Why provide good customer service

The truth? Not everyone lives by the credo that the customer is always right. Not everyone is as concerned with customer satisfaction as others are. But it's those who don't relent and cave into the pursuit of profits above all else who ultimately win in this ruthless business climate. Clearly, for anyone who is serious about "making it," so to speak, it's imperative to realize the utter importance of rock-solid customer service. It's not just about the customer always being right.

It's about treating your customers like you'd treat your family. And that doesn't happen by talking down to them or looking for any possible way to extract more money from them. It happens by truly going out of your way for them and adding enormous amounts of value to the equation. Today, if you're delivering sincere value to your customers, you're all-but guaranteeing your own success rather than sealing your fate in a coffin of corporate greed and advancement at all costs. In fact, it's the very foundational understanding that a business must deliver value in order to transform the good to the great.

That's what creates icons in the world of business. And it all starts by having the consumer's best interest at heart. Amazon, Zappos, Apple and other corporate bellwethers, all harbored the bedrock understanding that it's the customer above all else. That's how they grew into the behemoths that they are. Sure, Amazon gobbled up Zappos, but it was because of their emulation of the same values and beliefs that Amazon lived by that the deal happened in the first place.

So, if you're serious about creating a monumental business, or you're looking to expand your existing footprint, it's exigent to understand the reasons why customer service is so important.

With consumers facing so many choices with who to do business with, you need to set yourself apart from the rest. What makes you different? What added value do you bring to the table? Why should a customer work with you rather than your competitor? We've all heard the horror stories of people dealing with poor customer service. Yet, we seldom hear the raving-fan stories. Why is that? The reason? Product listens to customer support reps. Teammates work together with kindness, compassion, and, above all, respect.

Some companies write it on the office walls or make their employees memorize it. Company culture exists whether or not you define it. By valuing customers, and tirelessly working to serve them, you simultaneously create a company culture of helpfulness. Work gets done faster, productivity goes up , and both employee and customer sentiment thrive in a more collaborative environment. The coolest brands on the blocks — meaning, those with the most and best brand awareness — get all the fame and fortune.

Positive customer experiences play a huge role in brand awareness, as they often lead to word of mouth advertising. Provide a positive experience for existing customers and watch them rave about your brand.

Analytics help you track awareness by measuring everything from online reviews to social media sentiment to recommendation potential. Customer marketing involves turning existing customers into advocates. Save money and time with every loyal customer. Not only do they purchase more, but they also bring in new business. When everyone at a company has the same end-goal, the entire workflow becomes streamlined.

Place the ultimate emphasis on your customer, then move through each department to align them behind customer service. For instance, when everyone is on the same page, the flow for bug reports should look something like this:.

To make sure this collaboration spans the long-term, set a larger goal to improve a customer experience-based metric , like NPS. Then, put the responsibility on every department to move the needle. Business owners take a huge risk when founding a company. For scaling start-ups, providing an excellent customer service experience is the surest way to keep up momentum and minimize loses. They tell their friends, relatives, colleagues and may even post to their social network about your friendly and helpful customer service.

Their contacts, in turn, feel encouraged to buy from you. Word-of-mouth advertising is often a company's best and least expensive form of advertising. Customer lifetime value CLV represents the total amount of revenue your company can expect to receive from a single customer over time. By increasing the CLV, you can significantly increase your company's revenue without having to spend more on marketing. An increasing CLV means that your customers are spending more money each time they order or they are buying more often.

Customer service is a great way to increase CLV. If customers have a positive shopping experience, they'll be more likely to buy from you again. Proactive customer service is when you reach out to customers before they know that problems exist.

By being proactive with your customer service approach, you can let customers know that you're working to improve the user experience for them. For example, if you have a group of customers who had a common problem and released a new product or feature that resolved that issue, you could use your ticketing system to identify those customers and then reach out to let them know about the new feature or service. This approach can be effective because customers recognize you're trying to resolve problems for them.

After all, how can it really improve? Contrary to popular belief, your customer service team should be just as important — if not more important than — as your other teams.

After all, it's the direct connection between your customers and your business. Still not convinced? Read the following list to understand how essential customer service is to improve your business and relationships with customers.

Customer service is important to your business because it retains customers and extracts more value from them. By providing top-notch customer service, businesses recoup customer acquisition costs and cultivate a loyal following that refers customers, serves as case studies, and provides testimonials and reviews.

Investing in customer service helps activate your flywheel because loyal customers will help you acquire new customers, free of charge, by convincing prospects to interact with your brand. And, their positive testimonials will be more effective than any of your current marketing efforts — and cheaper, too.

Aside from that, let's look at some data-backed reasons why you should invest in your customer service team. According to our research team , the customer acquisition cost CAC — how much it costs to acquire a new customer — is more for a company that doesn't invest a small percentage of its budget in customer service.

Ultimately, investing in customer service can decrease your churn rate, which decreases the amount you must spend on acquiring new customers and decreases the overall CAC. You may have an idea of what your brand represents. However, your customers can't get into your head and they'll make assumptions based on your social media presence, advertisements, content, and other external marketing. Your customer service team, however, is where you have more control over this perception.

These individuals speak directly to your customers and they have the responsibility of representing your brand when interacting with current or potential buyers.

Without your customer service team, you have no means of direct communication. Due to this, your customer service team is essential in relaying to customers what you want your brand image to be. They can help influence customers and convince them of your strengths over competitors. No employee is going to enjoy coming into work if they feel under-appreciated compared to employees on other teams. The same goes for your customer service team.

However, their reasoning behind serving customers is less about wanting to provide quality service. Instead, it's about maintaining their professionalism and integrity, not wanting to get fired before quitting, being empathetic to customers, but getting recognition from them in the end.

Therefore, if you want your customers to do their best work, they should feel respected and appreciated. Only then will they find intrinsic motivation for doing a good job and serving their customers the right way, which will lead to your customers also feeling more respected and appreciated. And, when your customers are happier, they're more likely to spread the goodness to friends, family, and coworkers.

Think about it: if you have a stunning experience with a brand, you're probably going to rave about it to your friends over dinner later that night. It's natural; you want your close ones to commit to a brand that you trust. It's a chain reaction. If you have a happier customer service team, they'll work harder to satisfy and exceed the expectations of your customers.

Then, those customers will be extremely happy with your brand and refer others to it. Your customers can be your best — and cheapest — form of word-of-mouth advertising, as long as you give them a reason to do so.

As said before, it's a lot cheaper to retain an old customer than to acquire a new one.