(Newswire.net — May 10, 2023) —
When you are running your business on a tight budget, there are a plethora of high-priority departments to consider when allocating funds. Your customer support department must be one of these departments. The benefits of having a well-funded customer service department shouldn’t be underrated. In fact, they could make or break your business’s image.
What Is Customer Support?
Customer support encompasses how your business communicates with its clients, both in everyday transactions and as a problem-solving option when certain issues arise. The success of your company’s customer service has a meaningful and direct impact on your brand’s profitability as it serves as the first response to your client’s needs and is pivotal for long-term client retention. Here’s why investing in your business’s customer support department now will pay dividends in several ways later:
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Acquisition Is More Expensive Than Retention
While customer service jobs can be quite high-budget, they will never be as costly as customer acquisition cost (CAC), or how much it takes to acquire a new and loyal customer. According to research, CAC is much higher for businesses that don’t invest a considerable percentage of their budget in customer support. Investing in professional customer support can reduce your attrition rate. Decreasing the attrition rate will reduce the amount you have to expend on attracting new clients and reduce the CAC.
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Increases Employee Retention
Employees would always prefer to work for businesses that treat their clients fairly. When employees realize that your business prioritizes delivering excellent customer service over anything else, they will be more willing to become proponents of the company’s values. They will not only remain with your business long-term but also be engaged in their duties.
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Clients Will Spend More On Businesses With Great Customer Service
It’s impossible to place a price on excellent service, and a remarkable number of consumers are open to paying a surcharge to acquire it. Clients will always place an impressive value on how a company’s customer support department treats them. Companies can profit directly from positive customer service encounters. More than 80% of people reported that they’d be open to paying extra to get a superior experience. In an age where businesses are learning to focus on customer support, any business that’s not ready to do so will fold with time.
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Boosts Customer Lifetime Value
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a crucial metric when you are managing a company. CLV portrays the accumulated revenue you should expect from one customer account. Increasing this metric means your clients shop more occasionally or spend more at your business. However, many businesses still have a lot to do when it comes to utilizing this metric to its full potential; just 42% of businesses can properly measure CLV. Investing in the customer support department is a great way to boost customer lifetime value. When customers have an excellent experience with your company’s customer support department, they will be more likely to work with your company.
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Reinforces Company Brand and Values
Your customer support department communicates daily with your customers, meaning that they are responsible directly for representing the brand’s values and mission. Excellent customer service can result in word-of-mouth recommendations and favorable reviews, which will give your company a positive public image. A positive public image can improve the way people perceive your business, services, or products.
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Proactively Addresses Client Issues
Proactive customer support is when your team reaches out to customers even before they are aware that issues exist. By being extra proactive with your consumer support strategy, you can inform customers that you are working to enhance the consumer experience. If there’s a group of clients, for example, who have complained about a common issue and you released a new feature or product that fixed this problem, you can utilize your ticketing system to discover those clients and then make contact to inform them about the new service or feature. This approach is quite profitable because customers will acknowledge that you are working to resolve issues for them.
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Boosts Your Conversion Rate
Your business’s conversion rate can increase by up to 8% if you include personal customer experiences. An increased conversion rate will result in more sales and ultimately more income. Customer service ensures that the flywheel keeps moving. However, services that aren’t personalized and make customers feel like just ticket numbers in the system harm customer retention. About 33% of customers have reported that they terminated their relationship with a business because the business failed to adequately personalize the experience. Excellent customer service has become an expectation from every consumer.
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Improves Company Culture
A strong company culture will go a long way for your brand. Your company’s culture is whatever attitude, belief, and psychology that impact the brand experience. To build your culture, you have to define the values you need your staff to embrace. Take note that these values must be able to distinguish you from the competition. Afterward, you flaunt these values, and your company’s customer service team should be at the forefront of doing this. Encourage your employees to share favorable consumer experiences and engage actively with your company’s culture.
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Upsell Products or Services
Upselling means persuading customers who are already buying a specific item to buy an add-on or another high-priced alternative. For example, you can include a warranty on an item or offer discounts for other high-priced products. When you prioritize offering excellent customer support, increasing your bottom line and upselling your customers becomes much easier. This is possible because professional customer service fosters trust between a business and its customers.
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Offer Essential Insight About Consumer Experiences
Regardless of how you might perceive your brand, all that’s important is how the customers perceive it. For example, if you run a workout wear company, you may associate your entire brand with health, wellness, and fitness, and individuals who are active in sports. However, your customers may be loyal to you because they’ve associated your brand with comfort, attractiveness, and leisure. You must also align a significant portion of your marketing effort with these values. Rather than expending money and time constantly surveying customers, you can instruct your customer support employees to make these inquiries while interacting with consumers.
An irrefutable, data-based case can be made for the positive, multifaceted influence that excellent customer support can have on any business. You have to ensure to improve your customer service department in whatever way you can.