As you well know, everything, whether good or bad, has consequences. Poor customer service has severe impacts on your business and can slow down your growth projections. It can affect sales, your overall reputation and even demotivate employees leading to a high employee turnover.
To maintain excellent customer service, understand your clients well. Learn their buying habits, communication tools, and preferences. To make the effort more manageable, invest in CRM software. Examples of subpar customer service are;
- Lack of adequate customer support services
- Failure to resolve issues raised by customers
- Inefficient customer support team
- Failure to retrieve customer feedback or apply it as required
- Lack of enough employees
- Lack of customer service etiquette
Poor customer service can lead to
Damage to your reputation
Advanced technology has made it easier for clients and anyone disgruntled with your services to air their views leading to reputation damage. Customers can express their dissatisfaction with your services on online platforms discouraging potential clients from shopping in your store. As research has found out, customers are more likely to write a negative review than a positive one.
Loss of Employees
Understand that your best employees are not there just for the pay package but the motivation and satisfaction that comes with a job description. When they cannot meet the customer’s demands, they often resent the job, forcing them to quit or slack.
As more employees relax or quit, those left behind have to take care of added responsibilities leading to anger and resentment slowing down production. Also, employees don’t like getting yelled at or being targeted by unsatisfied customers, especially when it’s not their fault.
Loss of Profits
When you have poor customer service, more potential customers will be discouraged from shopping at your store, leading to a loss of profits. You’ll also realize, when your employees are less motivated, the production or quality goes down, affecting sales and profits.
The only solution is to staff adequately and carry out intensive customer service training followed by marketing efforts that attract more customers to your establishment. Also, note that the loss of customers makes it harder to attract new ones because it’s more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an old one.
Unconverting Leads
There’s nothing as frustrating as when you drive a lot of traffic to your site but fail to convert. Probably the potential clients first check your reputation and come across the negative reviews discouraging them from doing any business with you. You’ll spend more on marketing leading to a loss of profits.
Another reason is that when customers reach out to you but don’t like your services, they’ll quickly move on to the next store. You’ll always have many requests but few sales. Understand that a lot goes in convincing a new client to trust your company.
Loss of Current Customers
Poor customer service always leads to the loss of current customers. Clients always go where they’re appreciated and celebrated. A single mistake can lead to the loss of the most loyal customers. Understand that sticking with you doesn’t mean that they don’t have other options. Poor service will quickly push them to your competitors.
Rebuilding your customer service might take a long time, but it’s worth the effort. You’ll have repeat clients who are happier and satisfied with your services.
