While customer satisfaction is a prime concern for any business today, great customer service plays a crucial role. Because competition is higher than ever before, your business thrives only when you offer top-notch customer service. Bad customer service will cost you your business reputation.
According to a Survey, 61% of customers switched brands due to bad customer service. Lack of quality service increases the risk of losing not just current customers but potential ones as well.
If you disappoint one customer, he will share the bad experience with his close circle through word of mouth. Hence, there’ll be a chain of negative markings that will have a ruinous effect on your business.
Therefore, bad customer service has negative consequences for your business. In the blog, we’ll talk about: what is bad customer service, its causes, examples, and ways to improve it.
What is bad customer service?
Bad customer service is when a business fails to provide quality customer experience during difficult customer situations.
Poor customer service mostly has a devastating impact on businesses. It fails to meet customers’ expectations causing revenue to drop and costs to rise.
Examples of bad customer service
1. Putting customers on hold for too long
Putting customers on hold acts as a customer repellent as they want a fast solution. There’s no way that customers would stay experiencing such shoddy service. It is annoying and frustrating for customers, especially when they are uncertain whether the representative is making any effort to help them or simply wasting their time.
It produces operational inefficiencies. Companies that don’t prevent hold time face money loss leading to loss of business. Also, Hold time is not just about wasted time. It reflects that you don’t value or appreciate your customer. Hence, they will leave you for a better option.
2. Using Negative language
The right tone and language use are critical to soothe and calm customers. You should make your customers feel at ease when they have any problems. Your customers want to have faith in your agents when it comes to a solution, even if they don’t have any. A bad choice of words can destroy your relationship with customers.
Words like:
Sorry, we can’t do anything
We’ll let you know.
It isn’t our fault
Visit our help center
These words make customers feel disillusioned.
3. Prioritizing company policy above the customers’ need
With the growth of the business, the need arises to add and manage internal structures to regulate business. And the incorporation of terms and policies or rules becomes a requirement to keep the customer experience at best.
However, at times, the same rules and policies hinder the company from offering the best customer experience.
For instance, there was news where Barbara Carroll was charged $7455 for 5 boxes of toilet paper. She thought Amazon’s customer service would take care of it, but the company refused the refund, saying the order was delivered on time and there was no refund policy.
4. Ignoring customer feedback
Your business grows only when you deeply understand your customers’ feelings. Whether or not they are happy with your product. And since the internet and social media have made customer interaction much easier. Customers do not hesitate to leave their honest feedback.
However, the lack of response makes customers unhappy. It makes them feel that you don’t care about your customers’ opinions or value their contribution to the business.
Ignoring the feedback can be destructive because you are also ignoring the scope of improvement that you lack.
5. Unhelpful chat
Live chat adds great value to customer service strategies. Customers can easily connect with you without having to deal with long hold times. And responding to multiple customers at once becomes easier.
However, when it comes to complex queries, chat service agents aren’t well-equipped to handle them. They give solutions that don’t always work, leaving everyone frustrated.
6. A lack of empathy
Customers expect you to listen and understand their pain when they feel helpless. They want the agents to acknowledge the inconvenience caused.
If the agent fails to empathize with them and does not engage on the emotional ground, the customers might feel there’s no sense of responsibility and sorry. This may intensify the situation leading to a bad customer experience and harming the reputation.
What causes bad customer service?
1. Hiring unqualified people
Handling customers in diverse situations isn’t an easy task. It requires the right set of skills and attitude. Hiring unqualified employees who lack relevant skills will not be able to deal with customers the right way and provide a good customer experience.
2. Lack of training
Customers’ expectations are dynamic in nature. The same solution that works today might not be effective the next time. Lack of Proper training prevents the employee from being up to date with the changing environment and improving.
3. Employee burnout
Excessive workload, stressful working environment, low morale, or poor management cause employee burnout. As a result, they are not able to concentrate and offer great service.
4. Lack of employee empowerment
At times, agents can’t make effective decisions because their hands are tied. Therefore, they are left with no option but to pass the customer on to someone else who has the authority to make things happen. As a result, customers have to spend more time explaining the same problem again and again.
How to improve your company’s bad customer service?
1. Strength your customer service skills
Your team should have the right set of skills to look after customer grievances. Skills like empathy, patience, and adaptability help build customer trust and reliability.
Not all customers are the same. Some are short-tempered, others are slow graspers, and some are just chatty and full of questions. Such situations demand patience and understanding. Support agents should be taught not to take anything personally and handle the situation in a calm and composed manner.
They should learn to sense customers’ moods and adapt accordingly. Since there’s pain hidden under their unfavorable mood, the agents should listen to their grievances with empathy.
2. Clear communication
Conveying the right message requires clear communication. Make sure that customers understand what you mean.
For instance, you don’t want your customers to think 10% off for 10% extra on any product. Use positive language and maintain a soft tone to make things clear. And ensure that your customers are satisfied before ending the conversation.
In case you’re not able to resolve their problem right away, acknowledge them, and let them know that you’ll get back to them once the problem is resolved. Such responses make the problem feel much lighter.
3. Practice active listening
Customers should be heard no matter what. They should feel that you understand their pain. Clarify and rephrase their words to ensure you understand them. Empathize with their feelings by saying words like: “let me help you with the problem”, ” sorry for the inconvenience,” etc.
Repeating what customers said affirms that you were heartily listening and are concerned.
4. Admit your mistake
Owning the mistake builds trust and restores confidence among customers. If you discover your mistake before your customers and take measures to fix it, customers will trust you even more.
Taking ownership of mistakes shows that you don’t shy away from responsibility which is a sign of strong responsibility.
5. Prioritize customer privacy
Maintain strict protocols regarding customers’ data inside your company. Make it transparent to your customers about what you do with their information and the steps you have taken to protect their information. Don’t just mention it; put it into action. Train your agents to follow the protocol, and take care of customers’ privacy.
6. Offer Omni channel support
The biggest problem customers face is getting in touch with support agents. It takes hours and even days to speak to the human agent. By the time the agent is available, customers would have already found the answers to their problems or canceled their service.
Therefore every business should have an Omni channel presence so that customers can seek help from any channel they use.
Since there are many channels to stop from. Customers are available on different channels at their convenience. Your support strategy needs to cover all of that. It can be phone support, email support, live chat support, social media support, and so on.
Make it easier for customers to contact you. It will make the customers happier.
7. Use customer service performance management software
A user-friendly customer service software ensures quality service support. While it might feel intermediating to include technology at first, your team can get used to it over time once they are up and running it.
The software can be a massive time saver. It allows you to create gamified tasks, study performance, provide connective measures and enhance quality assurance.
8. Provide a self-help option
Many customers find it comfortable to help themselves rather than seeking help from customer service representatives.
A depth knowledge base or FAQ sections can be an excellent self-help feature. It offers troubleshooting guides, step by step tutorials for the most common complaints and queries.
You can also attach a link to the FAQ/knowledge base section in the email body to make it easier for customers to help themselves with the solution. The FAQ section can also be automated using chatbots, making it more convenient for end-users.
9. Train your agents
Training your agents isn’t an expense but an investment. It improves productivity and performance. They learn new skills and knowledge to cope with ever-changing customer demand. It helps them refine their skill and become the best version of themselves.
It’s crucial to educate the agent about the company and its products so that they can identify issues beforehand and take useful steps.
Train your agents to regularly improve their listening skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving capacity.
As your support agents represent your brand, educate them to follow correct customer service etiquette while attending to customers.
Related:
How To Build Customer Service System For Your Company?
What is the difference between Customer care and Customer service?
Wrap up
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