Customer service is the act of supporting and advocating for customers in their discovery, use, optimization, and troubleshooting of a product or service. It's also the processes that support the teams making good customer service happen. The objective of customer service isn’t just to find a quick solution to any one customer problem. It’s to build a long-term relationship, one where each customer interaction offers opportunities for deeper, more valuable engagement. Show
The main difference between service today and service 10 years ago is that customers expect premium service to be built-in from the first sales or marketing interaction and carry through to the moment they ask for help, post-purchase, and back again. To position themselves for success, businesses must integrate service into the journey at every interaction point. This may sound like a lot more than you thought. If so, you’re not alone. We've narrowed it down to a few key takeaways: Customer service is now a key differentiator between companies, a top consideration for customers, and a profit-generating force in its own right. And whether a company exceeds or falls short of customer expectations is often directly tied to business success. It’s a high-stakes game—61 percent of customers would now defect to a competitor after just one bad experience, according to Zendesk's 2022 Customer Experience Trends Report. That’s a 22-percent jump from the previous year. Make it two negative experiences, and 76 percent of customers are out the door. Whether you’re a well-established firm or just starting to scale and grow, a successful customer service team Benefits of great customer serviceFor companies that succeed at wowing customers, the opportunities for growth are immense. It's impossible to overstate the importance of customer service.
*Zendesk's Customer Experience Trends Report How to deliver excellent customer serviceWhether you’re building a support team from scratch or you already consider yourself a pro, we’ve identified tips from our latest CX Trends Report to help you drive better customer service. 1. Make agent training a priorityCompanies with high-performing customer support teams understand the need for more training, more empathy, and more investment to reduce churn and empower their people. Consider developing a tiered training plan that starts with basic technical skills, including product knowledge, and then advances agent knowledge at regular intervals. In fact, high-performing companies are nearly 10 times more likely to strongly agree that their agents are of the highest caliber and over 6 times more likely to have plans to greatly extend education and training opportunities. 2. Automate repetitive tasksIdentify and automate the most repetitive tasks to free up agents’ time and improve performance. For example, high performers are nearly 3 times more likely to use AI-powered chatbots to help with agent workflows and it's paying off. 63 percent of business leaders believe chatbots are driving large cost savings. 61 percent of companies also expect the majority of customer service interactions to be automated in the future. 3. Personalize every experienceGive agents access to valuable customer information—beyond just the customer’s name—that they can use to improve experiences. In fact, 72 percent of customers expect agents to have access to all relevant information. 90 percent of customers will also spend more with companies that personalize the customer service they offer them. And 92 percent will spend more with companies that ensure they won’t need to repeat information. 4. Evaluate existing customer service channels93 percent of customers will spend more with companies that offer their preferred option to reach customer service. Ensure that you have satisfaction metrics linked to each and every channel. Actively track and benchmark performance across channels to check for continuous improvement. 5. Focus on business impactCreate opportunities for agents to drive profits through upselling and cross-selling, informed by a deep understanding of the customer’s immediate needs. Establish a separate profit and loss statement that captures revenue generated by agents so the link between customer service and business growth is more tangible. High performers are 7.6 times more likely to strongly agree that they view customer service primarily as a revenue driver and are 6.2 times more likely to strongly agree that customer service funding has kept pace with company growth. 6. Integrate systemsIntegrate customer service and CRM platforms to monitor changes in customers and their lifetime value. Sharing data between these platforms can lead to the discovery of personalized, relevant solutions to customer issues that otherwise wouldn’t be considered. 7. Keep leadership in the loopEnsure the core team provides regular updates to leadership so they’re aware of evolving customer service plans and metrics. Create opportunities for customer service insights to play a greater role in larger company policy and strategy. Leaders of businesses with the highest customer satisfaction scores understand the inherent value of their customer service teams. Not only are they more likely to prioritize funding of customer service initiatives, but they’re also more likely to keep a close eye on the business impact and make necessary changes along the way. Companies that are leading in customer service have buy-in from top to bottom. Instead of a siloed customer service team, leadership takes an active role in monitoring performance and impact. And in many cases, compensation of senior executives is directly tied to customer satisfaction. High performers are over 9 times more likely to report that senior leaders view customer service metrics on a daily basis and nearly 8 times more likely to strongly agree that senior leaders immerse themselves in customer service. Key customer service skillsCustomer service skills or characteristics represent the qualities and abilities a customer service representative needs to deliver good customer service. Customer service managers tend to hire for technical skill sets. Technical skills are important, but soft skills matter, too.
Learn the top customer service skills for 2022 in our blog post. 4 examples of good customer serviceWe’ve all heard the stories of companies going above and beyond to provide their customers with incredible support. Morton’s steakhouse met a man at the airport with a steak because he asked for one in a tweet. Nordstrom’s accepted a set of returned tires even though Nordstrom doesn't actually sell tires. But good customer service is ultimately about the scalable ways a company meets customer needs every day. Here are a few everyday examples of excellent customer service. 1. Providing fast first-response times76 percent of customers say they expect to engage with someone immediately when contacting a company. 2. Meeting customers where they areCustomers want to connect with you on the same channels they use to talk to friends and family—so being able to help a customer on their preferred support channel is one of the best ways to create an excellent customer service experience. Channel preference can vary based on the issue type and customer need. In fact, 73 percent of customers also want the ability to start a conversation on one channel and pick it back up on another. 3. Helping customers help themselves89 percent of customers will spend more with companies that allow them to find answers online without having to contact anyone, such as via a knowledge base. 4. Being proactively helpfulReactive support used to be the standard: you wait for a customer to contact your business with an inquiry or issue. Proactive service, however, is now a crucial type of customer service—it means anticipating your customers’ issues and addressing them before your customers do. Customer service statisticsAll year, every year at Zendesk, some of the world's sharpest analysts are doing research and then painstakingly interpreting it to illuminate the coming year's biggest trends in customer service. A few of the top customer service statistics to watch in 2022:
Good customer service means meeting customers' expectations. And meeting customers' expectations pays off: 81 percent of customers say a positive customer service experience increases the likelihood they will make another purchase.
We found that some of the companies with the best customer service are Zappos, Dollar Shave Club, Slack, Amazon, and Lessonly.
This customer service philosophy was never meant to be taken literally. The point wasn’t that customers should always get their way no matter how outrageous their demands. It was to give employees permission to truly listen to customers and go the extra mile to understand their needs.
Handling difficult customers is challenging for any customer service professional. The most important thing you can do is show them respect, patience, and care. It helps to remember that your customers are human beings. If you can connect with them in a human way, it can make a big difference.
Customers are looking for helpful and empathetic agents, always-on support, and fast, personalized, and uninterrupted service across their preferred channels. |