Why You Should Choose Customer Service Over Initial Profits

A high rate of customer service isn’t a necessary component of doing business, but it is a recommendation if you want the best that your industry has to offer. Unfortunately, not all companies provide excellent customer service, and the practice is often a secondary concern over traditional training. Many businesses provide employee training in protocols and procedures, and usually, that’s where it ends.

But a high rate of customer service allows you to maximize and leverage everything your company has to offer. Satisfied clients and customers directly impact your business since the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Establishing trust with clients comes with free advertising, improved employee performance, and competition blocking at a minimum.  

Therefore, you should include customer service training as you would other essential aspects of business like marketing, distribution, and production. The combined benefits of customer service maintain steady growth and sustainability.

Establish Trust and Loyalty Will Follow

Without first-class customer service, you cannot hope to achieve any trust between your company and another, an individual client or an organization. And if your end goal includes long-term contracts and repeat business, trust is critical to that plan. In addition, with a solid faith-based relationship, you are guaranteed customer loyalty. Loyalty in business is essential for preferred clients who come back time after time.

Loyalty directly equates to a higher rate of customer lifetime value, which means a repeat client will constantly bring more and more to the business over time. On average, a long-term repeat customer spends 60% more per transaction, so engaging with customers personally and establishing trust and loyalty will substantially improve business dealings. 

Cultivate Relationships for Business Opportunities

As a business, you will be primarily concerned with maximizing revenue. However, dedicated employees, top quality management, and impeccable marketing will only go so far. Many of the most successful businesses are built on solid relationships that last for years. For example, from running Iron Horse Security in a one-room office, Robin St. Martin constructed the company into Canada’s largest private security firm. 

This success was only made possible by offering a personal service like no other. The highly regarded CEO established a reputation for providing a service-based approach to security that obliges the most minor of preferences in addition to larger ones. This attitude towards business ensures longevity and repeat business opportunities – a vital component to staying afloat during the turbulent early years where 70% of new companies fail.

Harness the Power of the Earned Media

Reputation is everything in business, and one bad day can break even the most formidable companies. A survey conducted by Study Center concluded that 97% of business managers think the key to their success is reputation. Therefore, maintaining a sterling reputation is vital for continued profitability and options. Try not to follow Pret a Manger, Nestlé, and the doomed startup Theranos. You must maintain dignity and pride with fairness and honesty.

Customer service is a massive part of building a solid reputation. However, one of the most significant rewards of a good reputation is word of mouth and earned media. Earned media is publicity from a promotion for which you haven’t paid or sponsored. This is formerly known as “word of mouth,” but with today’s social media influencers, earned media is potentially an extremely lucrative prospect that can attract masses of new clients with menial effort.

Increase Your Brand Awareness

Following earned media and establishing an excellent reputation among clients and the general public, people become more aware of your brand. Similar to a solid reputation, brand awareness alone acts as a vehicle for attracting new business. Positive experiences with your company can potentially account for up to 55% of new customers who choose your brand based solely on its reputation and their awareness of it.

When you leverage brand awareness to its maximum potential as part of your overall customer service strategy, you will reap the rewards. Rewards that money and all the advertising in the world cannot achieve. These rewards include solid customer loyalty that drives real, sustainable business growth. In short, the world of business is akin to a massive popularity contest, and you need to be in it to win it.

Boost Employee Retention Rates

A critical factor in business profitability is customer retention, but employee retention is just as necessary. Dedicated employees are the lifeblood of any business, and skilled employees can be challenging to find. In estimation, the cost of losing one qualified employee is equal to that of a year’s pay for that professional. This is because the process of replacing them takes time and money. Advertising, the recruiting phase, and training included.

And if one of your primary goals is to achieve an outstanding level of customer service, highly engaged employees are vital. A study conducted by Gallup found that engaging employees account for around 10% of your customer satisfaction rating. Adopting a company-wide culture of “customer first” engages employees in a way that branches through your business. Customer support, sales, and colleagues begin to work together towards a shared goal.

Key Points

A solid customer service strategy as a primary goal has numerous benefits. Benefits will allow you to stay in business, develop a reputation and establish trust and loyalty between your company and clients. In addition, these kinds of relationships tend to last for an extended period, over which a repeat customer is likely to spend on average 60% more than other customers.

Putting customers first will help your company by:

• Establishing trust and loyalty; trusting clients will come back for repeat business.
• Developing business relationships that last; dedicating yourself to the customer’s requirements will help you stay in business during tough times.
• Free advertising through earned media promotion; modern marketing not only includes digital but the power of earned media promotion through social media influencers.
• Increasing brand awareness; you can earn up to 55% of business based on the reputation and awareness of your brand alone.
• Retaining dedicated employees; the cost of losing a skilled employee is high while adopting a shared goal ensures cooperation between all departments.