital transformation, businesses must adapt to evolving customer expectations. Digital mystery shopping provides a powerful tool to explore the digital landscape, identify opportunities for improvement, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. By harnessing the insights gained from this innovative approach, organizations can fine-tune their digital strategies, enhance customer satisfaction, and cultivate long-term loyalty. Embrace the power of digital mystery shopping today, and unlock the full potential of your digital presence.

Software as a Service, also know as SaaS, is a cloud-based service where instead of downloading software your desktop PC or business network to run and update, you instead access an application via an internet browser. The software application could be anything from office software to unified communications among a wide range of other business apps that are available. 

This offers a variety of advantages and disadvantages. Key advantages of SaaS includes accessibility, compatibility, and operational management. Additionally, SaaS models offer lower upfront costs than traditional software download and installation, making them more available to a wider range of businesses, making it easier for smaller companies to disrupt existing markets while empowering suppliers.

The major disadvantage of SaaS applications is that they ordinarily require an internet connection to function. However, the increasing wide availability of broadband deals and high-speed phone networks such as 5G makes this less of an issue. Additionally, some SaaS applications have an offline mode that allows basic functionality.

Here we’ll look more closely at some of the key advantages and disadvantages of SaaS applications. 

Advantages of SaaS

Accessibility: One strong advantage of any SaaS application is the ability to run through an internet browser, so it doesn’t matter which Operating System is used to access it. So regardless as to whether the user is trying to run the application on Windows, Mac, or Linux machines (or even smartphones running Android or iOS), the application still remains accessible. This makes SaaS applications incredible versatile in a couple of different ways.

For one, it means you don’t need to worry if your operating system or other software will be compatible with SaaS applications. Perhaps more importantly, not only can they be used in the office on desktop computers, they can also be used on mobile devices such as tablets. SaaS applications are overwhelmingly designed to be mobile-friendly so that they can be used in a whole range of situations and circumstances, not least on the go.

Updates and patches: Another key advantage of SaaS applications is that because they run in the cloud, the vendor can update their software centrally without adversely affecting business operations for users. This is in stark contrast to on-premise software that will often require a degree of compatibility and endpoint security testing before even routine updates and patches can be applied.

The SaaS model therefore avoid the pitfalls of testing that slows down the development cycle and access to new features for users, while ensuring that security updates are applied as soon as possible in contrast to on-premises software that may remain vulnerable to attack until the IT service management staff have finished their testing.

Hardware: This leads into one of the other biggest selling points about SaaS, and that’s the lack of initial investment required to use it. For on-premises software, sometimes it’s not simply that business PCs or other desktops have compatible software and hardware configurations, but also that additional servers and network switches that could be required as part of a general investment in IT infrastructure services necessary to support the software across the business. 

SaaS sweeps that need away, meaning that even the smallest business can now have access to software tools through SaaS-based cloud applications that originally only enterprises could afford to build for.

Additionally, SaaS is scalable in that if you need to add more users to your service, or conversely reduce them, you simply adjust your billing plan accordingly – as opposed to having to buy in more hardware when expanding, or else having to shelve expensive electronics when reduced need makes it redundant.

Market reach: For vendors this means being able to supply a software service to the majority of the market, instead of just a limited and targeted market segment. This means that pricing can be cheaper and more accessible to businesses of every size. For users this means being able to access services not normally available, thus both expanding and improving business services, productivity and general opportunities.

Saving and storage: On premise storage of data means the need to invest in reliable backups such as through cloud storage or other disaster recovery plan to mitigate any serious hardware crash that might otherwise cause the significant loss of data. However, with SaaS, data is routinely saved in the cloud anyway. What makes this double advantageous is not just the redundancy aspect, but also that employees can switch between devices without losing work or data, simply by the fact of logging into the single account, regardless of which device is being used.

Data and analytics: Because everything is run through a centralized platform this means its easy to capture data and provide it for analytics use. Businesses using SaaS software usually have access to reporting and intelligence tools and visualizations that can provide valuable insights into business operations, allowing for workflows to be streamlined and efficiency savings to be actioned. For the vendor, because access depends on a paid subscription there’s no need to be concerned about piracy which might otherwise cost the supplier and damage both access and pricing models.

Overall SaaS

Overall, SaaS offers a lot of benefits all round that should work in the interests of both suppliers and users. While some enterprises might prefer to set up their own cloud management services and use orchestration between devices and sites to control their own data, for the majority of small businesses at least SaaS offers unrivaled opportunities that can help them develop, expand, and provide more value to both staff and customers.

