When customers are unhappy with the service they receive from a company, 91% will never go back to that business or buy anything from them. At least 78% of consumers admit that they have given up on a purchase they intended to make when they had a bad customer service and customer experience with the company offering the product or service they wanted to buy. If you are not convinced that providing great customer service is crucial to your business, here are some more reasons to pay attention to your customer experience services.
- Good customer service leads to better customer satisfaction. When you focus on customer service and customer experiences, you end up having customers who are happier with the services and the business as a whole. Research shows that companies who focus on customer service can increase customer satisfaction by as much as 20%. By improving your customers’ satisfaction, you can prevent them from leaving bad comments online or telling their friends and family about the bad experience they had with your company. It has been estimated that you need to get 12 positive reviews to make up for one bad one. Given how much more likely people are to complain than compliment, doing whatever you can to prevent people from leaving those bad reviews from being left in the first place.
- Positive customer service and customer experiences leads to more loyalty. It is much more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. By some estimates it can be between six and seven times as pricey to attract those new customers. That means keeping your current customers happy should be your top priority. When you provide excellent customer service, people will want to do business with you or buy products from you again and again. Keep in mind the fact that a person’s first interaction with your business can be the most important. At least 48% of American consumers say that to gain their loyalty, the most important time is when they first use a business’s service or buy something from them. By some estimates, improving customer loyalty will bring in at least 10 times the revenue of a single sale.
- When you supply good customer service, more of the people who work with you will recommend you to their networks. Businesses who provide great customer service and customer experiences get more referrals and great reviews. The Wharton School of Business looked into the value of customer referrals on customer loyalty and they discovered that customers who have been referred to a business by a friend of family member have a 16% higher lifetime value than other customers. People like to ask their friends and family about different businesses and services and they do use the ones that are recommended by the people they know. You will get more referrals when you provide excellent customer service.
- You can build better relationships with your customers and clients. When the service you provide your customers is great, you can build a better relationship. One of the problems facing many businesses today is how to best communicate with their customer base. Many companies send out emails to their customers. The problem is that most people are bombarded with email messages from coworkers, friends, family and businesses who are selling something. If you have loyal customers, those people will be more likely to open your messages than people who have used your services or bought from you that was not great. When someone has an experience that is great, they are going to want to see what you are sending them.
- Good customer service and customer experiences will increase your sales and profits. That should go without saying. Many consumers say that they are willing to spend more on a product or a service if it means that they will get better customer service. Think about that. You can actually charge more for the products and services you provide if you couple the increased price with a better customer service experience.
Your business can only see more profits and have more success by treating your customers better. The good news is doing this costs you nothing.