Customer service creates customers for life. Sorry, good customer service creates customers for life. However, most companies don't think the word "good" has place in the previous sentence, so they keep dropping the ball on it and losing clients. Here are the main reasons your company is one of them:
1. You think customer service department is the place of cost cutting - most companies hire their customer service employees on minimum wage, give them old computers/phones, don't bother to train them properly and expect things to go smoothly. Well, they are wrong. This is the kind of thinking that creates an inefficient customer service department and after that - angry customers. Things don't stop here, most of the time companies cut costs there first, downsizing the staff or getting rid of details that they think are too small to be noticed by the customer. And maybe one such detail won't be noticed, two - also, but three...
2. You focus almost exclusively on gaining new customers - this is the most common mistake - companies focus on gaining new customer and neglect the current ones. This isn't just wrong, but also financially ineffective as gaining a new customer costs eight times more than keeping existing one;
3. You think complaints can only do bad to your company - most of the times companies look on complaints as something that can damage their business and give bad rep to the managers. The thing is, complaints are a golden opportunity to become the hero. If you have the chance to turn the wrong into right and you take it, you will actually give the customer a good experience, erasing his bad one from before the solution. A fact is that customers share bad experience three times more often than good experience;
4. You focus on products more than on quality of service - managers often turn their heads toward creating new products and making the current ones better. They focus on the life of the product and how it appeals to customers. While this is important for a business, it is not the only thing that makes a company great. Good products are one, but good customer service is two, three and four in the list of "Things awesome companies do";
5. You think poor service can't bring your company down - you might be right if you think about 1 or 2 very small mistakes you have done, but what if the mistake is bigger? You need to remember that the good business lies on it's customers first and then on it's products and services. You may have the best product there is, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't have clients. And clients are happy when you don't make mistakes when it comes to customer service...
More about Customer service:
1. The 5 Types Of Customers
2. Getting Back a Customer
3. 3 Signs You're Doing Your Customer Service Job Wrong