Many founders believe they are the best people to tell the story of their company. While they might hire a stellar writer (like you!) to massage their language, CEOs typically are great at letting someone else create prose. However, in many marketing mediums, customer stories add character, clarity and specific examples that turn a just-fine narrative and make it great.

As you start to onboard clients, develop their content strategies and play a part in the growth of their brand, consider making a case for these types of recommendations. Not only are they powerful, but they illustrate your pulse on modern trends within the industry. Here, a few reasons why customer stories can’t be ignored.

What’s a customer story? How is it different from a case study?

First things first, many people confuse a ‘case study’ with a ‘customer story’ — and for good reason. They are quite similar in vein but in execution, they’re wildly different. One way to think about it is in their purpose and ultimately, the goal a brand is trying to achieve.

Case studies focus on numbers, results and outcomes, without adding the ‘why’ or the ‘how’ behind them. These are helpful for elevator pitches and short-win pitch decks for business.

Customer stories, on the other hand, are used to inspire and educate people by sharing a unique journey, according to marketing manager at Volusion, Samantha Rupert:

Whether it’s a video, photo series, or a blog, these stories showcase all of the passion, challenges, and successes customers go through to achieve their goals or to showcase how a specific product is used in a real-life setting. Customer stories generally dig deeper into the nitty-gritty of how the results were achieved and what sacrifices were made along the way.

You can think of a customer story as a way to provide the intended audience with a ‘sneak peek’ into what could be their reality. This immersive experience helps to make the sale, since the person can relate to the experience of another human, versus hard facts from a business.

Customer stories showcase expertise.

Though a customer story is coming from someone who doesn’t work at the company, a satisfied buyer demonstrates that you know your stuff. In fact, senior director of media and industry relations at Fish Consulting, Ashley Davidson, explains sharing these anecdotes of success cements your position as an expert within your industry.

Anytime you can highlight someone who was excited about the work you provided them, the stronger trust folks will have to hire you. Whether you pitch customer stories to your existing clients to add to their content schedule and strategy, or use the feedback from past to gain new clients, this tactic is a solid way to supercharge your business.

Customer stories deliver important information creatively.

“The reason customer stories help companies grow is because of how they deliver important information in different styles,” explains Matt Burns, the head of customer success at Monday.com.

He provides the example of recipe searching online. If you look up how to make a casserole or bake a pie, you won’t just find info on the ingredients and instructions. Rather, Burns explains, they are often filled with tactical information about how to form the dish, along with a first-person perspective that allows readers to connect with another person about the experience:

This strategy has become more prevalent because people see the value of telling a story and also digging into the exact specifics for how it works. The same is true for companies. People can be hungry for all types of information but sometimes there is more value in proving the solution works and other times it’s necessary to dig into how each piece of the solution is formed.

Customer stories shorten the sales process.

Generally speaking, writers don’t consider themselves salespeople. They are known for their words, their ability to turn chaos into clarity and to provide a voice for those who can’t find their own. Their talent is found through paragraphs but really, much of a full-time freelancer’s life is pitching. Especially when we seek to add more content strategy clients to our roster, we have to put ourselves out there with proposals, concepts and decks.

Consider how much further — and faster! — these conversations would become if you included a customer story. Leah Neaderthal, the CEO of Smart Gets Paid, says client testimonials and stories provide tremendous credibility by demonstrating that you can do what you say you can:

When that happens, customers have fewer objections in the sales process and they say yes faster. One of my clients had customer stories on her website and nearly every potential client noted that it was her great customer stories that caused them to reach out.

Customer services stimulate new areas of business development.

For the last few years, you have focused your content business on search engine optimization consulting. It’s been lucrative and successful, but now you want to venture into writing podcasts and scripts for videos. Or say your long-time client is pivoting and adding another offering in their service packages.

To branch out into other venues and extend your reach, Davidson says customer stories can go a long way. Consider offering a discounted rate to a potential or existing client who is in need of your help. This gives you an opportunity to test out your skills, and hopefully, receive a rave review that can expand your net income and improve your brand’s reputation.

Customer stories make for killer social content.

If your client is looking for creative, engaging ways to improve their social reach, posting the same ‘ole memes on repeat isn’t effective. And sadly, neither is simply sharing posts from their blog. For an effective social strategy that captures a wide audience, Neaderthal suggests customer stories.

