Excellent Customer Service Has Become Imperative to Business Success
As technology has evolved over the years, a shift in the overall business landscape has occurred.
In the past, companies held most of the power by offering customers limited options for products and solutions. Today, however, consumers dictate the direction in which companies grow and evolve their product and service offerings.
Consumers have never had more options to choose from in terms of which companies they give their patronage to. If a customer has a bad experience, you are likely to lose that customer. Additionally, their negative opinion could spread on the internet and damage your brand reputation.
Thanks to social media in particular, today’s consumers demand that companies leave them more satisfied than ever before by providing excellent customer service.
Opinions and sentiments held by customers have never been more impactful to the success or failure of a business. It’s never been easier for a dissatisfied customer to shout their opinion from a theoretical mountaintop in the form of a viral social media post.
Due to these shifts in consumer demands, providing excellent customer service must be a top priority for enterprises of all sizes, in all industries.
Measuring Customer Satisfaction
With excellent customer service being a top priority, it’s essential to measure progress closely and routinely by evaluating rates of customer satisfaction.
Related: Best Practices for Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Alchemer has published lots of great content to help you learn and maintain best practices for measuring customer satisfaction with surveys. If you feel that you could benefit from a refresher on how to effectively measure and improve customer satisfaction over time, be sure to check out the following resources:
- How to Use Customer Satisfaction Surveys the Right Way
- Sample Questions: Customer Satisfaction Surveys
- Increase Your Customer Satisfaction Survey Response Rate
- Turning Customer Satisfaction Survey Results into Action
- Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Always a Good Thing?
NPS surveys also shed light on the areas of your business that are leaving customers dissatisfied. By highlighting these areas, you can then allocate the appropriate attention and resources to fix any issues that may be hurting your brand reputation.
Setting Goals to Achieve Excellent Customer Service
Not every business will provide excellent customer service from the start.
This process begins with setting goals. Send out a survey to your current customers asking what they think of your customer service. Ask questions that reveal both what needs improvement and how to make those improvements.
Once you’ve established a baseline understanding of how your typical customer feels about your customer service, it’s time to set tangible, measurable, and realistic goals.
Your internal team should determine the timeline for these goals, but setting monthly, quarterly, and annual goals is a good idea.
Setting both short-term and long-term goals enables you to constantly keep excellent customer service top of mind as a high priority initiative for your organization. Consistently check NPS scores and other customer satisfaction metrics to understand how customers feel about their interactions and whether they remain satisfied month to month, quarter to quarter, and year to year.
By striving to provide your customers with excellent customer service, you’ll be setting your business up for long-term success.
