Customer service experts agree: customers have changed. They are more likely to share their feelings on different channels such as social media or blog articles, have higher expectations and are keener than ever on the customers’ lifecycle. 89% of customer service professionals agree that customers are more likely than ever to share the good or bad experience they had with businesses.

On the other side, most companies are not equipped to connect with and answer with their customers on every channel. They simply haven’t adapted yet to this new multichannel environment that is growing fast. I believe companies still have to shift to a customer-first-mindset to just not grow bigger, but also better.

Customer service is the new marketing, here is why it’s important

As stated before, customers lifecycle has been modified and is now increasingly complex. Customers can interact with businesses on multiple touchpoints and are waiting for the fastest answer at the highest level of quality.

By 2020, it is believed that customer experience will be the main brand differentiator instead of price or product.

For example, according to Forrester’s customer index, customer experience leaders gained 43% in performance compared to customer experience laggards who saw a decrease of 33,9%.

Customer service is a form of marketing

Whatever people say about the customer service they experienced, it has more impact due to the internet. A potential customer usually wants to know what are the main feedback about your product and there are lots of ways to do it.

85% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations.

With a great customer service strategy, you can market your services or product through word of mouth, reviews, comments on social media, testimonials and so on.

Customer service is important for your company to grow

When you offer good customer service, you retain your current customer and gain more customers. The only side effect can be your growth and the troubles that go with it.

Customer service is very powerful when focusing on repeat buyers and I believe every company should have that focus rather working on acquisition.

More than repeat buyer, it can also increase the global lifetime value of your customers which is even greater if you want to invest in acquisition then because it will increase your acquisition cost.

Regarding B2B, great customer service leads to a shorter sales cycle which leads to a lower acquisition cost too.

More than acquisition, customer service can also help your business to retain your customers. Bain and Company revealed that increasing customer retention rates by 5% could increase profits by 25%

As customer retention is key for every business, the latest technology can help a lot to improve your customer service.

Customer Service   Customers Lifecycle   Customer Experience Leaders  Customer Service Strategy  Customer Retention

Real-time customer experience is a vital driver of growth. Acting in real-time, armed with the most up-to-date information about your customer, can hugely improve customer experience.

To truly “do” real-time properly, you need to be able to listen to real-time signals from your customers, understand what these signals mean in the larger context of their relationship with you, and then identify and execute the right action to meet these needs.

It’s time for marketers to adapt. Whether adapting externally to customers’ unpredictable behavior or internally within a brand’s organization, the time has come for traditional marketers to become Adaptive Marketers—agile customer experience enthusiasts who take a customer centric approach to marketing instead of a channel-centric approach.

Adaptive Marketers focus on optimizing the context, speed and state of each customer relationship instead of each channel. They can simultaneously achieve a business objective while creating the best brand experience possible, regardless of the channel. And they are making it happen now.

Understanding the customer’s needs is a common challenge for many businesses and studies show that this will become a make-or-break benchmark for most companies. Salesforce conducted a survey of over 6,000 consumers and found that 76% of them expected companies to understand their needs and expectations. This doesn’t leave very much wiggle room for your marketing and customer service strategy to fail. If you want to deliver a sound customer experience, then it’s imperative that you create a customer-centric company that is focused on fulfilling customer needs.

When customers discover a delightful customer experience, it’s likely that they’ll want to return to it again. Dimension Data even found that 84% of companies who focus on improving customer experience are reporting an increase in annual revenue. This is because these companies are gaining more customer loyalty which is highly valuable to the brand. Loyal customers make repeat purchases and offer recommendations to other potential leads who then become ambassadors as well. If you’re looking for new ways to increase your company’s profit margins, invest in bettering your customer experience.

Customer Experience    Customer Centric Approach    customer relationship   customer’s needs    customer service strategy    customer loyalty    Loyal customers