Whether through video, audio, photos or text, people relate to seeing other people on social channels. This is true for any of your clients, but also for your own brand. If you post a short clip from a client who hired you to develop their strategy, sharing that for your business’s Instagram will be more likely to gain traction than other methods:

Customer stories are insanely valuable, infinitely reusable social content. Even on social platforms where people are naturally skeptical, the second-party validation of case studies builds trust with users. In my own business, my best-performing social posts are customer stories.

Customer stories show a company’s values and fosters trust.

Or in other words: they allow a business to come from the heart. As cheesy as it sounds, chief brand officer at Sunrise Banks, Becca Hoeft, says customer stories are beneficial to any company because they illustrate a willingness to stray away from product-pitching in order to take a pause, and tell a story:

Clients will find these more engaging than a salesy blog and they’ll also realize that you care about the organizations you work with. Foster client interest with compelling stories — not a sales pitch.

And as a bonus, any customer you highlight will be excited to be featured, and likely, share the content with their audience. This extends your reach and will result in leads:

If you’ve written a nice enough piece, your clients will also realize that they can use this content on social media to boost their online presence. In this case, they’ll definitely be willing to do additional interviews.

When it comes to customer service, most of us have been on both sides of the coin. Whether it’s been restaurants, retail, or even a new business, everyone at some point has had an interaction with customer service. However, with something so commonplace, what separates the goods from the great?

Providing excellent customer service is no easy task. It requires a sense of humility, dignity, and patience, as well as a knack for being a people person in general. And while it’s not always the easiest occupation to hold, it can also be one of the most rewarding in terms as it’s the first point of entry in building a relationship with a customer that could be with you for life. Below we’ve listed a few examples of industries where great customer service can make or break your business.

Wedding

Everyone wants their special day to be, well, special. And as expensive as weddings are, having an incredible experience throughout is absolutely imperative to ensuring future recommendations. Plus, this is the type of industry where people want everything to be curtailed to their likings, making the customer service process the primary point of contact.

Food and Beverage

If you’ve ever worked in the service industry, then you know what it’s like to have a table of ten all ask for separate checks…while a few of them simultaneously complain about the food. There’s that, plus a whole laundry list of other things you’re dealing with in real time, enough that would make anyone want to pull their hair out and scream. In yet, we do it with a smile on our face. Why? Because customer service is the staple of food and beverage.

At the end of the day, most people go out to eat because they don’t want to (or can’t) cook for themselves. Not only do they want someone else to make their food for them but they also want someone to serve it too. When you break it down, it’s silly for most people to complain about their service as they have the basic comprehension and ability level to make food, they’d just rather have someone else do it. But then again, that’s the magic of the industry (and where the competition lies), is who can get people to come back the most by providing the best service.

Retail

We’ve all had an awful experience or two in a retail store. Maybe there wasn’t anyone around to help, or things were disorganized, or even the person we were talking couldn’t care less about what we’re after. Granted, the world of retail can be laborious at times, but having great service in it is key to driving sales.

To give people a good experience at a store, your staff can’t be too ‘salesy.’ Additionally, no matter the product, they have to be great educators to the customer, making them feel as though they’re gaining a sense of inside information. Finally, you should always invoke a feeling that your product isn’t just what the customer wanted, but wanted and didn’t know they could have.

Financial Services

We all have a sensitive relationship with our money. After all, it’s what allows us to do pretty much any and everything we need or want to do. And when it comes to the people that handle our money, we have a very high bar as to what our expectations are.

When it comes to customer service in the financial service industry, promptness is essential, as well as having a transparent dialogue. On any given day you could deal with problems from someone having their debit card stolen to money being accidentally deducted from their account. These are really big deals to customers, and being right there walking them through every step is critical to success.

New Technologies/Startups:

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have great customer service for your startup. As a new business, you’re under a heavy amount of scrutiny, as people are not only figuring out what you do but what you’re about as well. Any disparaging comments or negative reviews could tank your firm before it even gets off the ground. However, there’s also a positive here in that establishing quality customer service off the bat will not only save you a ton on keeping these processes consistent as you grow but additionally gives you the chance to hone in on your messaging.

