Many startups will emphasize product development and marketing as pillars of growth and concentrate their investment and resources accordingly. However, many will also overlook reputation building and the customer experience. As a small business, every customer interaction carries more weight. It’s in customer interactions where trust and good standing are established. Get it wrong, and you’ll falter before you’ve even got off the ground.
From slow responses to dismissive replies — or automation that can’t process a particular customer problem — unaddressed customer service complaints will linger as negative online reviews and poor customer satisfaction. Those are guaranteed growth killers. Fortunately, the most common customer service slip-ups are easily prevented if spotted early and will rarely be a cause for concern if customer feedback is taken on board.
For a small business looking to build a strong reputation, top customer service is mandatory from the outset. But how can good customer support be assured? The answer lies in understanding the importance of a few key points, and this starts with learning from others’ mistakes.
Lessons from the best and worst customer service
Understanding where others went wrong and how they got things right is a pivotal asset for every fledgling business. Knowing what missteps have the greatest impact on the customer will save your business considerable time and resources. Recent research into what defines the best and worst customer service unveils what really influences the customer support experience.
The PissedConsumer report shows that consumers are willing to weather the occasional, isolated mishap; it’s when failures recur, or mistakes go uncorrected that customers tend to get frustrated. Sluggish response times, rigid chatbots, and having to repeat the same details over and over are often the most common pain points.
For a small business trying to build a brand name, the impact of these failings is amplified and could spell doom for a young business if left uncorrected.
Slow response times
Convenience is at the core of many business models, and with so many “in just one click” solutions, similar expectations carry over to customer service. Yet, despite this well-understood expectation, among the most common customer service complaints are slow response times and slow progress towards a resolution.
Delays disappoint customer expectations, and making them wait unreasonable lengths of time for a response will likely turn a rational complaint into an emotionally-charged one, sending the signal that your business isn’t really that bothered.
Creating barriers with automation
Leaning on automation to tackle the increased volume when scaling up is a common strategy, but it can often push customers away if not carried out with care. While chatbots and one-size-fits-all responses can fulfil certain tasks well, over-reliance on them is a sure way to alienate your customers at a time when building the customer relationship needs to be a top priority.
Balancing efficiency with customer satisfaction is a tough task, and one that must take customer needs into account at every step. Chief among these needs is the customer’s insistence on having easy access to a human agent when they feel this is required. Striking a thoughtful balance between AI and human customer service is therefore a major aspect of maintaining customer satisfaction.
Inconsistent communication
Building brand identity starts with visibility. A presence on all the popular social media and networking sites is therefore mandatory. A problem arises, however, if your customer service is not synchronized across all these channels.
Say, for example, a customer makes an inquiry via your Facebook page and then subsequently picks up the discussion directly via your customer service email. If the latter has no way to access the matter and the details shared in the former communication (through Facebook), the customer will be forced to repeat themselves and start over. They will see this as nothing more than a waste of their time.
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How small businesses can provide great customer service from the start
A popular misunderstanding about customer service is that it is about “fixing problems,” when in fact, the best customer service will go a long way towards stopping problems arising in the first place. A startup that prioritizes customer care from the very beginning will be set up to anticipate problems rather than just react to them.
Great customer service is founded on listening and communication, so make productive dialogue a target of your customer service strategy:
- Encourage and engage with customer feedback. The best performing brands know that customer opinion is the best source of actionable insight; it tells you what’s actually in demand and where the gaps are. Whilst it’s important to actively solicit reviews, that’s not the sum of it; it’s also crucial to publicly respond to open comments, because potential customers read online reviews, too.
- Capitalize on complaints. Unsure of what steps to take to improve the customer experience and progress towards a trusted reputation? Look no further than customer criticism for the answers. Each poor review is an opportunity for your brand to show the customer that their satisfaction matters and things have been turned around.
- Train for empathy. Efficiency matters, but when the focus is on the customer experience, manner, tone, and sensitivity in handling an inquiry are equally important. The basis of this point is that the thing that frustrates customers more than anything else is feeling that they are not being listened to. Rectify this, and you’ll have already mitigated the potential for unnecessary escalations.
The customer experience is your brand reputation
Not even the best brands are perfect, but they are reachable, responsive, and human when it counts.
The best and worst support experiences show that customers aren’t out there looking for a fight, nor do they expect perfection, least of all from new and smaller businesses that show a sincere intention and effort to improve. In fact, they are actually very forgiving. 78% are willing to give companies a second chance if they receive excellent customer service.
When setting customer support goals, every new business should first look at its contemporaries and their customer service journeys. Understand where similar businesses made mistakes and avoid similar errors as the first step to giving customers what they want.
From the start, invest in a customer service approach that is prompt, attentive, and mindful of common customer complaints. Resist the temptation to sideline issues or make improvements based on what you think is best rather than what your customer is telling you, and maintain a continuous, productive dialogue with your customer base.
Simple actions, well executed, will show your customers that you genuinely care about their concerns and that you are a brand they can trust to listen to them and take action. A reputation for putting customers first could well be your strongest competitive advantage.
