Offering customer service training to your workers doesn’t simply add value for the customer; it can play a vital part in a company’s capability to induce more income and profit and give you a solid competitive advantage.
How was your last shopping experience? Did you like it? Would you go back with your loved ones to shop again? What did you like most about your best shopping experience? If you are like most of us, you appreciate the helpful, knowledgeable staff which comes from customer service training. Additionally, a hassle-free payment process and quality guarantee put the cherry on top!
Did you know that 90% of Americans’ purchase decisions are based on customer service? This means that your business will suffer a loss of sales if the customer service is subpar.
Additionally, even your loyal customers might switch to your competitors should your customer service staff slack. Available research shows that in the U.S., as much as 59% of otherwise loyal customers would walk away from a company or its product after several bad experiences. For 17% of customers, one bad experience is enough to send them into the hands of another brand.
It is up to 25 times more expensive to attract new customers than to retain old ones, which you can do by training staff on excellent customer service. Besides acquiring new clients through referrals, good customer service encourages current clients to spend up to 17% more than they had intended to.
What determines excellent customer service?
To create unforgettable customer experiences that will keep them coming for more, you need two things:
- Product knowledge
- Business knowledge
Your employees must have a deep understanding of how your business works and how its products solve the needs of its customers if they’re to help your customers enjoy their shopping experience effectively. This knowledge is considered adequate based on how well it is applied. Look out for the following traits when analysing how well your employees are doing in customer service:
- Empathy
- Approachability
- Patience
- Politeness
- Assertiveness
How well your employees can embody these traits determine their effectiveness in providing helpful information and guidance to your customers. With these traits, can address practically any customer’s issue in a manner that avoids an awful experience that could potentially push a loyal customer away.
Who benefits from customer service training programmes?
Simply put, everyone.
The clients are happy, the employees are motivated, and the business sales are high. Let’s explore the key benefits of customer training programmes to your business, its employees, and, most importantly, its customers.
Career-boosting skillset
The primary purpose of any training programme is to impart specific skills and competencies. Customer service training programmes will often involve training in a range of fields. They include effective communications, buyer psychology, and problem-solving skills and can use these skills across industries.
Customer service training programmes are meant to sharpen employees’ skills to handle customers in all situations. These skills will stay with the employee, even if they decide to start their own business or get another job.
Competence boosts employee motivation
Employee morale affects companies’ performance significantly. A motivated workforce will go above and beyond to assist customers, leading to higher sales and overall profitability. When employees hit their targets and get bonuses, it’s a win-win for everyone!
Apart from the monetary benefits that may come with improved performance, employees get to love their work. When staff feel like their work matters and their assistance makes a difference in their customers’ lives, they feel appreciated.
Highly competent staff are confident to go for high paying clients. In addition to bringing in more revenue for the company, they position themselves for promotions and salary increments. A company whose employees hit their sales targets will always reward the hard work.
Pleasant and satisfactory shopping experience
As much as the customers will not attend the training sessions, they will benefit greatly from dealing with trained staff. Everyone appreciates a good shopping experience.
Imagine you are buying something for the first time. You’d probably appreciate a knowledgeable company attendant explaining the different options that will suit your needs.
Trained customer service staff can quickly tell the buying cycle stage that a customer is in from a simple conversation. They can tell if a client needs assistance to understand how a product or service works and what they think will meet their needs.
When customers deal with staff who deeply understand the product and its applications, they trust the company. People tend to trust companies that know what they are doing.
Customers who feel appreciated, respected, and understood develop loyalty. Companies that solve customer concerns speedily and satisfactorily tend to have more customer loyalty than those that don’t.
Improved purchasing options
Often, customers shop for a specific thing, and this particular solution might be a recommendation from someone close to them. While the solution they are fixated on might help, it may not always be the best option.
Trained customer service staff can explain various options to customers. These alternatives may be better in quality, price, or general application and maintenance. When the customer knows that the staff can honestly direct them to options that are best for their needs, they’ll be loyal to the company.
