On today’s Business Beat, Jeff discusses survey results on how underwhelmed people are by customer service these days despite it being the greatest opportunity for small businesses to rise to the top.
Tune in to the Business Beat, below, to learn more about the survey:
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Good morning, Paul! This morning on the Business Beat, listen, we’ve heard it a million times before. What is the greatest opportunity for small businesses to set them apart from their competitors? It’s supreme customer service. Customer service, Paul, we all know that right. Well, someone didn’t get the memo put into a new study, just released by Zendesk.
They report that a majority of consumers feel quote unquote underwhelmed by the level of customer service they’re getting from businesses these days. To start with, 68% say that businesses need to improve the training of their customer service agents. That is those very people who are in position to represent your business and in whose hands it’s in to provide that differentiating level of supreme customer service that you need to compete and win. And 54% say that customer service feels like it’s an afterthought for most businesses they buy from.
Now, how can this be Paul, especially in light of the fact that 70% of consumers make purchase decisions strictly based on the quality of service they get from a given business. Now, Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer at Zendesk, puts it this way: “Customer service is now a key differentiator, but this year’s report reveals gaps that still exist between customers and the expectations they have with the businesses where they shop.”
So here we go. One more time. Underscoring, the importance of customer service to help you compete and win in business today. A couple of tips? Provide personalized service if you can. Ninety percent of consumers indicate that they’re willing to spend more with businesses that personalize the customer’s journey and two, 89% indicate that they will purchase more from businesses that enable them to find answers easily and readily relating to the products and services they want to buy. Now, regardless of which way you provide it, just make sure you’re highly focused in your business operations on providing a supreme level of customer service and the market will reward you.
I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com, and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.
