Customer service is the first line of interaction that any business has with the people who are already paying or are considering to pay them in near future. Irrespective of the size of the company, the lifespan of an existing customer or a to-be customer completely depends on their experience of the customer service provided by the business. Customers are the first channel of marketing that help any business glow and grow by the most trusted form of marketing, the word of mouth!
Anything you say may be used against you in the court of law. A similar paradigm exists in the so called “Court of a Consumer”. Anything you or your staff may do or say, will be held against you by the consumer. This is the reason why, a Quality Customer Service is very, very important for a business to establish themselves and build a reputation. At Codemenders Oy, we’ve been in touch with various businesses to help them tailor Qtip.Me for their use and this has helped us understand the Three Basic Pillars of a Quality Customer Service.
1. Reduced waiting time
When waiting in queues, customers are quick to form opinions related to the business. A queue is one such place where the entire customer service experience can be made or broken. This is the place where a business cannot leave a customer disappointed. After waiting in a queue for more than five minutes, a customers perceived waiting time changes to twice of the actual wait time. Many people abandon the queue if its not moving fast enough. While some of them do complain or raise their concerns, many leave with a perception that brands or businesses do not care about them.
Waiting time is the single most important factor in customer satisfaction.
– Paco Underhill. Why we buy.
2. Streamlined service
Today’s customers are smart, connected and demanding. They want businesses to operate on all possible channels, be efficient and provide a better quality service. This makes streamlining a customer service process and support a crucial part of an organization’s business strategy. A simple step towards this is to know a customer’s needs in advance. Even before they arrive to the service desk physically. This allows the staff to engage with customers in an informed (and efficient) way and gets rid of unwanted wait from the whole process.
3. Happy and pro-active staff
Queues are boring. They consume time, resources and often come with additional overheads like managing the agitated customers, attend to that cute little wailing kid with a toy or an activity of their choice, making sure that there is enough coffee for everybody, making sure that there is nothing you accidentally do that can be held against you and still be “happy to help” when a customer arrives at your desk. Its not an ideal world and we all understand that all these overheads do affect the staff on a regular basis, thereby also affects the business efficiency. It is very important for any business to explicitly focus on their customer service staff. This not only keeps their morale high when serving customers, it also creates a silent-yet-effective marketing channel for the business as a brand that takes very good care of its employees.
We, as a team are very happy that we have been able to deliver to our customers a product that has helped them strengthen these three pillars of customer service and has given to them tangible results like upto 50% reduction in waiting times, 30-35% improvement in staff’s efficiency and a streamlined customer service.