Increased company revenues
The ultimate prize winner for any employee training programme is the company. When a company invests in its employees, it gains efficient staff dedicated to the business’s profitability.
A competent and dedicated workforce will always bring in more sales. When customers are treated well, they’ll spend more on what the company offers, increasing revenues.
Competent customer service staff build customer loyalty. Clients will always go back to where they feel appreciated and respected. When staff understands buying psychology, they can help clients through their buying thoughts. This increases sales while boosting customer satisfaction.
Solid business reputation
Your business is probably not the only one offering the products and services you are selling, and your company probably already has competitors offering better prices. As such, excellent customer service sets your business apart.
The average American shares with about 15 people when they’ve had a bad experience. In this day of social media, one post about a bad experience can reach millions within a short time. The opposite is true.
A single social media post about a pleasurable customer experience at your company could quickly go viral and reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers. This is akin to free marketing that would otherwise cost you a small fortune.
73% of customers share with six or more people about a good customer experience, and this number shoots to 10 or more if they’ve had an exceptionally great experience. Additionally, 86% of excellent customer service experiences convert a one-time client into a loyal brand champion.
Image: Pexels
Valuable customer feedback
Marketing data can be expensive to gather or buy. This is because research firms spend a lot of resources gathering information that could lead to sales if applied accordingly.
Employees are trained on how to engage customers productively. While this helps the customers with their purchase options, it provides invaluable insights into their buying decisions. Such clients are comfortable offering areas of improvement for a better experience.
Higher employee retention
Customers are expensive to attract, so are employees, and it is incredibly costly to run a company with high employee turnover. Ongoing employee recruitments and inductions waste a lot of company resources that could otherwise use profitably.
Training employees grants them a greater understanding of their roles in the company and their impact. Continuous skill development increases competence, motivation, and consequently, effectiveness in their jobs. When employees enjoy job satisfaction, they don’t quit.
For high-impact training systems, companies can invest in personalised programmes with flexible learning time. It also helps to provide extra resources such as access to online libraries and other training resources.
High adaptability to market changes
One of the significant changes in the recent past is the magnitude of influence online channels have regarding buying decisions. We have seen the rise of social media marketing, SEO, and influencer marketing to heights unimagined before.
Frequent customer service training equips employees with skills and etiquettes to handle multi-channel communications with all customers, internal and external.
Companies get to explore new channels and tools that effectively reach out to potential clients. It makes it easier for the company to adapt to the rapid market changes and stay on top of the game.
Show your customers that you value them
Most customers believe that how you treat them shows how much you value them. Therefore, all businesses must invest in excellent customer service in all its forms.
Choosing the right tools is as important as selecting the right programmes. It is advisable to invest in training programmes that prepare employees for the new volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business future.
Excellent customer service training programmes should have a variety of learning options, topics, and tools. For starters, automation and prompts for FAQs make the responses faster and frees up staff to handle concerns that cannot automate.
Effective customer service training must include business knowledge and product knowledge, and it also must consist of business communications, the art of closing sales, and VUCA adaptability training.
It is best to offer personalised sessions. It is helpful to have the resources online to access them whenever they need to refresh their skills.
In Summary
Here’s the bottom line: if you increase customer retention rate by just 5%, you could increase your profits by up to 95%? Customers who get a pleasant shopping experience are 38% more likely to recommend the business to people close to them.
Customer acquisition is an expensive undertaking, and it can cost a company up to 25 times more than it would cost to retain an existing customer.
Customer retention saves the company the costs of attracting a new client and nurturing them down the sales funnel to conversion.
Excellent customer service is one of the vital pillars of a successful business and brand. It grows company revenues, improves business strategies as well as creates and maintains customer loyalty. All companies should invest in excellent customer service.
About the Author
Rithesh Raghavan is the Director at Acodez, a Digital Agency in India. Having a rich experience of 15+ years in Digital Marketing, Rithesh loves to write up his thoughts on the latest trends and developments in the world of IT and software development.
