Customer service experience has always played an important role in the success and growth of any business. However, its importance is measured through a consistent increase in revenue. Hence, no company can afford to undervalue the significance of a good customer experience. Such an excitable competitive business era shows the impact of bad customer service interaction on a business. It also depicts the advantages of an effectively operating customer support department.
Good customer service can go a long way. So, the success of a business is highly linked with customer service. When the service standards decline, the company experiences adverse effects with severe consequences on the general business. Many businesses are impacted by the bad customer experience, especially the telecom industry. Some of the reasons behind such customer service are discussed below.
Telecom Industry – Worst at Customer Experience
First of all, an amalgamation of the telecom industry generates an adverse environment for the progress of customer experience. The telecoms develop greater and dominate the market, so it ends up eliminating competition and an incentive to increase. As a result, the customer suffers bad customer service and customer experience, whereas the telecommunication industry appreciates the greatest improvements in the market share. Some of the key issues with the bad customer experience are described below.
Lacks Reliable Customer Experience
An individual does not know what anyone else is doing at the moment. Most telecoms disregard the importance of a constant customer experience. A recent study has shown that customers have to get back to the beginning of every visit because none of the customer call information is ever recorded.
Lacks Customer Centricity
The customers chase the company, so they tolerate a harrowing process of trying to check over the issue by transferring the customer over to a department. Here, the customer is not treated well and no one properly helps the customer out. As a result, the lack of customer-centricity is unacceptable and never creates a win-win situation.
Lacks Follow-Through
Whenever the customers have any issue or problem, they connect the customer care. However, when it comes to the follow-through of any reported issue then the staff is still unaware of the issue at hand and its supposed solution. As a result, the customers’ issues are not dealt with properly, which leads to a negative customer experience.
Impact of Bad Customer Experience
As per the recent study, customer experience highly impacts the product and price as the main brand differentiator. In addition, it continues to be a crucial and influential element for most customers. Companies must fathom the way poor service experience impacts the overall brand. The poor customer experience affects the business in various ways. For instance, these unsatisfied customers never use the company again, tell the friends and family about the experience, and escalate to a manager or supervisor. So, the major implications of poor customer service led to an increased churn rate. By delivering a good experience, the customers come back but an instance of substandard service is sufficient to shift to a new company.
On the other hand, it also impacts brand loyalty, so customer loyalty is a robust predictor of the long-term viability of a business. Whereas, the bad customer experience impacts the customer lifetime value because they leave the company after an adverse customer support experience. As a result, brand image and loyalty are inter-connected, and losing any loyal customers impacts the overall brand. In terms of attaining new customers, it costs a company a lot more than keeping a current customer. When the standards of customer service decline, the extent of touchpoints increases. Hence, it has a severe influence on the costs of customer service.
Importance of Customer Service in Business
The customer service and resultant experience hold a great level of importance as it sets the particular business apart from its competitors. As a result, it makes the people loyal to the company, its services, and its products for a long period. As a Trends Report, around 77 percent of customers state that they are more loyal to companies that provide a great service. However, it is only possible if the business prioritizes customer service. The report also showed that almost half of customers switch to a company’s competitor after having a bad experience. Furthermore, the importance of customer service and experience is becoming more significant in this digital era. To position themselves to success and growth, companies have to integrate service into the customers’ journey at each point of interaction.
Main Reasons Behind the Bad Customer Experience
There are many reasons behind labeling a business with the worst customer service tag. However, the business can enhance its customer service and experience by working out and eliminating these reasons.
Failure to Resolve Issues Initially
A faster solution in the first touchpoint is amongst the main principles of customer service. After the identification of customer issues in the first touchpoint, the faster resolution leads to a reduced number of touchpoints. The identification of issues at the touchpoint plays a vital role. It helps a company to gain a visual understanding of the issue. Furthermore, it aids in improving customer satisfaction and offering a real solution.
However, this issue can be resolved by utilizing love engagement features like video chat and co-browsing. It assists the companies to improve one of the major metrics, such as average resolution time. Such tools aid the business to overcome the bad customer experience to a good experience. In addition, it also helps in having direct conversations through video chat, which further assists in understanding the issue with clarity. As a result, the company can render the best virtual in-person experience and technical support.
Lack of Real-Time Support
Around 90 percent of customers state the immediate response as the most crucial aspect during conveying their queries. All customers await real-time responses. It also indicates that the channels’ response time should be reasonable. As a result, the companies focusing on all-around support enhance customer satisfaction that build loyalty, and increase revenue. When it comes to delivering real-time support, chatbots and live chat are considered to be the most efficient communication channels.
Furthermore, businesses can offer real-time support to customers through live chat. Live chat assists in initiating a practical chat with website customers and visitors to offer the right guidance. In addition, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots can also be used to enhance the rates of customer satisfaction and answer the FAQs promptly. Hence, a company can automate the conversations to deliver constant engagement to customers whenever the employees are unavailable and busy.
No Customer Service Protocol
It is essential to serve the customers with a pleasing smile. In addition, it is also important for the support team to acquire and follow the proper protocol and right skills. Furthermore, it helps the team to utilize better phrases for efficient customer service. As a whole, it assists in building great success stories and decreases the adverse effect of customer support. However, there are several major areas of customer service skills. For instance, the practice of clear communication is quite significant and imperative. Furthermore, it offers authentic data about services and products to evade upcoming confusion among customers. Hence, it is crucial to be aware of brand offers and discounts before offering them to customers to uphold brand efficiency.
Apart from this, it is also critical to understand customer psychology. Such as, the customer support team should listen to customers’ issues, value them, and provide rapid solutions. The companies that aim on understanding the customers’ psychology offer a greater level of intuitive support. In addition, they also offer better customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it is also better to use positive phrases and scripts. Hence, every company should create customer service scripts as per different scenarios where the support team has to address customers. As a result, it helps in delivering a consistent brand experience and faster responses.
Ineffective Customer Support Team
A devoted support team is behind the success of every business. Therefore, a lack of a competent team can lead to the worst customer service and experiences. By missing out on this element, the respective business may not be able to provide proactive support. So, it leads to the deflection of brand reputation, loss of loyal customers, and further customer complaints. As a result, it reveals and discloses the importance of building a competent and experienced support team. Although, this issue can be easily overcome with regular training about the company products and format to follow while dealing with customers. Lastly, all of the vital business information across the entire support team should be shared to make them knowledgeable about the solutions and issues. Hence, every telecom company should aim on resolving these reasons to eliminate bad customer experiences.
