By Pamela Rose
Customer service entails more than just addressing customer issues and closing tickets. Today, customer care entails providing proactive and instant help to customers in real-time via the platform of their choice, be it via phone call, email, text messaging, or chat.
Customer service is so essential that it is now considered a strategic component for companies of all sizes. Trevor Smith, CarGuard Administration founder, understands this all too well. In 2015, Trevor Smith founded the company to accord customers the best-in-class customer service.
Why customers matter: Importance of good customer service
Customer service is vital to an organization’s growth because it helps to keep clients and gain more value from them. Enterprises that provide outstanding customer service recover their marketing costs, foster a loyal fan base that refers clientele to your business and offer testimonials and positive reviews wherever they go.
Investing in service quality activates the flywheel since happy supporters will assist a business reach new customers for free by persuading prospects to engage with a brand. Their positive endorsements will be more effective — and less expensive — than any of the current advertising strategies. Trevor Smith has seen these benefits.
Benefits of customer service
Here are proven reasons why customer service is central to the overall business strategy:
Customer retention is less expensive than new customer acquisition.
Improvement in customer retention rate can result in a significant increase in profitability. This is because regular customers are more inclined to spend more with a brand, resulting in a company spending less on overhead expenses.
According to research by HubSpot, the cost of acquiring a new customer is higher for a business that does not allocate a small portion of its spending plan to customer service. Eventually, putting money into customer service can lessen the churn rate, which lowers the amount a business needs to splurge on attracting new customers.
Customer service reflects brand image and mission
Entrepreneurs might have a clue of what their brand stands for. On the other hand, customers cannot read business owners’ minds and will pass judgment based on online presence, adverts, content, and other external brand management. Trevor Smith had in mind the frustration of customers in the vehicle service industry, and this is why he came in to alleviate their suffering.
The customer service team is where a business can have more influence over this perception. They communicate directly with customers and are in charge of portraying that brand when interacting with prospective buyers. In fact, 96 percent of consumers say customer service is vital when deciding whether to stay loyal to a brand. They can help a business impact customers and persuade them of advantages over competitors.
Happy customer service staff create happy buyers
No staff will crave showing up for work if they believe they are unappreciated compared to staff in other workgroups. The same is true for customer service reps. After all, 69 percent of employees report that when they are appreciated, they work harder. It’s worth noting that even if 55 percent of the employees disagree that they are satisfied with the job, they will still work extra hard for customers.
However, their motivation for customer service has less to do with providing excellent services and more about financial gain. Instead, it’s about retaining their professional standards, not desiring to be fired before resigning, or being favorably disposed to clients. As a result, if a business wants its employees to bring their finest work, they need to feel respected and valued. Only then will they find the inner drive to do a great job and treat their customers properly, resulting in customers experiencing more respect and deeper loyalty.
Customers are willing to pay more to businesses that offer better customer service
A significant percentage of customers are prepared to spend more for a superior customer service experience. Customers value customer service, so they will pay more to engage with a company that excels at it. These facts cannot be ignored. In an era when businesses are having to learn to prioritize service to customers, any business that does not do so is likely to falter.
Even a single encounter sways customers; one good experience may be the decisive consideration to stick with a brand, whereas one negative experience may have them sprinting to rival companies. CarGuard Administration Trevor Smith believes in getting things right the first time because an unhappy customer is a severe blow to the company’s reputation.
Tips on how to improve customer service
Here are handy tips to improve your business customer service standards:
Understand customers
The more a business learns about its customers, the better it will understand their needs and expectations. Key questions to ponder;
- What does the business know about every one of its customers
- Is the information useful?
- What else would the business like to know to better meet customer needs?
- Who else has information about the customers that could be useful?
Additional tips worth implementing are:
- Seeking and acting on customer feedback
- Setting clear service standards
- Establishing effortless customer support channels
- Investing in staff training
CarGuard: The clear leader in customer service
CarGuard Administration approaches its customer interactions in a unique customer-centric manner. The company understands that its relationship with the customer is critical to overall success. CarGuards’ and Trevor Smith’s mission is to fairly and expeditiously adjudicate your claims while also providing best-in-class customer service.
CarGuard Administration takes devotion to its customers and clients critically, which is why the company has remained a standard-bearer in the Vehicle Service Contract Sector for the past five years.
