Are you making customer satisfaction a priority? If your company is only focused on customer support instead of creating satisfying interactions, you may be missing out on one of the best resources for your business.
Here’s why:
1. You Build Trust
Customers seeking support are already unhappy or annoyed, but simply resolving a request may not be enough to salvage the relationship. Customers want to trust your business, and customers who experience issues already have a reason not to trust it.
Customer satisfaction is about more than just providing customer support to resolve technical issues. It’s about creating a consistently positive experience with your brand.
Satisfied customers are ones who observe a pattern of positive interactions, making them trust your brand. Customers who trust your brand are repeat shoppers who love your business and go out of their way to support you.
But how do you build trust? One way to build customer relationships is by continuing to satisfy your customers beyond each service experience.
Rather than just answering every request as efficiently as possible, agents should also be asking customers about other potential problems or how pleased they are with resolution to ensure that there aren’t other issues that are potentially causing your customers to form negative perceptions of your business.
While this is a small step, your customers perceive that their feedback is important, and you resolve other potential issues while forming a positive emotional connection.
2. You Make Customers Feel Valued
When your company makes customer satisfaction the focus instead of customer support, you stress that it’s people that are important rather than tasks.
To make customers feel valued, they should be treated as if every problem, even the most routine request, is unique and valuable to your business. This can be done by something as simple customizing messages to each customer and treating the interaction like a conversation instead of a task list.
Additionally, each customer should feel like his or her request is a priority by ensuring that issues are resolved quickly and with as little corporate “red-tape” as possible. One way to achieve this is to streamline processes to eliminate barriers to quick resolution.
Every support issue is an opportunity to turn a dissatisfied customer into one of your biggest supporters. Someone who has a negative experience turned into a positive one will be highly likely to share his or her positive experience with others.
3. Your Customers Boost Your Business
Your customers are your best sales and advertising tools, and if you aren’t making the most of every service opportunity, you’re missing out on increased sales.
Think of it this way: You’ve already convinced your customers that they need your services. Generally happy customers won’t complain, and they probably won’t go out of their way to support your business, but customers who feel wronged communicate about their experiences more often.
Negative reviews can be extremely damaging in forming new customer relationships, but positive service experiences that resolve bad situations can be your best selling tools.
While a quick resolution may help appease a dissatisfied customer right away, the customer still remembers the inconvenience and probably won’t be giving you rave reviews. If you take extra time to genuinely satisfy customers with problems, they will remember the way they were treated and go out of their way to support you because you formed an emotional connection with the experience.
Satisfied customers are more likely to increase sales for your products through repeat purchases and referrals to other customers who are looking for a great product and experience.
When you’re looking customer support options, don’t just focus on issue resolution. Focus on customer satisfaction, and you’ll see a more profitable business.