When you do a business and you have a low budget, you usually prefer to invest in high-priority functions. While allocating funds, you don’t keep customer service in your mind and many don’t even bother about it. They prefer to spend money on marketing and advertising rather than spending even a bit on customer service. It totally makes sense to provide financial assistance to your product teams and it might seem like a waste to spend money on your customer support department, but trust me it’s not.
The customer service department is as important as any other department in your organization. The customer support department links you with your customer and is the only way to stay connected to your existing customers.
Customer service has always been a crucial part of the growth of any business. Some companies realize this sooner than others, and they grow quickly. When you are doing business in a market full of competitors, investing millions of dollars in multiple areas of their business, it’s really hard to grow. To make sure that you grow with time and give your competitor tough competition, you need to make a good bond with your existing customer and that will only happen if they are satisfied with your service.
Many people believe that investing in existing customers is a waste of money but that’s not true. If you have a loyal customer, that customer will give you more customers and business. If you are providing top-notch customer service, it will be easy for your business to recoup customer acquisition costs. We have many such examples.
There are many big companies like Cox Communications, who worked on their growth by not investing in just marketing and other things but also in the customer service department. If you reach out to Cox customer service even at midnight, the customer service representative will greet you in a very energetic and positive tone and will make sure that all your concerns are acknowledged before you cut the call. That’s how you acquire the loyalty of your existing customers and get referrals.
There are many reasons why you should invest in your customer service department. The following are some of those reasons.
Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition
Retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones and those who understand this fact work on their customer service and make sure that their existing customers get the best of the best. If you target your existing customers, the chances of making a sale are more. As per a report, customer retention is almost 5-25 times cheaper than customer acquisition. Existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product or service and spend 31% more when compared to new customers.
In customer acquisition, you spend time and resources in finding out a new customer and when it comes to customer retention, you just need to keep the existing ones happy by offering them the best product/service.
You need to work on your relationship with your current customers by staying in touch with them or if they ever reach out to you, make sure you resolve all their queries. You need to do all this by setting a goal of increasing loyalty and driving repeat purchases.
Many businesses are reluctant to spend money on customer success because this is viewed as starving acquisition. By investing in customer service, you will open up new revenue streams. Investing today will create more breathing room for your business tomorrow.
Happy customer service agents will create happy customers
No one feels like investing time and energy in something, which goes unnoticed. If someone will feel underappreciated for their work, they will not be able to work with positive energy. Remember that around 69% of employees feel motivated and work harder when their senior management appreciates them.
Invest in your employees by having training sessions and try to interact more with them and appreciate them. If they will be happy, they will put the same energy into their work and the customer will get the best customer service. Even if the customer is angry and you treat them with respect and positive energy, they get calm and listen to you. That’s how you will make a strong bond between you and your customers.
When you offer your customer what they want, they share their experience with their family, friends, and neighbors. As per a survey, around 70% of customers share their positive experiences with around 6 or more people. A happy customer service team is very necessary if you want to grow your company by doing the best yet cheapest form of marketing: word-of-mouth advertising. That will only happen as long as you give them what they want in the best possible way.
Proactive customer service creates marketing opportunities
If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing and advertising, then you should surely consider adopting proactive customer service. You need to anticipate customer needs before the customer reaches out to you, and should present a solution beforehand. Many businesses use proactive customer service to introduce their new services or products and consider this an effective marketing tool.
Improvement through Feedbacks and Responses
The best way to improve the quality of your product or service is by getting feedback and responses from your customers. That helps you out in working on your weak areas.
You should always be flexible as a business owner and take bad feedback as a chance to improve your service. When the customers file a complaint, they reach out to the customer service team for help. A good customer service team identifies what the customer wants and what they don’t, and they enquire from their customers on how to improve their services. You can improve your product or service by compiling these responses.
Moreover, when your customers come around and they find out that their suggestions are implemented, they develop a sense of loyalty and belonging to your organization.
Summing it up
When you construct a successful business, everything around you screams for attention. Within that flood of screams, why prioritize customer service? The answer is very simple, happy customers lead to more business, growth, money, and sustainability.
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