How to Elevate Your Customer Service Experience

Do you really understand how the customer service experience impacts revenue? This post will dive into the value of great customer service and how you can improve yours.

Customer Service Experience

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Generating new customers is one of the main objectives of pretty much every business out there. However, successfully identifying new leads and converting them into paying customers is only the beginning of a new – and equally crucial – journey: serving those customers in the best possible ways.

The way your customers experience the service that you provide them with, in fact, is a crucial factor in determining whether or not those customers will remain loyal to you or turn to one of your competitors. Are you interested to find out more about this all-important topic? 

This guide is packed with great insights, information, and suggestions on how to improve your customer satisfaction score and keep delivering impeccable customer service every time.

What Does “Customer Service Experience” Mean?

We must define “customer service experience” and why it’s not the same as the more generic, old-fashioned expression “customer service.” When we talk about customer service experience, we refer to your customer’s entire journey – from their first interactions with your brand to purchase and after-sales support.

“Customer service,” on the other hand, generally indicates supporting your customers after they have bought one of your products or services and have encountered a specific issue. When we add the word “experience,” we instantly incorporate a much more profound, continuous, and emotional aspect to the interactions between brands and consumers.

In our digital world, such interactions tend to happen online – consider, for example, email, mobile devices, social media, and so on – but it’s essential to remember that a great customer service experience should include in-store interactions, too. Furthermore, understanding the state of customer engagement (ILE) can help marketers provide individualized experiences that ultimately sustain customers’ loyalty.

Customer Service Experience

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The Importance of a Stellar Customer Service Experience

Ensuring that you help your customers feel valued, heard, and appreciated is a factor that determines your success as a company. Therefore, delivering an exceptional customer service experience should be a priority for any business in all industries.

For example, did you know that research from HubSpot showed that 93% of customers are likely to buy again from brands that offer great customer service? Similarly, 78% of customers have declined a purchase due to a sub-par customer service experience.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the most impressive benefits of crafting and delivering a spotless customer experience.

1. It builds trust

Customers who trust your brand to always provide them with what they need when they need it are usually customers who remain loyal to your company for a long time. Building that trust is far from easy – but creating a fantastic customer service experience can help.

Think about it: if you demonstrate that you genuinely care for your customers and that your main focus is to create and sell products or services that improve their lives, then customers will keep trusting you to deliver on that promise. And because, today, more than ever, consumers value authenticity and emotional connection, providing them with the best possible interactions at every touchpoint is fundamental to succeeding in any industry.

2. It strengthens your brand

Building your brand has likely taken you a lot of time and effort. You have probably spent a lot of resources producing a unique logo, mission, vision, and values – but is your customer service experience matching your brand essence? If not, then you need to remedy this as soon as possible.

Yes, because a solid customer service experience strategy could differentiate you from your competitors – and show your audience that you are better than anyone else in your sector. If your customers start associating your brand with unbeatable customer experience, choosing you over your rivals will be a no-brainer.

key branding statistics

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3. It improves your offering

Ultimately, you want to keep delivering great products or services to an ever-increasing range of people. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will keep you improving on your offering, year after year.

With a robust customer service experience strategy in place, you can leverage critical elements such as customer feedback, reviews, and reports to identify patterns of success and highlight whether there’s any room for improvement. Armed with these powerful insights, you will succeed at crafting business decisions that take your product or service offering to the next level.

Elevate Your Customer Service Experience in Just Five Steps

Now that it’s clear why you should prioritize an outstanding customer experience, let’s consider how you can achieve that in practice – in only five steps.

1. Understand your customers in-depth

One of the first things you’ll want to do is to collect as much data as possible on your customers. After all, if you want to offer them an unmatched customer service experience, you need to know what, specifically, they want, need, and expect from you.

