January 19, 2022

The 5 worst examples of customer service (and how to avoid them)

Customer loyalty takes a lot of effort, but one negative experience is all it takes to break the trust. With these tips, your customer service team will be able to consistently avoid the pitfalls. A proactive team can ensure your company becomes a household name for all the right reasons.

You can protect your business and impress your customers if you know how to spot bad customer service.

How did you handle your worst customer service experience? It's not just you -- your customers would probably do the same thing if you stopped doing business with that company.

Loyalty hinges on delivering a great customer experience. It’s not enough to just have a good product. Companies are setting themselves apart by delivering exceptional customer service. Over 75 percent of people are willing to pay more for a brand that delivers extraordinary client relationship management.

The question is: how can you ensure you consistently provide great service? Here are some real-life bad experiences you can avoid.

Person in a computer

What is bad customer service?

Customers who feel unmet expectations experience bad customer service. Having to repeat information multiple times is the leading indicator of poor customer service, along with long wait times, an automated system, and bad client relationship management.

An organization's service to customers is what people expect. When you provide poor customer service, it will reflect negatively on your brand. It is common for customers to tell their complaints on social media when they have a negative client relationship management. Defending yourself against these annoyances is not an option in the digital world of today.

Poor customer service results in negative consequences

Customer churn can be caused by poor customer service. Approximately half of the customers who encounter bad support will switch to a competitor after a single experience. Consider this simple question: Would your company survive if you lost half your customers, dividing your revenue by half? Probably not.

Businesses must deliver exceptional customer service in addition to good products.

But what about those who choose to remain loyal? That's not the case. Nearly 80 percent of customers will leave after experiencing more than one service issue. Just two bad client relationship management can cause most of your clients to leave (and join your competitors)-which can cause your business to suffer.

With the ongoing pandemic, excellent support is even more important. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, customer service requests have increased by 20 percent. You’re reaching out to more buyers online and at home. Making a great impression is more important than ever.

Five examples of poor customer service (and how to rectify the situation)

1. Problem: It seems the company does not feel bad for the upset customer

Girl doing costumer service

You probably get a little jittery when you hear the words "customer complaint.". Businesses cannot avoid complaints completely. Empower your team to handle complaints instead of evading the issue. It is crucial that your support team understands and cares about the needs and frustrations of your customers. Empathy must be demonstrated and felt sincere.

73 percent of customers keep their loyalty by providing a differentiated experience. When you don't meet your customers' needs, you'll suffer from a lack of empathy that affects your business reputation and your client relationship management.

Solution: Emphasize empathy

Customer-centric business models don't just have happy employees; customers come first in everything the organization does. Support teams may see this as:

Hiring support agents who are empathic and factoring that into their selection. The best teams have agents who love interacting with customers and helping people. Consider asking them a few questions when interviewing for customer service positions.

The goal of a contact center is to resolve issues, not to lengthen the call. The customer's issue needs to be addressed as quickly as possible, which means that agents need to spend as much time as is necessary to resolve it. Especially when they're under pressure to have quick call times.

Chatbot widgets that identify common customer complaints can be used to promote proactive support. When agents identify issues before they arise, they have more time to help with complex issues.

The way your agents behave toward buyers could change overnight, even if the system you use to handle complaints doesn't. You can sometimes make an enormous difference by simply letting your customers know you understand their concerns and are determined to resolve them.

2. Problem: Customers have a hard time getting in touch with the company

People doing line in a coffee shop

It is common for consumers to stop trying to reach companies when they are hard to reach. Consumers stopped communicating with the company. If you want to create a positive support experience for your customers, you should make it easy for them to find the information they need, no matter which channel they use. Client relationship management is key

In addition to phone and email, customers are now interacting with support teams through a variety of new channels including SMS, chatbots, voice assistants, messaging apps, and chat.

Solution: Customers should be able to select the channel they prefer

Appearing on the channels your customers use to chat with their family and friends can help you provide better service. You can improve your customer support by following these steps:

Provide omnichannel support. To reach your customers, you need to be on the channels they prefer. With this, you can connect with a fast client relationship management, familiar to today’s generation of smartphone consumers.

