Business Survival Guide – Top 5 Reasons why customer service is vital to business success

1) Retaining customers makes a Happy Business
Quite simply, if you do not keep your customers happy, they will go to a competitor and continue to spend money there and replacing them is an expensive task.

A study by Harvard Business Review suggests that acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.

2) Happy customers usually spend more
The goal in business is always the same, make money, and that is what business owners strive for every day. So, it does not matter if you are selling phones, furniture, clothes, professional services, or something in between… The more customers you have spending with you, means more success.

The customer journey is important, from the initial engagement and onboarding, nurturing through the sales cycle, and the after sales care. If customers have a pleasant and efficient experience, they spend money with you and recommend you to others.

Research from Harvard Business Review shows that a key element to making more money is to invest in customer service.

3) Customers that feel loved, will usually come back for more

Customer service is the key to success for any business. It is understood from research that 93% of loyal customers are likely to make repeat purchases from a business that offers excellent customer service, and repeat customers return better on investment than any other area by 140%.

For those looking for an easy way build their repeat clientele, investing in quality customer service should be a top priority.

4) It only takes one bad apple to spoil an entire barrel!
Poor customer service is a common issue that can negatively affect your brand. In one of Microsoft’s recent studies, it was found that 61% of people have switched to another company because they felt the customer service offered by their previous provider was not up to par with what they expected.

The notion that bad news travels 7 times faster than good news is still correct in its foundations, however, in these modern times with social media, messaging apps and other technology, research from MIT suggests that that bad news travels 10 to 20 times faster, possibly more.

To add some perspective, Twitter has over 192m daily active users, and Facebook has 1.8bn active users each day… Any kind of news travels fast, so hopefully it will be good news about your brand.

5) Build trust with excellent customer service, and reap the reward

Competing on price and / or quality is simply not enough, it is important to consider the entire customer experience, and there is a limited number of chances to get things right for them.

It is going to be near impossible to have a perfect customer experience every time… For whatever reason, sh*t happens, and it is how you deal with it that matters. A single bad experience or blip in a process is not usually enough to drive customers away, however, it can be hard (and can be expensive) to make up from a bad experience, so it is best to try to avoid that entirely where possible.

Try to have a consistent approach to your customer journey, deal with any questions or issues as swiftly as possible, and that will help build trust with the customer and your brand.