Therefore, start creating your customer persona (or personas), consider their pain points, and put the right technology in place to help you deliver hyper-customized solutions to each of them. For example, you’ll want to dig out information on aspects such as:

  • Your customers’ age
  • Your customers’ gender
  • Your customers’ ethnicity
  • Your customers’ location
  • Your customers’ budget
  • Your customers’ challenges
  • Your customers’ behaviors when interacting with your brand

 

2. Always communicate with your customers

Of course, one of the pillars of an excellent customer service experience is seamless and effective communication between you and your customers. Do you want to know what they liked and didn’t like about their purchase? Are you curious to discover whether what they bought works for them and meets their expectations? Do you want to know if they will recommend you to other people?

Just ask them. You can do so in a myriad of ways. For example, you could send them a customer satisfaction survey that requests their feedback on the support that your company offered.

Similarly, you could connect with them on different channels – including social media, for example – and ask them to leave a review of the service they receive and the product they bought from you. Opting for a combination of different communication modes will be much more effective at helping you strengthen – and improve – your relationship with your customers.

3. Offer a multi-channel experience

Just as you should be communicating with your customers through different tools, you should also be able to offer them a customer service experience that occurs across many channels. These can include, for example, email, social media, telephone, and so on.

This is what is commonly known as a “multi-channel support strategy,” and it helps you offer better customer service by differentiating how your customers can get in touch with you. Some people might never use email as their preferred method of interaction is their smartphone, whereas others might be particularly active on social media. 

Whatever query or issue you are going to deal with – from fixing an inventory forecasting Excel template to finding out information on a missing item in a customer’s order – giving your customers lots of different ways to contact you is a must.

 

4. Act quickly

Now, communicating with your customers constantly and requesting their valuable feedback is only one side of the story when dealing with the customer service experience. On the other side is the prompt, accurate, and helpful support you effectively deliver whenever an issue arises.

Being able to respond quickly if something is wrong with your product or services is fundamental to establishing and maintaining trust. It shows your customers that you are genuinely willing to help, value their input, and don’t want to waste their time.

From solving problems with your professional services proposal template to correcting any wrong information in an online order, being fast, responsive, and proactive is vital.

5. Throw technology in the mix

Artificial intelligence in marketing is becoming more and more widespread and is certainly here to stay. But what if we told you that AI tools and technologies can hugely benefit your customer service experience strategy, too? For example, consider a chatbot.

This is a computer program that has been designed to mimic real-life human interactions by using natural language that creates fun, informative, and efficient online communication between customers and brands. Essentially, a chatbot functions as a digital customer service representative – and an incredibly affable, helpful, and knowledgeable one at that.

Incorporating a chatbot into your website can be a great way to stimulate more customers to interact with you, solve their problems, answer their questions, and, ultimately, buy your products or services. But don’t limit yourself to chatbots, as the world of tech-driven customer service tools is in constant expansion.

From adding an auto attendant feature to your phone systems to offering your customers free online demos of your products or services, down to crafting a super-smooth, streamlined customer journey through self-serve functionalities, the options that technology offers are many. There is, though, one important aspect to keep in mind.

 

As much as you want to integrate the right tech with your customer service experience strategy, you’ll also need to continue to offer some form of real, human interaction. In some cases, customers may express the need to speak with a real person instead of an automated bot, and they will appreciate brands that offer both options.

Striking the right balance between tech-savvy customer service and one that still includes elements of real-world communication is essential, albeit often complicated to achieve. One pivotal way to achieve this is by always allowing your customers to let their voices be heard, communicate their feedback, and highlight any strengths or weaknesses with your entire customer service experience strategy. 

Always Put Your Customers First

Showing your customers that they genuinely matter to you means crafting and delivering a customer service experience that is second to none. This, in fact, will ensure that your customers remain loyal to you, provide valuable feedback on your products or services, and keep coming back to you for more.

The vital importance of an exceptional customer service experience transcends the industry and size of a company – from virtual call centres to banking institutions, from online retailers down to industrial manufacturers, every business should focus on improving this aspect of their operations. Try the tips in our guide to enhance your customer service experience and let us know how you get on!