Customer service

Customer service means providing support to the existing customers of the business and also the prospective customers in the future. Customer service is also the base to your customers being happy which turns into your customers being more satisfied with your products and also more likely to come back to buy again. Customer service can be done in many different ways, a lot of businesses do it trough phone,. Email, chat-bots, social media or in-person. (HelpScout 2022.) The interaction that is happening one on one with the customer, is often seen as a critical part in the customers decision making when thinking if they are going to buy something or not. Nowadays a lot of times customer service is being moved on to automated versions where chat-bots answer to the customers questions, but there is still a lot of businesses that think in the old fashioned way and want the interactions to happen face to face. The moment a buyer interacts with a company’s customer service is moment that shapes their whole picture about the company and that is one of the reasons why customer service is so important. (HelpScout 2022.)

Why is customer service so important?

Customer service is more to some companies than others, and that depends on how the company feels about customer service. Some companies are going for the modern style of automating everything including the customer service which takes away from the customer service because the customer does not get the real feeling of interacting with a human when they are talking to a chat bot. Other companies in the other hand value the face to face and human to human interaction so much that they won’t change their customer service to the automated style. When the customer gets to work with a professional of customer service, they get the feeling that they are being listened to and they can also feel the empathy from customer service worker. This interaction can be seen many times as the breaking point if the customer is going to stay with you or if they are going to leave. All of this is something that the automated chat bots can not provide for the customer, which might result in the customer just going somewhere else to buy the same product and you losing a customer. (Mitchell 2023.)

When a customer is going to an customer service they are usually looking for an answer for some question thatnthey have or some problem that they have, regarding to a study 46% of customers are frustrated with customer service.  (RemoteHQ) This is because the customer service is not qualified enough to answer the question or problem. This unsatisfaction that is left for the customer is always bad image for the company that they are dealing with and it is also the reason why companies should put more focus on their customer service because it is really a important part of the businesses nowadays. There are so much competition in all of the business sections that losing a customer is never a good thing for a business. (RemoteHQ)

When the customer leaves the interaction with the customer service with solutions and is also satisfied with the answer that they got, then they will also be more satisfied with the company and they will stay as your customer.  The customers want their problems and questions answered as quickly as possible. The quickness of the answers is a really important matter for a lot of customers. This is why people don’t want to fill different kinds of forms or wait on hold in a phone call or talking to a robot. Most of the customers want to solve their problems with a real human who can understand the situations and the customer doesn’t have to worry about waiting because they’ll get their answer immediately from the person that is working. Also for this reason some companies value the importance of customer service done by real humans rather than the chat bots on their website. (RemoteHQ)

Good customer service can also be seen as a positive effect inside the company.  When the customer service is done well, the other workers don’t have to listen to the customers complaining about the problems that they have or answering questions from the unsatisfied customers. If it happens that the other employees have to also listen to the mad customers apart from the customer service employees, it will effect the whole working space and might result in demotivation and that results in unsatisfied employees as well. Nowadays people do not stay in jobs where they feel themselves too stressed or underappreciated so the importance of the good customer service comes up again. So when the customers can be held happy, the satisfaction of the employees is also likely to be higher and the company will be succeeding better. (RemoteHQ)

Conclusion

To sum up the topic I’d say that customer service is nowadays a really important aspect in businesses daily life. The satisfaction of the customers is really important for the company and every customer is important for them so they have to be treated in a way that they don’t leave the company for a competitor. Some companies decide to do their customer service remotely by using chat bots but from the customers point of view it is better if it is done by real employees so the customers can have the interactions with real employees and the problems can be solved quickly and effectively.

Sources

Helpscout. 2022. 21 Key Customer Service Skills (And How To Develop Them). Read on 7.4.2023. https://www.helpscout.com/blog/customer-service-skills/

Mitchell, G. 2023. What Is Customer Service, and What Makes It Excellent?. Read on 20.4.2023. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/customer-service.asp

RemoteHQ. 21 Reasons Why Customer Service Is So Important for 2022. Read on 20.4.2023. https://www.remotehq.com/customer-service/12-reasons-why-customer-service-is-so-important#:~:text=Why%20Is%20Customer%20Service%20So,talent%2C%20and%20foster%20brand%20loyalty.