Make use of omnichannel customer service software. Switch easily between channels and track all conversations with a tool. In case a customer service issue becomes too complex, agents can transition seamlessly from email to a phone call by using one interface.

Messaging allows you to connect asynchronously. This allows customers to join and leave at their convenience. Agents can handle more customers at once, and resolve more issues faster.

3. Problem: It hurts more than it helps when you use automated telephone prompts

Have a good client relationship management

Long, detailed phone messages are unlikely to resonate with customers, who want their issues resolved quickly. Artificial intelligence has rendered automated phone answering services practically irrelevant, despite their once high-ranking status.

In most cases, customers prefer to resolve issues on their own and are open to using artificial intelligence if it means faster resolutions. It is a win-win for companies and consumers alike when AI is used by high-performing teams.

Solution: AI can help you update your support messages

To connect with a business, you no longer have to endure a series of automated voice messages. The majority of customers prefer to handle issues themselves, and they're open to using AI to resolve problems more quickly. A great client relationship management.

By allowing customers to speak directly to the voice recording, interactive voice response can handle more requests today. As a result of the customer's response, the call is routed to the appropriate agent. Callers can also access prerecorded answers to common questions, empowering them to find the information they need on their own and freeing up the agent to handle more complicated issues.

By quickly dealing with high-frequency, easy-to-answer queries, chatbots can boost your customer experience. Read on to learn how to implement this technology.

The context is crucial. Customer context for chatbots is important, such as if the person has recently returned an item or always buys pants in the same size. Provide your bots with access to this client data backlog using CRM software. With that, the bot will make meaningful and efficient recommendations.

Keep the human element in mind. There must be a human presence behind every well-oiled AI system. When your customer is getting frustrated or if the situation is too complex for a bot to handle, the system has to be able to hand it off to a live agent.

Support is seamless when humans and machines work together. Your customers will leave with a sense of understanding, not frustration.

4. Problem: You have ridiculously long wait times

There has never been a higher expectation of fast customer service and top client relationship management. Over one-third of customers expect to hear back within five minutes by phone.

The digitally savvy consumer of today has no patience to wait, unless it is absolutely necessary. You must know how quickly customers want responses. Is there anything you can do if you can't respond to every call that quickly?

Solution: Reduce wait times by using technology

For good customer service, use tech

The following are ways to meet customer expectations and respond swiftly:

Inform customers of how long they may be on hold with an automated response.

Flag priority customers that need an immediate response so an agent can follow up right away.

Slow processes should be improved. Automations can help you route workflows so that you can assign tickets to the right agents as quickly as possible.

5. Problem: Callers get whiplash from so many transfers

In most cases, when a customer calls for help, it means it is impossible for them to resolve the issue themselves. Most people start by searching a company's website first, as 63 percent do. Therefore, by the time your customers pick up the phone, they are likely already frustrated. You should do whatever you can to help resolve the issue quickly and efficiently-with the least amount of back-and-forth.

Solution: Your customer data should be managed using the right software

For a good service experience, agents must understand the customer's needs. Access to the right tools for that.

Ensure that your customer service team has quick access to customer data in one location. 

Calls can be sorted quickly using IVR. Develop a short series of prompts to get to the heart of a customer's issue, so they're directed to the appropriate department from the get-go. You won't have to bounce them between agents or make them wait on hold.

A general rule of thumb is to avoid transfers on most phone calls. Analyze your current transfer rate and try to determine what triggers transfers. You can lower transfers by investing in group training or focusing agents on specific needs using segmentation.

Put an end to bad customer service

People walking together. Think about a good client relationship management

Customer loyalty takes a lot of effort, but one negative experience is all it takes to break the trust. With these tips, your customer service team will be able to consistently avoid the pitfalls. Using a CRM tool to help your team be proactive can ensure your company becomes a household name for all the right reasons.

Did you learn about customer service and client relationship management? Check some other blogs about these issues here:

From a line on a piece of paper to a final product, the story unfolds from the earliest ideas to individual integrity and strong identity.
Newsletter
Subscribe and check out my weekly blog

Created by Nally Villezca © 2022 | Content by Word Stylers