Customer service is one of the most important aspects of growing and sustaining a profitable business. While there is an old saying, “the customer is always right,” most companies today fail in this field. A customer or client is the backbone of your business, and they should always be treated right. Excellent customer service will increase your revenues by ensuring repeat business, while poor customer service can dramatically reduce your profits.
With every business owner today looking to improve productivity while reducing cost, most companies fall into the trap of cutting costs at the expense of good customer service. Below are the six best ways to optimize your customer service center to save money:
Automation of Some Customer Engagements
In recent years, technology has infiltrated most parts of our lives. This rise in technology use has seen companies automating features such as customer engagement, which has saved significant amounts of money. Upcoming technologies such as Artificial Intelligence-powered agents have brought in a revolutionized era of self-service for customers and companies. Business owners are using technologies like Mad Cap Software used to develop useful self-help portals for customers online.
Many companies have now automated over 70% of their customer interactions using technologies such as remote service representatives and Chatbots. The IoT- Internet of Things is a significant player in helping businesses lower customer service costs through services and equipment monitoring. This monitoring gives business leaders valuable information on service standing when it comes to customer calls.
Use Analytics to Reduce Costs
Analytic tools are considered an essential instrument in cost savings and customer service improvements. Most companies have used analytics to reduce the average customer handling time to around 40%. Using customer service analytics can help you prioritize customers with the most urgent issues. This will help your company significantly reduce the money used for customer service.
Put Your Customer First
You can try to prioritize your overall customer experience by focusing on your customer needs. Quantifying the impacts and achievements of customer’s experience values can be a great way to track sales while also giving insights on where you can save on costs.
Digitalization of a customer’s experience will cut your back-office employees’ work by 80% while reducing customer service desk work by 70%. This allows you to employ the workforce in other equally essential departments. Think of digitalization as a way to help your employees better serve customers.
Use Cloud Contact Customer Service Centers to Reduce Overall Cost
Operating a functioning call center while also trying to keep up with changing landscapes can be quite daunting. Most companies are now moving some infrastructure, such as call routing and inbound telephony to the cloud. This move enables them to reduce costs by up to 35% while keeping up with the ever-changing customer needs. A cloud-based contact center is an innovative technology that will help you cut down on customer service costs while still offering clients high-quality customer care. It is a more efficient way to engage with your customers. Don’t waste any more dollars doing things the old fashion way.
Avoid Losing Customer Touch When Automating
Don’t automate your whole contact center. Combine employees’ talents with cutting-edge technology for a perfect combination. Artificial Intelligence is good at decision trees and processing natural language. However, there are aspects of the customer service process that still require a human’s touch. Services such as up-selling and cross-selling, as well as matching service to a customer’s needs, can significantly benefit from human engagement. Customers with unusual cases may also require to be handled by a human as an AI machine may not quite understand the problem. The use of both AI and staff to handle customer issues can save a company up to 30% of the money used on contact centers while increasing operational effectiveness by 25%.
An Agile Team Will Cut Customer Service Costs
There are always new innovative ways to improve customer care contact centers. To develop a customer’s overall experience, these employees working in these centers have to be agile. An agile team is well organized, good in communication, and will work as a team to handle any upcoming customer issues from beginning to end. Ensuring your team is agile will help you reduce duplication and shave over 30% off customer service costs.
Importance of Good Customer Service
Customer service is essential to your business because it will help you retain your customers while extracting more value. By providing high-quality customer service, your business will cultivate customer loyalty and increase referrals acting as a good marketing strategy. Below are three critical reasons why you should aim to improve customer service:
Good Customer Service Acts As a Marketing Opportunity
Building a hands-on customer service team is a cost-effective way of investing in your business. Instead of waiting for customers to come to you with problems with your products, reach out to them, and inform them of any issues and come up with a solution. This is the best way for clients to feel valued and know you are always thinking about their needs. You can use this strategy also to introduce any new services or products your company has devised.
Outstanding Customer Service Gives You an Advantage over the Competition
No matter the industry you are serving, excellent customer service will make your company stand out. According to research, over 60% of people will stop doing business with a company if they had a bad customer service experience. Having excellent customer service will give you precedent over your competitors, helping you retain your customers and keeping them loyal to your brand.
Good Customer Service Help You Grow Your CLV
Customer Lifeline Value (CLV) is a measure of the importance of a customer to a brand in both the business’ relationship with the client and the client’s purchase power. Growing the CLV means a customer is interacting more with your brand, either through shopping or spending their money on other offered services. Great customer experience will likely see the customer back to your store and even bring in new buyers.
Every company today is under enormous pressure to reduce costs wherever possible. A lot of money gets spent on customer care and service centers, which are essential for any successful business. Using the methods mentioned above, a company can reduce costs while still giving excellent quality service to customers, thus, ensuring retention and ultimately increased profits. When customer complaints or needs are not handled well, the company risks losing the customer and getting negative publicity. The trick to saving is to reduce the money used on a contact center while not forgoing on the quality.
