The Importance Of Customer Service: Why Businesses Need To Maintain A Positive Reputation
Customer service can make or break a business. It can influence a potential customer’s perception of the business before they even speak to a representative at the company. A bad customer service reputation can be costly for a company. Reports highlight that 14% of start-ups in the UK fail due to ignoring customers.
To avoid being included within that statistic, here are a few ways that businesses can deliver an excellent service for their customers and continue operating.
How To Deliver An Excellent Service
With careful planning and the determination to do well, companies can deliver excellent customer service. Some of the ways can be minor changes to their current routine. For instance, being more personal in emails, giving clear advice, providing them with all the information they have asked for, and more.
Delivering outstanding service to a customer does not have to be financially costly for companies. All it takes is a few careful planning and the right strategies to provide an excellent service. These are some ways your company can deliver an excellent service to your customers.
Solid Business Process
The business process is a vital component of a business. It is the company’s plan to ensure that everything runs smoothly, with work being delivered to high standards and mistakes kept to a minimum. With this plan, employees can provide a consistent service which ensures that the company operates efficiently. This efficient way of working can help employees respond to customers quickly and effectively, answering any queries and resolving any issues they might have.
Listen To Customers
Answering queries and resolving issues for customers are simple ways to keep customers happy and wanting to continue investing in the company. Listening to what customers have to say about the service, product, and overall experience working with the company can be valuable for business.
The feedback provided by customers can be beneficial for the company and how it performs. It can highlight any areas that could do with improvement, what didn’t work well and what did. With this information, business leaders can introduce changes and alter how the company operates. Some of these changes could help make a noticeable improvement in the company.
The changes made will not go unnoticed by customers. They will see that the company has taken their feedback to heart and updated how the business operates to perform better and deliver an excellent service to customers. Seeing this will have a positive and lasting impact on customers. They will likely feel valued and heard by the company. It increases the possibility of them returning to the company in the future.
Consider The Delivery
From the moment a customer interacts with the business to after receiving their goods, it needs to be a positive experience. If your company sells a physical product that customers purchase, the delivery of the product must also be a positive experience for customers.
Customers want to be informed about when they should expect the delivery of a product. Before they place an order, they want to know the estimated date and time of arrival. Should there be any changes, such as delays or arriving sooner than expected, they want to be made aware of any developments.
With vehicle tracking, your company can closely monitor the delivery process of a customer’s order. Investing in vehicle tracking is simple. For example, businesses like iCompario offer vehicle tracking for companies. It allows companies to track each vehicle, from its location to driver activity and driving performance. Knowing the vehicle’s location, companies can inform customers about an estimated arrival time for the products they have ordered.
An additional benefit of vehicle tracking is monitoring how your delivery drivers drive. The driving performance of your delivery drivers can impact your business. If they get into accidents due to bad driving or when using the company’s vehicles unauthorised, it can all reflect poorly on the business. Using vehicle tracking can help your business ensure that each driver delivers the products to customers safely and responsibly.
Offer Personalised Services
No customer wants to feel like a number. They want to feel like a human whose voices and opinions are heard and valued. Delivering personalised service to customers is a simple way to achieve this. If a customer has encountered an issue with the service or product they have received, they want to resolve the problem swiftly. Speaking with multiple contacts in a company to fix one issue can be frustrating for some. It can cause them to view the company in a negative light. This issue can easily be avoided by providing personalised services to each customer.
Why A Positive Reputation Is Important
As you can see, delivering excellent customer service will not set the company back financially. Instead, it can help prevent the company from losing customers and gaining a poor reputation. Here are a few reasons why a positive reputation is important in business.
Free Marketing Tool
Online reviews are powerful. Potential customers use online reviews to make informed decisions about whether to invest in a company. Customers post reviews online about their experience with a company, both positive and negative. A company that is highly rated with countless dazzling reviews will likely attract the attention of potential customers. If potential customers see a business with low ratings and negative reviews, they are less likely to work with them.
From a business perspective, having positive online reviews can be a free marketing tool that is effective. With 89% of SMEs in the UK using their online reviews as a marketing tool, it shows the benefits your company could reap should you do the same.
Advantage Over Competitors
Boasting a positive reputation can help your company build its competitive advantage. Most industries are bubbling with competition, so, understandably, businesses want to stand out amongst the rest. If your company has a positive reputation for delivering excellent customer service and a quality product or service, it could help attract customers to your business.
Attract New Employees And Investors
Growing a company is an exciting time for a business. To achieve this, they need to ensure that they have the proper support to help them. This includes new team members to help with the workload and investors to help with funding the growth.
It is not just customers that can leave reviews about a company. Former employees also have the power to post reviews about what it is like to work for a company. These reviews can provide a glimpse to potential employees about what they can expect should they choose to work for the company.
Companies with high turnover rates and numerous negative reviews can turn potential candidates and investors away. This can make it challenging for companies to grow. Ensuring that most, if not all, reviews online posted by employees are positive can help a company attract new employees and investors when the time comes to expand.
The Bottom Line
Customer service is an essential part of the business. The power it holds to influence the company’s success is mighty. It is understandable that any business will want to deliver an excellent service. Fortunately, building a positive image around a company can be possible with careful planning and the right strategies implemented.
If you are looking to improve your company’s reputation, consider implementing some of the strategies mentioned to reap the benefits of a positive status.
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