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When you’re working out the budget for your business, where do you allocate funds? The product team? Marketing? One frequently overlooked department is the customer service team. Companies’ customer service representatives are one of the most important aspects of any business in any industry.
Customer service representatives are your company’s lifeline between you and your customers. This team represents the face of your company, even when it’s over the phone. One company in particular that knows the importance of quality customer service is Bright Pattern. So we turned to these experts to learn exactly why customer service is essential.
Retaining customers is more cost-efficient than gaining new customers.
The customer acquisition cost (CAC) represents how much it costs a company to bring on a new customer. In most cases, the CAC is much higher than the cost of retaining your existing customers. In addition, increasing your customer retention percentage by even 5 percent can lead to as much as a 25 percent increase in profits.
Your existing customers are more likely to spend more with your company, which means you’ll spend less on operating expenses. In addition, your current customers are already familiar with your brand and products. Therefore, they’re more likely to try new products, upgrade existing products, and add to their purchases than new customers. As a result, customer retention will save you money on your overall CAC while increasing profits with additional purchases.
Your customer service professionals represent your company’s image and values.
Business owners know what they want their brand to represent. However, customers can’t simply take their word for it without experiencing it first-hand. Indeed, your customers will have an idea of what your company represents created by your social media presence, advertisements, and other marketing strategies. However, your company’s customer service representatives have much more influence than any social media post or newsletter.
Customer service representatives speak directly with your customers, giving them the responsibility of being the face of your establishment. The vast majority of consumers report that customer service is the deciding factor in their brand choice. With friendly, helpful customer service professionals, your company can relay the image and establish the reputation you want to represent.
Happy customers will refer new customers to your business.
When your customers are happy, they’re more likely to refer your business to their friends and family. Likewise, more than half of consumers will refer someone after having a positive experience with a company. These experiences cause a chain reaction among consumers.
Your existing customers will share their overwhelmingly positive customer experience with others, creating new customers who will then begin sharing their positive experiences, and so forth. Word-of-mouth advertising is the oldest, most affordable, and most successful form of marketing. In modern times, this word-of-mouth advertising is the sole responsibility of your customer service professionals.
Omnichannel solutions can improve your company’s customer service.
For years, businesses have been exploring new, advanced ways to engage with their customers digitally. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, advanced digital communication, such as social media, live chats, or video calls in addition to phone communication, has become a necessity instead of a luxury. In addition, most customers prefer using these communication channels, and soon they’ll expect them from every major company. As a result, businesses need omnichannel contact center software solutions for their customer service representatives to provide the highest-quality customer service to produce the results mentioned above.
Omnichannel integration creates a seamless customer experience. Traditionally, companies had various channels for customers to interact independently, such as phones, social media, and websites. However, with an omnichannel contact center solution, these channels are linked together so customer information and messages can be shared between them. As a result, customers can reach out to your customer service professionals on any channel to get an immediate response from a representative with all the information to help them from other channels.
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This content is brought to you by Sonia Iqbal
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