To become a competitive business in a fast-moving world, your company must adapt to changing customer attitudes. Nowadays, the success of your business hinges not only on the quality of your products and/or services; more and more companies are realising the importance of prioritising the customer experience to build trust, retain loyalty, and gain a larger following as a brand.

You don’t have to take our word for it:Microsoft reports that 96% of consumers say that the quality of customer service they receive plays a huge part in their decision to remain loyal to a brand. Professional services firm Ernst & Young reports that Australian businesses stand to lose over $720 per transaction as a result of poor customer service.

Providing excellent customer service comes with a host of benefits, not just protecting your bottom line. Read on below for why it’s a good idea to put your team through a good customer service training program:

Improved customer experience

The advantages of putting front-line staff through a customer service training program, relevant to your business, are patently obvious. Front-end staff are usually the primary point of contact for customers and can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful initial transaction. 

However, the importance of providing customer service training even to employees that have no direct contact with any customers,similarly, cannot be overstated enough. As a business, you should operate with the mindset that everyone who works in the company will have an impact on the customer.This goes for people researching and developing your products, members of upper management who evaluate and approve them, all the way down to the warehouse teams packing the products before shipping them off to the retailers.

It’s the same for service providers. Front line representatives can only do so much to placate a dissatisfied customer if the service isn’t up to their expectations; those working in back-end support should be doing their part as well. At the end of the day, everyone working at your company should possess an understanding of the impression that your business wishes to create with its customer base, and that involves training.

When you educate your workforce to put people first, you instantly improve your customers’ experience with your company, whether that’s through making your products easier to use or promptly resolving any issues that come up for them.

Better customer retention

68% of respondents to a survey conducted by the International Customer Service Association stated that they would cease doing business with a company should they experience poor customer service, though 95% of them said that they would continue to do business with a company if any issues they came forward with were swiftly resolved in a satisfactory manner.

The figures above prove that most customers are motivated by emotion and the way a company makes them feel as a consumer. When they purchase a product or subscribe to a service, they expect that product or service to function as it should. If it does not, they assume that a company will do everything in its power to deliver on what they paid for.If the company fails to do so, most people will simply end their relationship with that brand.

Customer service training for all the members of your staff is crucial for customer retention. It teaches your employees the soft skills required to make customers feel heard and important, thus lessening the likelihood of them dropping your product or service and seeking an alternative where they expect they will be treated better. According to the Harvard Business Review, by increasing customer retention rates by a mere 5%, your company could increase its profits from 25% to 95%! It’s always worth giving a client incentive to stay with your company.

More satisfied customers

Research conducted by Esteban Kolsky, CEO of ThinkJar, states that 72% of satisfied customers will share their positive experience with 6 or more people. From the same study, it was found that 13% of dissatisfied customers will share a negative customer service experience with an average of 15 or more people.

These statistics clearly illustrate that customer satisfaction doesn’t only affect their willingness to do business with your company; it also affects future customer on-boarding. People often compare notes on businesses and rely on word-of-mouth to gauge whether a company is worth supporting or not. Negative experiences resonate more deeply with people, which then compel them to vent about it to others. These negative reviews can tarnish your company’s image and put future customers off of your products or services, thereby hitting your profits directly.

Effective training programs improve the quality of your customer service. Trained customer-facing staff members are usually able to rapidly resolve any concerns at the first point of contact, a factor that significantly contributes to a customer’s satisfaction.

Investing on Better Customer Service

As customers veer away from traditional trends, meeting and exceeding their needs has become the key not just to staying afloat but to thriving as a business. Capitalising on training programs that focus on improving customer service is bound to create a meaningful return of investment that will better serve your company in the long run.