Reveal the Biggest Challenge to Consistently Deliver Great Customer Service
What’s the biggest challenge in providing good customer service? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Today, it is expected that companies and businesses provide the best customer service that they can. According to research, 97% of global consumers say that customer service is important in their brand choice and loyalty. In the age of the internet, customers know more and they demand more. Companies are pressured to give the experience that the customers want. And together with this pressure are some challenges and difficulties.
In a study by SDL, they reported that 45% of customers can’t remember having a recent successful customer experience. They also added that most failures come from disappointing customer service. That is a striking statistic. It highlights the need for companies and businesses to improve the customer service and experience that they provide. Companies must learn more about their customers today more than ever. Companies that do not listen and learn from their customers are at risk of being left out in this competitive world of business.
I can’t say that there is only one biggest challenge in providing a good customer service. But I can list down a few. Here are some of the challenges that companies have in providing a great customer service:
How Can a Company Provide a Consistent Customer Service?
One of the first challenges that a company can face is consistency. While it can be easy to provide a good customer service for a time, it would be difficult to do it over and over again. Not only that, companies, and businesses of today have to offer customer service in different channels. Customer service must not only be through phone and email, it must also include other channels like social media platforms. This makes it harder for companies to provide a consistent and effective customer service.
What Are the Tools and Software That Companies Must Use?
Technology can speed up the customer service process. And choosing the right tools and software is very important. There are help desks and CRMs that helps companies to organize their customer data and customer service queue. There are also phone systems that they can use to capture customer interactions. But there is also a software that combines the strength of all of these tools. A great example is Tenfold. (Full disclosure, I work at Tenfold).
Tenfold helps companies get a 360-degree view of their customers. It is a software that aggregates data from all existing systems of record that a company uses. It can be CRMs, ERPs, and even help desks. Tenfold also capture all customer interactions through phone and through text, email, and chat. These key pieces of information is then combined and showed in a single unified view floating pop up. By using a software like Tenfold, customer service reps can have the relevant pieces of customer information in an instant. This will help companies provide an efficient and unique customer experience.
How Can a Company Motivate Employees?
As companies and businesses focus more on customers, another challenge is making all their employees motivated and well-adjusted. Creating a customer-focused culture in the office is important. It makes sure that each and every one is on the same page. These adjustments usually take the most time and effort, but it is most definitely worth it.
How Can a Company Use Customer Feedback?
Another big challenge is ensuring that customer feedback translates to positive changes. It does not automatically happen. There are times when feedback is left unattended. Companies must make sure that they use customer feedback to find areas of improvements. Changes and adjustments should be made to resolve the issues highlighted by the customers.
Contributed by Brooke Harper, Sales at TenFold (2016-present)
