Delivering great customer service requires a lot of forethought, planning and well-trained people. Surveys reveal that businesses are investing more today than ever before on customer service. However, these same studies also reveal that customers aren’t seeing the results of this investment. Strange but true. So, how can this be? In this article, we look at 10 reasons why companies fail to deliver great customer service.
1. Too Slow to Respond
In our modern high-tech world, customers expect to access services at any time of the day, seven days a week. If your customer service team does not respond immediately to customer emails, or make themselves available by phone, online or on social media to assist them, then watch out because this is when customers will take their business elsewhere.
2. Poor Product Knowledge
The majority of customers today are well informed about products and services, especially after spending time researching company websites. If a customer services team is not properly trained in the products and services they offer, are ill-informed or lacking in product knowledge, this unprofessionalism will simply drive customers away.
3. Too Long, Too Difficult
You may provide your customers with a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service, but if your automated phone system is complicated and protracted, or stacks up customers in frustratingly long queues, you’re just asking for trouble. If customers (especially older ones) struggle to talk to a machine, or have to keep repeating the same information to reach different departments, they will more than likely move to another company. Your systems and processes need to be seamless, so customers can reach people easily and get the answers they need quickly. A 24 hour telephone answering service by companies such as Ansacom could be the answer.
4. Putting Profits Before Customer Service
A proper balance between making money and providing customers with a positive buying experience is vital. Too many companies put profits first, and this is their undoing. If customers are not made to feel important, or experience incompetence, rudeness, pushiness or negativity, they will move to another company before you can say, Good morning, how can I help you?. Sadly, companies who lose customers very rarely win them back, so it putting effort into customer retention is key. Having seen the error of their ways, some companies now offer incentives to their employees to retain customers.
5. Where’s the Personal Touch?
It’s so easy for customer service agents to call up personal information about a customer from their name, phone number, or customer ID. Doing this helps to personalise the conversation and tailor assistance towards what the customer actually needs.
Customer service software can provide all sorts of details, and there’s no substitute for the personal touch. Service agents need to deal with customers politely and respectfully, and very positively, and do all that they can to solve individual problems.
6. ‘Brick Wall’ Company Policies
Although a company has policies and a set script that service agents work to, sometimes a creative solution needs to be found to help solve a unique customer problem. Failing to recognise different needs and solutions, and doggedly sticking to the script, does little to earn a customer’s loyalty.
7. Promised Actions Not Carried Out
Processing simple actions like a change of address is the most basic part of providing customer service. But because of a lack of training, or because of technical glitches in the system, changes like these sometimes never get processed. If customers don’t see the promised action being taken, they lose their trust in the company and that can only mean trouble!
8. Not Exceeding Expectations
Companies need to provide a level of service that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations. In order to impress your customers, you need to wow them every time. To do this, service managers and agents need ongoing training to ensure they’re up-to-date with the latest methods of interacting with customers and providing the best customer experience they can.
9. Poorly Defined Company Goals
Companies must have clear goals and objectives when it comes to customer service. It’s not good enough to tell your service agents to be ‘nice’ – you have to define your own brand of customer service and put this into simple, easy to grasp, terms that can be delivered with every call. For example, a hardware company in the US is advertised to be the most ‘helpful’ hardware store in the world. This key message is conveyed across the company to all its customer services staff, so that the service they deliver is fantastically ‘helpful’ every time.
10. Not Enough Training
It’s frightening to think how many companies place their service agents in customer-facing positions without adequate training. There’s such a great risk that customers will receive the worst kind of service and go elsewhere. Some companies put their agents through weeks of training before they’re permitted work directly with customers, and that’s the way it should be.
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