Businesses are in a dire situation today due to the current economic recession. We have seen many small businesses getting closed and many others are struggling to make ends meet or are barely floating. This has happened mainly because of the pandemic that struck the world in 2020 and is still prevailing in many parts of the world. The pandemic not only created a medical crisis but its impending after-effects in the shape of lockdowns have hampered economies so badly that many economists predict that this financial crisis is an even more severe one as compared to the economic crisis of 2007-08. Since business has shut down, offices are working at half capacities and the only aspects of the economy that are fully functioning are working over the internet which, to be honest, is not enough. All this has led to a serious economic depression which has pushed numerous individuals to the brink of unemployment. In wake of these job losses, the buying power of the average consumer has been drastically reduced without Good Customer Service.
Now since people don’t have extra cash to spend carelessly, this has resulted in a totally different consumer trend in which buyers are extremely cautious about spending their hard-earned money. So, as a result, they first do thorough research about a business and its products before deciding to spend money on an entity, and the biggest deciding factor in this research is good customer service.
Most of the research is done over the internet since it is the most convenient medium to get information about any particular brand or product. Everything regarding reviews to customer interactions and any type of information about an entity is available on the internet today.
Customer service is especially important in the service rendering industry since there is no physical product, the quality of service and good customer support are the two main things that matter the most in this type of industry. An example of this can be found in Cox Communications which is the third-largest cable provider in the country and it is only because of Cox customer service that it has reached this height of popularity among consumers.
Why Customer Service is Important?
The importance of customer service can be explained in such a way that many high-profile businessmen consider customer service to be the backbone of the entire business structure. Unfortunately, the current state of business is that many high-profile business entities have put customer service on the back burner because of two main reasons.
The first reason is that they don’t have enough resources or they think that customer service is a resource-heavy task that they won’t be able to afford in the current financial landscape. The second reason is that many businesses don’t consider customer service too vital for revenue generation. Both these statements are way far from the truth as good customer service can be carried out with quite little resources if done right and the importance of customer service is huge for the long-term survival of a business, something which we will dig into in detail.
Plus, there are a lot of other factors like customer satisfaction, brand value, customer retention, and loyalty which are some of the factors that directly influence the sales of a business and these are the vital components that are directly related to good customer service. We have described all these factors in detail below.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is quite vital to a business. It is a scale that determines how satisfied a customer is with a brand, its services, and its products. The more customer satisfaction, the better opportunities a business has to upsell and create a vacuum to sell more products like bundles. Moreover, a satisfied customer also becomes a free marketing tool because of the positive word of mouth, and no type of marketing is as effective as positive feedback from existing customers which becomes the basis of attracting new potential buyers.
Customer satisfaction is a factor that is entirely dependent on good customer service because no matter how good your product or services and how much you have spent on their marketing, in the end, it comes to the end-user experience who is going to use those products and services. As long as they are getting relevant assistance and the right answers to their queries, the graph of customer satisfaction is going to go up, which is only possible through good customer service.
Brand Image
The perception of the image of a brand is everything in the consumer market. Businesses don’t really sell on their products or service, in fact, they sell on their brand value. The most common cause of this can be seen in form of Apple Inc. which despite making expensive phones that according to some are low in features in comparison to their competitors is still making billions of dollars each year and is the top mobile phone brand in the world. This is only because of the brand value that they have created over time.
Customers today go for brand value and the image of a business in the market and the biggest thing that makes or breaks the image of a brand in the market is its customer service. Good customer service creates brand value due to positive interactions with customers while bad customer service has the potential to destroy the image of a business and even shut it down consequently.
Customer Retention
Customer Retention is also a very important thing for any business as retaining a customer takes 25 percent less than acquiring a new customer. Plus the consumer psyche in the United States is that users don’t like to switch companies and would like to stick to only a single provider as long as they get good services. So, in a way customer retention is a win-win situation for both consumers and businesses and the most important part in retaining a customer is through good customer service because customers like to stick to the business through which they can get quick assistance regarding any of their problems. Moreover, this also invokes a sense of brand loyalty in customers. So good customer service is key for customers in making decisions to stick with a provider.
Summing Up
Customer service is something that directly influences some of the core factors of running a successful business like the ones mentioned above. These are many features that compels consumers to stick to the same company, thus since all these factors are influenced by customer services, that means the consumer trends prefer those companies that have a good customer service in the light of the components mentioned above.