When customers speak, brands listen. That’s the baseline for doing business in a customer-centric economy. That’s why you just can’t emphasize the importance of customer reviews!
Customer reviews have come a long way from simple word-of-mouth recommendations to published online assessments dissecting your product. Through social media and customer review sites, customers easily share their best and worst experiences about a brand.
Thus, giving them a permanent and powerful voice in the creation and marketing of products. What do all these imply for marketers, operators, and customer service managers in 2022?

The simplest takeaway is perhaps the most obvious: awesome reviews often lead to awesome sales. In fact, nine in ten B2B buyers are more likely to make a purchase after reading a trusted review. When people like your product and they share the experience, other people would be interested and would likely join the bandwagon.
Similarly, dismal reviews often lead to dismal revenue performance. A hotel service that generates far too many one-star reviews will be hard-pressed to book a long list of guests.
There are exceptions — such as critically panned films that fare pretty well in the box office, and vice versa — but these are rare. The rule of thumb is you’ll always want positive reviews and a strong reputation for your brand. It’s just common business sense. And it’s largely proven by research findings and popular customer service statistics:

• Online customer service reviews influence nearly 9 in 10 consumers when making a buying decision.
• When purchasing a product, 90% of customers are influenced by positive reviews.
• Around 86% of millennials reveal that they are influenced by negative reviews when buying a product or service.

Without a customer reviews strategy, you’re losing out

Given those numbers, any business that does not have an effective customer review strategy fails to benefit from customer feedback in many ways:

1. Forego the opportunity to learn from their audience and keep customers engaged.
2. Miss potentially game-changing suggestions on how to improve products or services.
3. Eventually, lose dissatisfied but redeemable customers who are just waiting to be heard and adequately served.
4. Ignore the golden opportunity to harness the marketing power of their most vocal supporters.

In short, any business that doesn’t have an effective customer review strategy in 2020 will fail to manage their overall customer service and experience.

Top 9 Ways to Make the Most of Your Customer Reviews

1) Publish and promote your top reviews consistently

Because customer reviews influence purchase decisions, ensure that you publish those reviews on business assets such as your website, online stores, and social media pages. A Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center study shows that displaying (at least five) customer reviews can improve conversion by as much as 270%.

2) Double down on negative reviews to find new opportunities

Use customer reviews as a platform for improving customer experience (CX), customer service, and customer success. Skim online and offline reviews to find useful insights into improving your products and services to meet customers’ needs. An easy way to manage this process is by using customer service CRM.

3) Let customer reviews also direct your product roadmap

Glean general customer feedback for mentions of “wish lists” or “nice-to-have features” to use as inputs for continuous product development/evolution.

4) Combine surveys and analytics to dig deeper into reviews

Use analytics-enabled surveys on social media to generate new or complement existing customer reviews and speed up problem resolutions. Enhance social listening with the right customer analytics tool.

5) Use reviews in your brand marketing efforts

Use well-written, objective, and honest reviews to establish your brand’s authenticity and ability to make valuable connections with its users. Tap these user-generated content as social proof and deploy them as regular elements in your brand communication and content marketing efforts.
Doing so not only helps drive higher conversions as explained earlier but also delivers online ranking benefits since your website gets to publish fresh content on a niche topic.

6) Create useful content users would love to review

Complement your customer service efforts with a recommendations/referrals section in your customer reviews. The majority of buyers are willing to share their experience with other prospects but vendors just need to ask first.

7) Build a customer community and increase your LTV

Give customers a voice in the way you evolve the products they use and you give them an extra reason to stay. Engaged customers who have a stake in your brand tend to have longer and higher lifetime value.

8) Prioritize reviews for higher-priced products

Research shows that customer reviews have a greater impact on high-value items (+380%) compared to lower-priced products or services (+190%).

9) Clean and balance your reviews database

Give more premium on reviews done by verified buyers over anonymous accounts. Filter out known troll or fake reviews.

Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. Without them, your small business enterprise would come to a screeching halt. In many cases it is the novice or low-ranking employee whom your customers meet, the people who are the face of your company. That face-to-face contact should be a positive experience if you expect your customers to continue to do business with you.

Smile

The American writer Max Eastman said, “A smile is the universal welcome.” And it is a smile that your customers deserve to be greeted with whenever they enter your place of business. Hire only enthusiastic and friendly staff to work with your customers; reassign or let go employees who are not right for your corporate culture.

Listen

When a request is made or an order is placed, your employees need to hear what the customer is asking and meet that request without fail. Sometimes that means tailoring your response to meet a specific need, satisfying a special request to gain a satisfied customer.

