Have ever been to a store and have received horrible customer service? Maybe their was employee who gave you an attitude or didn’t want to be bothered with helping you out. Maybe you sat in line at McDonald’s or Burger King for 30 mins when you only ordered an ice cream cone. Whatever the situation was, I can guarantee that receiving bad customer service can ruin your entire shopping experience and leave you feeling upset. Here are a couple of reasons why customer service is so important.
It’s What Customers Will Remember: People will always remember if your customer service was really great or really terrible. You definitely don’t want them remember the later. You may be wondering why people remember customer service so vividly, but the answer should be fairly obvious – your customers are actively interacting with you. They aren’t just looking at your products, but speaking and working with someone who is supposed to represent your company. If that person represents your company in a good way, your customers will remember your company fondly. If that person represents your company in a negative way, you’ll probably lose a customer and garner some bad press.
Never be pulled into an argument with a customer. It may be tempting to yell and scream when someone is being unruly themselves, but that’s highly unprofessional. Smiling and staying calm can go a long way.
It’s A Great Marketing Angle: From a purely business standpoint, good customer service is a great marketing angle. It’s something you can tout in your advertisements which is sure to bring you in more customers. People like to hear you have top notch customer service, pure and simple. Anything that can help you with effective marketing is worth the extra effort. This angle works best when other real-life customers are talking about how great your customer service is, so feel free to ask for reviews and testimonials.
Remember that the customer is NOT always right. This may go against everything you ever learned, but it’s the hard truth. Instead of blatantly telling them how wrong they are, however, try calmly explaining things to them. Don’t just say “you’re wrong.” Instead, say, “I apologize, but…”
It Reflects Heavily On Your Entire Business:Everything pertaining to your company reflects upon everything else. You see, if you have good customer service, people naturally assume you have good products. If you have bad customer service, people naturally assume you have bad products. The same goes vice versa, and can pertain to shipping, returns, services, and anything else. Even though this may not be entirely true, you need to be aware that this is how your customers think. Besides, do you really want to patronize a place who has bad customer service? Of course not, because if you run into any issues you can’t be positive you’ll receive the help you need.
Ensure every aspect of your business is up to par. When you have good products, services, shipping, returns, etc., your customers will naturally assume you have good customer service as well. The same is true vice versa. Even better, an all-around approach will ensure your business is the best it can be.