Cloud Contact Center Featured Article

Your Customers Are Your Best Marketers

By Michelle Amodio
TMCnet Contributor

Dissatisfaction amongst customers has a significant financial outcome for businesses. Common sense tells us this isn’t rocket science, but the approach to customer service today is a lot more complicated than it was a decade ago. Brands are everywhere that their customers are: online, talking and interacting via social channels, and that means businesses have to account for the public interactions that happen in addition to the ones that happen through email or the telephone.

Customers today are understandably more tech-savvy, and paired with higher expectations businesses are realizing that in an effort to be the all-out customer experience hub, their efforts must evolve to meet the increasing demands of their educated customer base.    

Aspect (News - Alert) does a good job summing up the current customer service landscape and how marketing departments can cater their help so that the customers who’ve had a positive experience can help be “ambassadors” for any brand.  

According to the company’s own survey, 61 percent of customers would share a positive customer service experience if businesses had a simple means to do so. That’s rather telling, especially in an era when customers often turn to social channels to vent their frustrations. In fact, the same survey revealed that 55 percent of customers would cease doing business due to a bad customer service experience. The numbers don’t lie; it behooves companies to not only strive for exceptional customer service, but let their customers tell everyone else about it. The good news begets more loyal consumers.

Consider how much a bad experience can cost: according to NewVoiceMedia (News - Alert) poor customer service costs $41B per year. A little less than half (44 percent) of U.S. consumers are taking their business elsewhere due to inadequate service, and of that 44 percent, 89 percent have moved to other companies at least once in the last year.

So, what’s a brand to do in terms of securing a good experience for all?

According to Aspect, it’s about personalization and interactions that are with the times.

“Consumers want to engage with the companies they do business with, but on their own terms. No longer are customers reaching out directly to agents via phone, they are looking to contact companies via text, live chat, social media and pretty soon via messaging apps,” according to Aspect’s recent blog post.

Customers today trust their friends as reliable sources for product info. Gone are the days of old-fashioned word of mouth advertisements. Today’s generation of customer is socially connected and will use their friend’s experiences to make their decisions. Presence is key. Experience is gold.

While many companies are spending their dollars in traditional advertising and customer service, perhaps companies should better spend their money developing social customer experience initiatives that rise above service and make the customer feel important.