There is an idea that service is a compliment which pleases the client but costs the company too much. There is another idea: the management is satisfied by the work of employees and does not feel the need to make additional investments improving business processes and stuff performance.
Both approaches consider service as an emotional category. However both profits coming from quality service and losses coming from poor service can be calculated.
Our experience tells us that different retailers with 8 stores and different products and prices can lose over $160 000 and approximately 210 clients in one month.
Independent researches show similar statistics: if companies do not control the quality of interaction with clients they lose from 17 to 43% of profit depending on the industry. The losses can be avoided if the sales process is managed focusing on the future indicators of customer satisfaction obtained by actual service as opposed to symptomatic managing (example: regular increase of sales). These indexes immediately respond to the current effectiveness/non-effectiveness of the company work.
Taking customer perspectives, his feedback and using them to improve the customer experience daily – are the formula to feed into internal efficiencies: a small retention of 5% of customers can have a profit impact of 125%. Absence or disuse of leading indicators will bring duplication of negative experience in customer service and loss of profit for the company. Nearly half (47%) of consumers say they don’t believe company executives understand their experiences, citing problems such as rude customer service staff or employees who provide the wrong information or never solve the customer’s problem.
Virtually a company can charge a premium by making service their defining characteristic: 78% of consumers believe service trumps personalized features; other data shows that 86% of customers say service defines the brand. Knowing how to demonstrate quality service is a competitive advantage. These popular words hide not so popular numbers: according to research of the Wharton School of Business, when shoppers encounter merely “standard” experiences at a store, their likelihood to return there drops by over 65%; if customer service will have minimal uniqueness 75% of shoppers who have enjoyed a great experience with a specific retailer definitely intend to return to that retailer the next time they need a similar product or item.
Therefore service allows business to build trust relationships with customers, reinforce position of the brand and increase efficiency in the short and, more importantly, long term.
Authors: Experts of Kraskovski