Publisher's Synopsis
This essay sheds light on the problems with companies having poor customer service and elucidates how companies can enhance customer service. Moreover, strategies for how brands can win back disaffected customers is delineated in this essay. It is almost inconceivable to fathom that a preponderance of frontline employees do not care about providing stellar customer service even though their brand's longevity and profitability depends on the quality of their resourcefulness in assisting the customer. The cost of a company having eminently poor customer service is quite devastating in the long haul to the company's profitability. Furthermore, offering subpar customer service can adversely impact a business in multiple facets beyond comprised profitability. Poor customer service not only elicits negative brand recognition, a comprised brand reputation, the loss of brand loyalty, the forfeiture of future lifetime customers, and a reduction of brand equity, but can also lead to higher employee turnover rates. Moreover, offering abysmal customer service not only culminates in reduced employee morale, but also causes negative word of mouth about the brand to be rapidly disseminated on social media websites. "Inefficient customer service instances can transpire when even part of time is spent arguing with customers. This will almost always lead to unsatisfied customers. Treating customers without any respect and leaving their issues unresolved is one the fastest way to become 'infamous' for having the most terrible customer service" (Olga, 2017). It is estimated that in the United States alone, over 83 billion dollars of potential sales revenue each year is forgone due to customers receiving poor customer service (Olga, 2017). Irate, incompetent, and argumentative customer service representatives contribute to tarnishing a brand's reputation and having their company succumb to negative net losses. Enhancing customer service goes beyond providing additional training to customer service representations to ensure that customer service quality is being maintained. Brands also need to offer "a quick resolution to any complain and should not leave any negative feedback nor complaint unresolved" (Olga, 2017) since circumventing addressing the outstanding issues only exacerbates the problem. Proactive recovery measures can be leveraged to cultivate customer brand loyalty. Customer service representatives need to have the competence, knowledge, and ingenuity to help mitigate customer issues and immediately rectify them as soon as they emerge. Customer service representatives should be empowered to offer incentives to win back the customer's loyalty, especially since implementing customer acquisitions strategies to acquire new customers can be far more costly than prioritizing investing in customer retention strategies to retain existing customers. Companies that make mistakes should be transparent to their customers and take full responsibility for the outstanding customer issues. Companies should subsequently attempt to remedy the calamitous situations they encounter by implementing customer driven solutions. "A proactive approach coupled with efficient customer service will help to solve the issues and win customers' loyalty. And such little things as a sorry note, present or additional discount can help form a positive rather than another negative customer experience" (Olga, 2017). Managers and leaders should make themselves readily available to customer service representatives so that frontline employees can expeditiously approach them with pivotal inquiries which can help preclude future mistakes from transpiring. In order to further improve the quality of the customer service experience, managers can audit their employees to not only identify areas of weakness, but also to ensure that customer service standards are being upheld. Managers can provide them with an evaluation score and insights on how they can drastically improve.
