They say “Customer is King” because it is the customer who drives a company’s bottom line. The concept of customer service has gained significant recognition in the world of business, and every enterprise is always looking to have a highly satisfied set of customers. From complaints desk to service desks, customer care desks, and customer experience departments, businesses are pulling the best of their energies to ensure all their customers continue enjoying the best services ever.
How a company handles customer complaints will have a significant impact on its reputation and overall profitability.
Improving Customer Satisfaction
By implementing progressive policies and procedures to improve customer’s brand experience, a firm can register a high number of satisfied customers, thus increasing customer retention and additional revenues. Experts agree that customer complaints can help an organization achieve even better customer satisfaction ratings than it would have had there been no complaint at all when handled with exceptional skills. This technique has come to be known as service recovery.
Keeping your existing customer happy is less expensive than acquiring a new customer. For you to get a new client, you must spend money to make your brand known and convince him or her to start buying your product. On the other hand, holding on to your existing loyal customer requires less effort, money, and less time. For example, barbers know that it is easier to have their existing customers come back for a haircut than convincing a new customer to try their services.
When a customer takes a complaint to your customer service, the resultant experience becomes the brand experience—this step is necessary since it allows the customer to restore the trust they had in the brand. Suppose a company can present a positive brand experience. In that case, they are more likely to increase their loyalty, and it is loyal customers that are likely to make repeat purchases. Essentially, this yields higher profits over time for as long as you hold the relationship with the customer. This means that the more a customer is satisfied, the more likely you are able to record a higher customer lifetime value (CLV).
“With higher profits, an enterprise could inject more money in product promotion campaigns and advertisements to attract even more customers. However, if an organization sacrifices the quality of the customer service, it will, without a doubt, lose the loyalty of its current customers and fail to impress new ones,” explains CarGuard Trevor Smith, an executive that has spent much time developing an excellent customer service strategy within his company.
For this reason, businesses need to rethink their customer service and renew their relationships with their customers for better returns. While customer complaints may have adverse short-term effects on a company, cutting corners on this crucial element can have even more severe ramifications for a business in the long run. Businesses that view their customers as having lifetime value are able to consider their customers are their most significant assets and hence able to manage them carefully.
CarGuard Trevor Smith and the Importance of Customer Service
According to CarGuard Trevor Smith, loyal customers are supposed to be a brand’s advocate.
Smith explains, “Customers who have a positive customer service experience are more likely to recommend the business to other people, and the opposite is always true. Therefore, the more you impress your customers through quality customer service, the more you increase your customer base.”
Trevor Smith echoes the words of Sernovitz in his book “Word of Mouth Marketing,” who found that for every person a satisfied customer talks to, an unsatisfied customer talks to five. However, a previously unsatisfied customer who is made happy will tell ten more others about the experience. Therefore, Trevor Smith says, “a positive customer or brand experience can greatly undo a bad brand experience.”
