In a time where customer service is a deciding factor in whether 90% of Americans will or won’t do business with your company, it’s evident that providing a consistently stellar service experience is of critical importance to your business.
For every negative customer experience you’ve encountered, chances are, you can probably recall a few where a representative or a business totally knocked it out of the park by going above and beyond to solve your problem.
With the knowledge that happy customers bring better results for the prosperity of your business, and unsatisfied customers are more than happy to take their business elsewhere based on a service experience alone, it’s essential to ensure your employees are on board and equipped with the necessary tools to go the extra mile in any given customer interaction.
According to Zendesk’s 2022 Customer Experience Trends report, customers have also become even less forgiving following the pandemic, and have actually come to expect more from customer service experiences. In fact, according to the report, 60% of customers will defect after one bad experience (noting a 22% increase from 2021.)
The report also found that customers are onto companies that really just don’t seem to care much about the services experiences they provide. The same Zendesk study states that while 60% of companies said that they provide good customer service, more than half of customers (54%, to be exact) said that customer service seems like an afterthought of businesses they buy from. (Yikes! Talk about a disconnect between businesses and their customers.)
Companies putting customer service at the forefront of their business strategy and setting their teams up with the right tools for success, however, are already ahead of the game, as the study also found that 93% of consumers even noted being willing to spend more with companies that don’t make them repeat themselves in service interactions.
With customer loyalty so easily up for grabs, it’s never been more important to prioritize your service experiences, and provide your team with the tools that enable them to go above and beyond for your customer, time and time again.
So, what is good customer service?
We personally like this definition by HubSpot.
When you build actual relationships with your customers, you create a more personable, memorable experience that caters to the emotions of your customer, and solidifies your bond with them. This not only makes your business and your brand more accessible, but more relatable all around.
Plus, who doesn't want to do business with someone they've already established a solid relationship with?
What does good customer service look like?
HubSpot provides some stellar examples of great customer service from some big brands (both b2b and b2c), as well as some key takeaways you can try out with your own team. We’ve found this to be a great resource for multiple industries, and have also found that many of the examples offered a great deal of autonomy and resources that enable teams to truly go the extra mile for their customer.
One of our favorite examples:
The Ritz-Carlton Company is known to give employees the ability to spend up to $2,000 solving customer problems (and here’s the kicker) – without needing to seek approval. But before you write off this example based upon the $2,000 sticker shock alone, the greater reason Ritz-Carlton implemented such a policy to begin with is important for any customer service team to consider.
This is a company that prioritizes employee engagement and relationship building, because it believes that engagement is the key to cultivating an environment and culture where employees are dedicated to, and prioritize customer interactions and experience above all else.
Check out “What Good Customer Service Looks Like + Examples” for more on this, and other great illustrations of what companies are doing to raise the bar on their customer service experiences.
Consumers have made it clear that the service experiences your business provides is a primary reason for doing - or not doing - business with your company. This fact alone has made it evident that cultivating a customer-first environment and providing your teams with the tools they need to nimbly adjust to consumer demands will determine the trajectory of your business success and growth for years to come. (It'll also help you keep an edge on, and stand out from your competitors.)
How do you provide a consistently good customer service experience?
The good news is that there are plenty of great customer service platforms that will help you keep up with the changing consumer landscape, and implementing practices like integrating your call center with your customer service platform will ensure you’re providing a reliable, consistent, personable, and delightful experience every time.
If you’re considering revamping your customer service processes to keep up, or if thinking about implementing a simple and connected platform that will enable your team to easily provide the service today’s customer expects, we’re here to help!
HubSpot's Service Hub is an all-in-one suite of customer support tools that help teams to seamlessly manage intake and triage, so you can efficiently troubleshoot and solve any issues that arise. The Service Hub platform is also integrated with HubSpot’s free CRM, and was built to connect marketing, operations, and other business processes to ensure a coherent and consistent end-to-end customer service experience every time. When teams are connected and have full, rich context of all customer data and interaction history in a centralized location within HubSpot, once seemingly complicated customer issues can be consistently addressed efficiently and without a hitch.
Take a look at some of HubSpot’s latest Service Hub updates that ensure teams are staying on their “A” game.
As one of HubSpot’s leading Service Hub consultants and implementation experts, ManoByte’s team has helped hundreds of companies transform and optimize their business processes that enable teams to deliver a consistently delightful customer experience that modern companies need to thrive.
