While companies tend to speak about their commitment to great customer service, consumers today report high levels of dissatisfaction regarding the level of service they are getting from businesses. For the majority of highly successful companies however, customer service is a primary focus and an area in which the business will invest in an effort to provide an exceptional experience that leaves the customer feeling respected and valued. And although the development of excellence in the area of customer service often calls for a commitment of significant time and resources, getting it right it will set your business apart from the competition a build allow you to build a loyal customer base.
The Importance of Great Customer Service for Your Business
The primary value great customer service brings to your business is in the role it plays in helping you to not only retain your customers, but to derive more value from them. A high level of customer service, helps businesses recover their customer acquisition costs and build a devoted base of clients that refers new leads, provides powerful case studies, and offers testimonials that your marketing team can leverage to help drive new business opportunities.
Additional reasons that business invest in the development of great customer service representative skills can include the importance of:
Customer Retention
Not only is it far less expensive to keep an existing customer than attract a new one, but an increase in customer retention of a mere 5% can positively impact your bottom line by as much as 25%.
Your Brand
Your level of customer service is closely tied to your brand and the perception of your company on social media, review sites and everywhere else your company is displayed and discussed.
Customer Referrals
Customers who have a good experience with your products and customer service are happy clients who are likely to refer their friends to your business. This free, “word of mouth” advertising can contribute greatly to the growth and success of your business.
Your Marketing Strategy
When customers speak favorably about a company, they have the potential to create more new revenue opportunities than even the best marketing teams. The ability leverage customer satisfaction is a great way to show potential new clients your level of commitment to the client experience and customer satisfaction.
Building Customer Service Representative Skills through Training
Offering training courses and programs to your customer service representatives not only adds value to the customer, but it can help generate new revenues and provide your company with a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. Some of the benefits in offering training to build customer service skills can include:
Gaining a Competitive Advantage
Even with all the evidence regarding the benefits of offering great customer service, most companies spend surprisingly little toward investing in the skillset of their customer service representatives. This lack of commitment to service can create a significant advantage and opportunity for those companies that do invest in the development of their service teams.
Creating Higher Levels of Job Satisfaction
Great companies invest both time and money into their customer service representatives through the development of effective tools and training. When you invest in skills development for your customer service representatives, they are likely to have greater satisfaction in their jobs which will translate into a higher level of service to your customers.
Offering Faster Times to Resolution
Highly skilled customer service representatives tend to resolve issues faster. This not only leads to higher levels of satisfaction among customers, but it decreases the costs associated with the support process.
Enhancing Customer Loyalty
Building a loyal customer base can help drive the success of a company. In fact, in a study by ZenDesk, more than 40% of customers said that a brand can earn their loyalty by exceeding their expectations in dealing with an issue. In addition, more than 70% of people said they place a higher value on customer service than price.
Using eLearning to Build Customer Service Representative Skills
eLearning refers to the use of electronic technologies (typically, the Internet) to build and deliver learning and training programs. eLearning is increasingly a preferred method of corporate training over more traditional, classroom-based training as it is more cost-effective and convenient for both employees and instructors.
Through eLearning, companies can offer their customer service representatives onboarding and orientation training as well as training programs designed to create deep knowledge regarding the company’s products and services. In addition, many companies offer their customer service representatives eLearning training content and courses for the development of “soft skills”, such as listening, communication, and problem solving.
LMS Portals for Customer service Representative Skills Development
LMS Portals offers a cloud-based platform that allows our clients and partners to launch and manage multiple, customized eLearning environments for all types of corporate training programs, including customer service representative skills training. Each portal you launch includes its own branding, user onboarding, messaging and collaboration tools, analytics, and more.
Visit our Partner Program pages to learn more or contact us today to get started
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