Respond

How does your staff handle complaints? Do they genuinely listen with an ear toward resolving the problem? Or are they dismissive and looking for ways to avoid the customer? You may not be able to satisfy every customer request, but most certainly every customer needs to be afforded the respect that they deserve. Empower your employees to solve most small problems on their own.

Courtesy

No matter how difficult the customer may be, your staff needs to show courtesy at all times. Train your staff on how best to handle a problem, including bringing in a senior team member or manager to help resolve the problem. Resolve the problem quickly by offering empathy to the customer while continuing to support your employees as you come up with a satisfactory solution.

Gift

Disgruntled customers as well as loyal, happy customers will remember your good customer service if you provide something over and beyond what they expect. If you operate a restaurant, offer a free dessert to satisfy your customer. If you manage an office supply store, ship the order overnight at no extra cost to the customer. Sometimes it is the small gesture that shows customers you appreciate them, charming and disarming effort on your part to show someone you care.

Customers want a good experience. A big part of that is exceptional customer service. Don’t confuse the two. The experience is everything from navigating a website, to how easy (or difficult) it is to reach a salesperson, to the way a product is packaged (think about how cool iPhone or iPad packaging is), to the availability of parking spaces, to how friendly the employees are, and beyond. It includes everything. And while many people think of customer service as a department that reacts when the experience goes wrong, my definition is much broader.

Customer service is philosophical. It’s part of the culture. Everyone, from the CEO to the most recently hired employee, is part of customer service and, for that matter, the customer experience. Every single employee has impact on either the outside customer, an internal customer, the experience the customer receives—or all three. I thought it would be interesting to get a deeper understanding about what customers want—and don’t want.

In the 2020 Achieving Customer Amazement research report, more than 1,000 people surveyed and asked about what influences exceptional customer service. First and foremost, people want to be treated like a valued customer. That was the top response with more than 65% of respondents in agreement. That means treating people with respect and dignity. A customer is not just an account or transaction number. Customers are people.

When it came to contacting what people often refer to as the customer service department, respondents appreciated when agents demonstrated knowledge and expertise. We’ve learned that there are two levels of knowledge. The first is that customers want agents to know about the products and services the company offers. They want answers to their questions and a quick fix to any problems or issues they have. In addition, customers want agents to know who they are. With all the technology available today, there is no reason that every agent—or any other customer-facing employee—can’t have access to basic information about the customer that would enhance the experience. Just knowing a little history about customers’ past purchases, buying patterns, issues, etc., can go a long way in giving agents information they can use to give customers a better experience.

The survey also asked what influences poor customer service. It’s highly unlikely you’ll disagree with any of these. From high to low, the responses were as follows:

·        Rudeness and apathy

·        Not being treated like a valued customer

·        Lack of knowledge and/or expertise

·        Slow response times

·        Having to repeat information

·        Being put on hold

·        Slow transaction speeds

·        Not being able to use their preferred communication channel

Finally, on this survey, the 1,000-plus respondents we asked to share three words they felt best described a good customer service experience. The winners were fast, helpful and friendly.

Fast is about convenience, which is something customers love and even crave whether they know it or not. Convenience will set you apart from your competition.

Helpful is about getting answers to questions and problems resolved. In the sales process, it’s about being helped and not sold. There’s a big difference. A customer saying, “They are always so helpful,” is far better than, “They never stop selling.”  

Friendly is soft but important. We don’t have to be best friends with our customers, but we do have to create a friendly and inviting experience. A big word that comes to mind—especially as we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic—is empathy. That’s a powerful part of a friendly experience.

So, now you are armed with common sense information on the basics of delivering an amazing customer service experience. Share it with the people you work with. Take time to thank your employees who make sure your customers are taken care of. This is a year-long and lifetime focus. Without customers, we don’t have a business. Without employees, we can’t serve our customers.

When your business is on a low budget, there are probably several functions that are high-priority when allocating funds. Of course, your product team could use some financial assistance, and marketing — especially advertising — could always use a little padding. However, it might seem like a waste to invest money in your customer service team. After all, how can it really improve?

Contrary to popular belief, your customer service team should be just as important — if not more important than — as your other teams. After all, it’s the direct connection between your customers and your business. Still not convinced? Read the following list to understand how essential customer service is to improving your business and relationships with customers.

