Whether you are a business owner who provides customer service yourself, you want to hire someone to do it for you, or you are a young person seeking to enter the field of customer service, you must be aware of the most important basics of customer service. If you are the one who will provide customer service, you must know how to provide it correctly, and if you are going to hire someone, you must understand his role well so that you can choose the right employee. And if you are an employee who wants to work as a customer service representative, you must know the basics of customer service because this is what your work will focus on.
Therefore, in this article, we will present the concept of good customer service, its importance, and then the most important basics of customer service. Customer service is about thinking the way customers think and putting customers first, so customer service is one of the essential stages of the success of any business.
What is customer service?
Customer service is the link between the organization and its customers. It works to attract customers and obtain their satisfaction through elegant dealings.
This is done in the form of plans and strategies applied through practices and basics that will gain the customer’s happiness and loyalty, consolidate the relationship with him, and gain his trust, which drives him to be a permanent customer.
Why should you care about customer service?
It must be understood that good customer service that produces results requires a good service or product suitable for the target customer segment. Here are the top reasons why you should follow the basics of customer service:
1. The cost of retaining an existing customer is less than the cost of attracting a new one.
If you have good customer service, you can retain customers, gain their loyalty, and then retarget them again. An increase in the ability to retain a customer by five percent is offset by an increase in profits by up to 25 percent, due to the ease of repeating the previous customer’s dealings with you again by 67 percent, which reduces the overall cost of targeting customers to increase profits.
A lot of research also proves that good customer service that makes customers happy to deal with you increases the turnout of new customers because happy customers will continue to tell those around them about you, and thus good customer service contributes to reducing the total budget for attracting customers. For example, if the cost of attracting ten clients per month is one hundred dollars, this means that the cost of attracting a new customer is ten dollars, and this is called the Customer Acquisition Cost “CAC” account.
But if you provide good customer service, a group of old customers will talk about their experiences with you, so next month you will also pay a hundred dollars to attract ten new customers, but this time it will not be ten customers only, as new customers will come to you from the recommendation of previous customers.
Thus, the cost of attracting one client per month decreases. You also paid a hundred dollars, but for example, you got twelve clients, not just ten.
In research conducted by the marketing research team at Hubspot, a leading marketing services company, it has been proven that the cost of attracting a single customer is high for companies that do not invest a small part of the budget in good customer service, and thus good customer service that satisfies customers reduces the overall cost of attracting new customers.
2. Customer service reflects the brand’s image, vision, and values.
You may know what your brand’s image, vision, and values are, but customers won’t be able to see what’s inside your head. Of course, you may be able to communicate your brand image and vision to customers through commercial advertising, media, etc., but this does not replace good customer service, which works to communicate the image, identity, and vision of the brand to customers as well as convincing them of the superiority of your strengths over competitors.
Without customer service, you lose direct contact with customers. Of course, this applies to all sizes of businesses, even the smallest ones, even if the business itself is a customer service representative. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the application of the basics of customer service on an ongoing basis.
3. Happy customers refer new customers.
The happier your customers are doing business with you by providing good customer service, the more they will love talking about you to friends and family. Marketing research indicates that 77% of customers share positive experiences with brands with others. You can think about this: if you have a great experience when you buy a product or get a service, there is a high probability that you will talk to your friends about it, for example, or you may recommend the brand that you trust to others, and this falls under word of mouth marketing or word of mouth advertising (word of mouse advertising).
Remember, the more planned and tailored your business is to your target customers, the easier it will be to apply the basics of customer service and success. Also, remember that employees who are happy to work with you have the ability to make customers happy, and they will work harder to do so.
4. Good customer service encourages potential customer loyalty.
Maintaining the loyalty of your customers in a world of intense competition is very important, so customer service helps maintain customer loyalty to the brand.
The higher the value of the customer’s life with the company, the higher the revenue that can be expected from one customer over the course of his relationship with the company.
5. Customers are willing to pay more for companies that provide better customer service.
Customers are willing to pay up to 25% more for companies that provide better customer service and care, demonstrating how important customer service is to them and their willingness to pay more for a positive customer experience.
Customers are vulnerable to even one experience; one good experience will be a factor in choosing the same brand again, and one bad experience is enough for customers to flee to competitors.
6. Good customer service is a competitive advantage.
In any work, advancement and advancement of work remain a common factor in industries, which is aided by providing good customer service, which is a competitive advantage for attracting and retaining customers. Sixty percent of customers stop doing business with brands that have bad service. In light of the importance of providing good customer service, the basics of customer service must be known and applied.
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