Why Online Businesses Need Great Customer Service

January 21, 2022 / eCommerce

Businesses

In a market where businesses compete over customer experience and where customer reviews can make or break a company, it’s not enough just to have a good website. To be successful, online businesses need to back this up with great customer service. Here, we explain the reasons great customer service is so important.

It’s what customers expect

Customers, whether existing or potential, have become accustomed to good customer services and expect all the brands they shop with to provide it. A key aspect of CX, almost 85% of people say it is important to them when choosing a brand and, for many, the quality of customer service is often of more value than brand reputation, the cost of the products or services or the convenience of shopping with you.

It can save money

Investing in your customer service can actually save your business money in the long run. The reason for this is that the cost of customer acquisition is far greater than the cost of customer retention. With so much online competition around today, acquiring a new customer can be expensive in terms of the amount of advertising revenue you need to spend. To make this spend cost-effective, it is important to keep hold of customers and have them returning. If you spend £40 to attract a new customer and they never come back, that’s a lot of investment for a one-off sale. If they come back and shop 20 times in total, that initial £40 works out at £2 a sale, which is far more profitable. Research has shown that over 90% of customers will return and stay loyal if they experience great customer service.

Increase sales and prices

Not only does great customer service keep customers returning; it has also been shown to increase the amount of money they will spend with you each time they shop. Indeed, not only does good customer service encourage consumers to buy more things per visit, 86% of them are willing to pay more for your products, up to 16% more, if the customer experience is great.

Stops you losing customers

With customer experience being the main area over which businesses compete in today’s market, providing second rate customer service can cause existing customers to abandon you for your rivals. Recent research indicates that over 60% of consumers admitted to ditching a brand because they were unhappy with its customer service.

While those that have experienced good customer service in the past might give you a little leeway with a one-off bad experience, should this be repeated, they will be less forgiving. Over 90% of customers will abandon a company if they experience three incidents of poor customer service. The real impact here is if those customers become loyal to a rival business and you lose sales over the long term. Online businesses need to act swiftly and appropriately to address problems that individual customers have if they are going to retain them.

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Impact of social proof

Over 80% of potential new customers now read online reviews before deciding to shop with a new business and the quality of customer service plays a vital role in their decision making. Unfortunately, over 60% of unhappy customers will share their experiences online and this can have a real impact on the overall rating of your business. Investing in good customer service can reduce the number of poor reviews you receive.

Increases customer trust and confidence

All businesses have hiccoughs with their services from time to time and all customers have experienced issues when buying products or services online. No consumer expects things to go smoothly 100% of the time. What they do expect, however, is that when there are issues, the customer service department will rectify them. Whether it’s something as simple as refunding payment for a product that doesn’t work properly or dealing with a major issue like account fraud, customers need to trust a company to resolve problems if they are to have the confidence to shop with them.

Providing great customer service, where customers feel valued and where issues are dealt with quickly and satisfactorily, is essential to establish trust and confidence in a brand and this is why it has such a high value for modern consumers. This is especially the case for new customers of online businesses, where the act of buying itself often requires something of a leap of faith.

Conclusion

Great customer service is something the modern customer both expects and values. Delivering it can have significant benefits for both acquisition and retention of customers, increasing trust and confidence and providing those much-needed good reviews. With it, businesses have a real opportunity to grow their revenue and thrive. Poor customer service, on the other hand, can undermine all these things. For first-class hosting with unrivalled customer service and 24/7 technical support, visit our homepage

Author

  • Niraj Chhajed

    I'm a SEO and SMM Specialist with a passion for sharing insights on website hosting, development, and technology to help businesses thrive online.

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