Investing in customer service helps activate your flywheel because loyal customers will help you acquire new customers, free of charge, by convincing prospects to interact with your brand. And, their positive testimonials will be more effective than any of your current marketing efforts — and cheaper, too.

Aside from that, let’s look at some data-backed reasons why you should invest in your customer service team.

1. Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition.

An increase in customer retention of merely 5% can equate to an increase in profit of 25%. This is because repeat customers are more likely to spend more with your brand — 300% more, to be exact — which then results in your business having to spend less on operating costs.

According to research, the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — how much it costs to acquire a new customer — is more for a company that doesn’t invest a small percentage of its budget in customer service. Ultimately, investing in customer service can decrease your churn rate, which decreases the amount you must spend on acquiring new customers and decreases the overall CAC.

2. Customer service represents your brand image, mission, and values.

You may have an idea of what your brand represents. However, your customers can’t get into your head and they’ll make assumptions based on your social media presence, advertisements, content, and other external marketing.

Your customer service team, however, is where you have more control over this perception. These individuals speak directly to your customers and they have the responsibility of representing your brand when interacting with current or potential buyers. In fact, 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of loyalty to a brand.

Without your customer service team, you have no means of direct communication. Due to this, your customer service team is essential in relaying to customers what you want your brand image to be. They can help influence customers and convince them of your strengths over competitors.

3. Happy customer service employees will create happy customers.

No employee is going to enjoy coming into work if they feel under-appreciated compared to employees on other teams. The same goes for your customer service team. After all, 69% of employees say they work harder when they’re appreciated.

It’s important to note that 55% of employees who strongly disagree about being happy with their jobs will still work especially hard for customers.

However, their reasoning behind serving customers is less about wanting to provide quality service. Instead, it’s about maintaining their professionalism and integrity, not wanting to get fired before quitting, being empathetic to customers, but getting recognition from them in the end.

Therefore, if you want your customers to do their best work, they should feel respected and appreciated. Only then will they find intrinsic motivation for doing a good job and serving their customers the right way, which will lead to your customers also feeling more respected and appreciated.

4. Happy customers will refer others.

And, when your customers are happier, they’re more likely to spread the goodness to friends, family, and coworkers. In fact, 72% of customers will share a positive experience with six or more people. Think about it: if you have a stunning experience with a brand, you’re probably going to rave about it to your friends over dinner later that night. It’s natural; you want your close ones to commit to a brand that you trust.

5. Good customer service encourages customers to remain loyal.

As said before, it’s a lot cheaper to retain an old customer than to acquire a new one. In this sense, the higher a customer’s lifetime value — the total revenue a company can expect a single customer to generate over the course of their relationship with that company — the higher the profit for your company.

In comparison to, possibly, hundreds of competitors with similar products and services, your company has to do more than relish in the exciting features of your products. By providing stellar customer service, you can differentiate your company to your customers. Loyalty is rooted in trust, and customers can trust real-life humans more than the ideas and values of a brand. So, by interacting with your customer service team, those customers can build, hopefully, life-long relationships with your business.

6. Customers are willing to pay more to companies that offer better customer service.

67% of customers would pay more to get a better customer service experience. Clearly, customer service matters so much to customers that they would literally pay more to interact with a brand that does it well.

These are statistics that can’t be ignored. In an era where companies are learning to prioritize customer service, any company that doesn’t do so will crash and burn.

Customers are influenced by even a single experience; one positive experience could be the deciding factor for them to stick to a brand, whereas one negative one could send them running to a competitor.

7. Customer service employees can offer important insights about customer experiences.

It doesn’t matter how you perceive your brand. What matters is how your customer perceives it.

For instance, if you work for an athletic wear company, you might associate your brand with fitness, health and wellness, and people who play sports. However, your customers may purchase from you because they associate your brand with leisure, comfort, and attractiveness. So, you should align your marketing with those values as well.

Your customer service team can answer a lot of these probing questions for you. Rather than having to spend time and money on constantly surveying customers, you can have your customer service employees simply ask these questions while interacting with customers. Their response can give you a lot of insights into improving your products, marketing, goals, and employee training.

And, the more you improve the customer experience, the harder your employees will work. Research shows that companies that invest in customer experience also see employee engagement rates increase by an average of 20%.

8. Customer service grows customer lifetime value.

If you’re running a business, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a pretty important metric. It represents the total revenue you can expect from a single customer account. Growing this value means that your customers are shopping more frequently and/or spending more money at your business.

