Businesses that want to grow would do well to pay attention to what customers are saying about the need for good customer service.
According to the Amex, 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer, 66 percent of consumers are willing to pay more money for better customer service. Even more shocking is that 75 percent of consumers claim that they have spent more money for better customer service.
You’ve probably done this at least once. You had a bad customer service experience and ended up doing business with someone who was more expensive just because they treated you better.
According to the Parature Customer Service Blog, poor customer service costs American Businesses $83 billion dollars a year in lost profits. The stats get even more sobering as you examine the devastating impact which poor customer service can have on your business.
The RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report of 2011 revealed that 89 percent of consumers have done business with a competitor after a bad customer service experience. It also found that 86 percent of consumers were willing to pay more for a better customer service experience.
That’s not the same number Amex came up with, but it does point to an obvious pattern. It reveals that an overwhelming majority of consumers are willing to pay more money just to get a better customer service experience.
And that’s not all…
Customer Service as the “Magic Formula” Behind Upselling
The SQM group, a leader in call center productivity research, reported that customers are 20 percent more likely to agree to an upsell offer if their service issue has been resolved. This means that with no new marketing dollars being spent, you could easily increase your profits through cross selling and upsell offers.
But this only works if your customer service team is doing a great job at resolving issues on the first call. If they’re not, attempting to cross sell and to upsell could be costing you in lost business. The AmEx, 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer reported that 6 percent of customers who go to competitors have done so because they were pressured to buy something.
Meanwhile, 33 percent leave because of rude customer service people, 10 percent leave because their customer service issues are taking too long to be resolved and another 10 percent leave because they have to keep following up on an issue.
Are you starting to see the impact poor customer service can have on your bottom line? This is a wakeup call if you’re pumping money into your marketing campaigns and trying to grow your business. If you have “holes” in your business operations and customer service departments, those new profits will leak out, making your marketing dollars less effective.
But a strong customer service training program can solve these problems and double or triple the value of your marketing dollars. But here’s the question…
Are You Playing “Blind Archery” in Your Customer Service Training?
Are your customer service reps getting the training they really need? While it’s easy to assume that they are, it all boils down to whether or not you understand the real challenges they’re facing on the phone. The same is true if you’re building an inbound or outbound sales team.
When you don’t hear the kinds of challenges your reps are facing on the phone, you’re left to play “blind archery” when creating training programs. Ask any experience trainer and they’ll tell you that customized training beats generic training every time.
In fact, in a recent case study, (Fixing the Bugs in His Business - Workdev Feb 2012), a business owner spent $50k on customer service training and increased his sales by over $5 million. That’s mind-boggling, especially if you’re not getting those kinds of results with your customer service training.
But it’s only when you get to hear the most common challenges and how your reps are trying to overcome them, that you can create a training program that produces results. This is why your company needs a call recording solution. Without it, you’re playing blind archery, and businesses don’t grow by guessing.
A call recording solution could be just what you need to turn your customer service and sales team into the driving force behind your business growth.