Onboarding a new customer is expensive. Some say it costs five times more than retaining current customers. Yet customer service declined for the second year in a row, according to the Forrester Research US Customer Experience Index (CX Index).
Between supply chain issues, hybrid work adjustments, staffing challenges and a host of other hurdles, customers often find themselves frustrated with companies they’re doing business with. And now that we’re moving past the pandemic, many companies are struggling to provide the customer experience they’ve promoted as their differentiator.
Customer Service Training is Needed Now More Than Ever
I’ve worked in human resources, HR consulting, sales training, and organizational development my entire career, helping office technology providers across the country overcome HR and organizational development challenges. While hiring is still a significant challenge, the more pressing issue right now is improving customer service. Momentum has been building on this issue for a while, and there’s greater need for customer service skills training for leaders and service staff, especially with low service levels putting companies at risk of losing customers.
The internal environment of a company plays a greater role in your service levels than you think. Interdepartmental conflict can lead to poor customer service when employees fail to treat each other as internal customers. When you have friction between your sales and service personnel, this means they’ve forgotten the importance of a united front and that they’re representing the same company. This conflict can bleed over externally because it’s nearly impossible to flip a switch and appear positive to a customer.
It’s frightening to think that unhappy customers would leave a brand without complaining directly to the company. Customers have options and need to see and feel the value you bring. When they’re unhappy about aspects of your service but don’t want to complain, you’re at risk of losing them without notice. The challenge is many companies look at their positive Net Promoter Score (NPS) and believe they’re doing well, but that only accounts for a small percentage (usually under 10%) of their customers. NPS measures the loyalty of a brand’s customer base and is based on the results of the single question, “How likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”
Quality customer service makes a difference. Hubspot Research finds that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. If you wonder why you may want to invest time and effort in this subject, that one statistic sums it up. Exceed customer expectations with an experience they’re not receiving elsewhere, and you win returning customer business.
Good Customer Service Positively Impacts the Bottom Line
Salesforce Research reports that if a company has excellent customer service, 78% of customers will do business with it again after a mistake. We’re all human and mistakes happen. How we respond when the inevitable occurs can shape the future with your customers. Knowing when and how to apologize and take ownership to fix an issue can help land on the winning side of a mistake. Are employees being taught how to do this effectively or just learning on their own and the company hopes for the best? I’m biased towards training for the behavior and skills you seek, though the facts are hard to argue. According to Forbes, 84% of businesses that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue.
How Do You Initiate the Path to Consistently Exceptional Service?
When we conduct customer experience workshops, we work with clients to create customer service standards to overcome pain points for customer service challenges. For example, GreatAmerica calls these standards our GreatAmerica Experience Standards. There are seven written standards including “the timeliness of every interaction shows my passion for exceeding customer expectations” and “through continuous improvement, I ensure that tomorrow will be even better.”
Additionally, building a process to deliver exceptional service is critical. Just as you have a sales or hiring process because you know it will increase the likelihood of success, the same is true for customer service. This includes a five-step process: a consistent methodology to greet the customer, learning more about their needs, resolving their needs, going above and beyond to WOW the customer and ensuring clear next steps.
Once customer service standards are in place, leaders should model them and train people on how to implement them. Leaders should inspect what they expect, monitoring and measuring the standards along the way to ensure desired levels are delivered. This messaging is worked into internal conversations and even performance reviews to ensure the standards are kept top-of-mind and goals are met.
All industries have customer service issues. PathShare HR Services offers customer service training to help office technology dealers overcome these challenges. When PathShare conducts customer service training with our office technology customers, we do fact-finding as part of our pre-work. This way, the customer service training is customized and based on the dealer’s needs and challenges. We have a four-hour customer service workshop that’s interactive, hands-on and includes weekly follow-up reinforcement to help ingrain the training into the employees’ everyday lives. We also have a train-the-trainer option for companies that want to bring the offering in-house and provide it more often.
An Investment in Your Employees Is an Investment in Your Customers
Many businesses face challenges with delivering quality customer service today. If your business is experiencing customer issues, losing customers or receiving less-than-desirable customer satisfaction scores, you’re not alone. The lack of time and resources to improve in this area is common. Make an investment in your employees and customers, and put some focus on customer service training. Your bottom line depends on it.