Investing in your customer service offer is an excellent way to improve customer lifetime value. If customers have a great experience with your service and support teams, they’ll be more likely to shop again at your stores. Or, at the very least, they’ll share their positive experience with others, which builds rapport with your customer base.

This makes new customers more trustworthy of your business and allows you to upsells & cross-sells additional products with less friction. New users will trust that your sales team is recommending products that truly fit their needs which will create a smoother buying experience for both the customer and your employees.

9. Proactive customer service creates marketing opportunities.

If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to invest in your business, you should consider adopting a proactive customer service. Rather than waiting for customers to report issues, this approach reaches out to them before they even know they exist. That way, customers know you’re constantly working to remove roadblocks from their user experience.

But, proactive customer service isn’t just used for customer delight. It’s also an effective marketing tool for introducing and promoting new products and services.

For example, if you create a new feature that solves a common problem with your product, your customer service team can refer it to your customers. They can use your CRM or ticketing system to look up customers who have had this problem in the past, reach out to them via the service ticket, and introduce the new feature as well as its benefits. And, this can sometimes be more effective than a sales pitch because customers feel like the service rep truly understands their issue after troubleshooting their problem.

10. Customers expect high-quality service.

People don’t just expect your business to have a customer service team; they expect your customer service team to be world-class and ready to help at a moment’s notice.

In fact, according to new data gathered after the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of those surveyed (58%) said their customer service expectations are higher today than they were a year ago.

But, customers don’t just want high-quality customer service, they’re demanding it. 66% of customers said they would switch brands if they felt they were being “treated like a number, not an individual.” Customers have more options now than ever before, and now that they’ve realized it, they’re not afraid to take their business elsewhere if they’re unsatisfied with their experience. It’s now on brands to meet customer expectations if they want to attract and retain loyal customers.

11. Excellent customer service is a competitive advantage.

No matter what industry you’re in, you want your business to stand out. After all, nobody strives to be the “second-best” at something. You want to be better than every other company you’re competing with and you want your customers to know it, too. That’s the key to keeping customers loyal and getting them to continuously interact with your brand.

Customer service can be an excellent differentiator for your company. In fact, 60% of customers stop doing business with a brand after one poor service experience. And, 67% of this churn is preventable if the customer’s problem is resolved during their first interaction. That means if you provide excellent customer service, you’ll not only retain your customers, but you’ll acquire your competitors’ as well.

It’s undeniable that a well-trained, positive customer service team can make your company the best version of itself. Their ability to communicate directly with customers can revolutionize your company and grow your customer base.

12. Positive customer service makes people more likely to do business with you.

Consumers consider customer service when they’re making purchasing decisions. In fact, 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company. This means that the reputation for your customer service will impact a large majority of potential customers.

Additionally, customer service doesn’t begin and end with your frontline reps. The customer service potential customers experience during the sales process will also impact their purchasing decisions. Providing positive customer service should be the goal for any customer-facing role.

13. Excellent customer service will protect customers who experience a mistake down the road.

Like we’ve mentioned, when customers have a poor customer experience, they’re quick to share about it and leave the company. However, if your company provides excellent customer service overall, 78% of consumers will do business with a company again after a mistake.

Additionally, only one in five consumers will forgive a bad experience at a company whose overall customer service they rate as “very poor,” while nearly 80% will forgive a bad experience if they rate the service team as “very good.”

14. Customer service can lead to more revenue.

At the end of the day, you probably make your budgeting decisions based on what brings in the most revenue. It might surprise you to learn that customer service can bring in revenue and impact the bottom line. Businesses can grow revenues between 4% and 8% above their market when they prioritize better customer service experiences.

Additionally, 89% of companies with “significantly above average” customer experiences perform better financially than their competitors. A positive customer experience has a direct impact on your revenue and growth.

15. Personalized customer service can improve your online conversion rate.

Similar to the point above, better customer service can also improve your conversion rate, not just your revenue.

In fact, your online conversion rate can improve by roughly 8% when you include personalized consumer experiences. A higher conversion rate should lead to more sales and then more revenue. At the end of the day, customer service keeps your flywheel moving, just like marketing and sales.

Without customer service, retaining customers and success would be impossible. In fact, the flywheel would probably stop spinning altogether. With excellent customer service, you’ll attract new customers, prevent customer churn, and build your brand reputation and image. Plus, the data continues to support the fact that great customer service is an expectation, not a “nice-to-have.”