What Hinders Good Customer Service?

Picture this: you’ve just found the perfect beach blanket online. Not only is it sand-resistant and available in TONS of fun colors, patterns, and fabrics, but it’s also big enough to accommodate your whole family. Your only questions are whether it can be delivered in time for your big beach bash next week and which fabrics are best for those with sensitive skin. So, before placing your order, you open a live chat window to speak with an agent. However, the wait time is up to 30 minutes (cue sigh), and when you do finally get a chance to speak with customer service, the agent is unfriendly, very slow to respond, and offers answers that don’t seem to fully address your questions. Though you felt excited just minutes before about your perfect summer beach accessory, the bad customer service interaction has soured the experience, and you’re hesitant about supporting a brand that doesn’t seem reliable or willing to help its customers. The takeaway here is that no matter how unique or handy a product may be, good customer service is truly the difference between a trusted brand with growth potential and one that consistently misses out on opportunities.
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How Does Bad Customer Service Impact Business?

In the scenario we painted for you above, the brand in question likely didn’t earn your business, right? However, the repercussions of bad customer service don’t just stop at losing a sale here or there. Consistently poor customer service practices – such as long wait times or accidentally ignoring tickets (yikes) – will form a dark cloud over a business over time that discourages potential customers from purchasing or referring their friends or family. Considering that 83% of customers would trust recommendations from folks they know, bad customer service's impact on your word-of-mouth marketing can yield disastrous results. Just take it from NewMedia’s “Serial Switchers” report back in 2018 that revealed bad customer service was costing businesses $75 billion yearly (which just happened to be up $13 billion from 2016). Though in 2023, most E-Commerce companies are doing their best to improve customer service strategies by monitoring key metrics that gauge their success and efficacy, the industry still has a long way to go.
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Prevent Poor Customer Service Within Your Brand by Avoiding These Mistakes

Listen – we want the best for your brand, always. Therefore, we’re diving into a few crucial mistakes you can avoid to prevent bad customer service that could damage your reputation, potential growth, and ultimately, your bottom line.

1. Ignoring Customers Or Neglecting Service Requests

Whether accidental or otherwise, there are no excuses for ignoring a service request from a customer or forgetting to get back to them and resolve an issue. With highly-effective tools and helpdesk software available today specifically for E-Commerce businesses, it’s easier than ever to monitor incoming requests, track their progress, and ensure that all communication between your agents and customers is clearly documented. However, when we say that you must respond to all customers, we don’t just mean the ones who submit a ticket. Any customer who shares feedback about their experience, whether it be over the phone, through email, or via social media platforms, deserves a response. If they don’t, it will severely impact their willingness to support a brand in the future. In fact, 79% of consumers last year who shared complaints online about their poor customer experience were ignored – not exactly a look we recommend to brands that want to improve customer loyalty.

2. Lack Of Customer Service Expertise

Nearly 31% of consumers consider a knowledgeable agent to be the most crucial factor for a positive customer experience. Therefore, ensuring that your agents have thorough training on your systems, processes, and products that they need to solve simple and complex customer service issues is a must. Skilled agents not only have the power to turn around a bad situation by offering simple and straightforward solutions, but they can also help resolve tickets faster to prevent long wait times for your customers.

3. Extensive Wait Times

In certain scenarios, extensive wait times in customer service queues can’t be helped. However, there are measures your brand can take to avoid extensive wait times that prevent your team from helping all customers who attempt to contact them for assistance:

• Offer channels such as live chat that allow your agents to multitask
• Extend your hours of operation to give customers more opportunities to reach your team during the day
• Use your data to track busy times that may require more agents
• Implement a helpdesk software that documents all communication so your agents can jump right into a ticket

Though 30% of all consumers are willing to wait in a queue for 3-5 minutes, many get impatient if they’re on hold during a support interaction for more than five minutes. Putting preventative and proactive measures in place to reduce waiting periods will paint your brand in a better light and give you an edge over your competitors.

4. Making Customers Repeat Themselves

In addition to the 33% of customers who hate being put on hold, 33% also find it frustrating to repeat themselves to multiple agents. Let’s be honest – can we blame them? Being forced to repeat ourselves multiple times during an interaction just to have our issue resolved is irritating, and will often discourage us from working with a brand altogether. This common issue is certainly an argument for implementing omnichannel support. By taking an omnichannel approach to customer service, your agents can switch from one platform to another throughout a conversation with a customer, all without missing a beat or having to reiterate the information they’ve already collected.

5. Impersonal Or Scripted Communication

The reality of customer service is that it often includes a lot of intense emotions.It’s not always fun or easy to work with customers who are upset, angry, or frustrated. Still, empowering your agents to personalize the conversation (AKA, be a human) will help everyone feel more comfortable and likely form a strong connection with your customers. Sure, scripts and cheat sheets certainly have their uses. However, to create a truly memorable customer service experience that people will share with others, your agents must be able to connect with customers on a personal level.

Partner With TalentPop’s Skilled, Friendly Agents To Avoid Mistakes That Can Lead To Bad Customer Service

We all remember the brands that make us feel valued and heard, but we also never forget the ones that gave us the “ick” – you know what we mean. At TalentPop, we’ve helped over 500+ E-Commerce brands nail their customer satisfaction scores and earn glowing reviews from customers with the help of our skilled customer service agents. Now, we’re here to help you do the same and avoid the mistakes that can give your brand a bad reputation. From training in the latest technology and software to clear communication skills, our friendly agents strive to provide the best customer experience possible. To learn how we can match you with qualified agents in as little as 3 weeks, schedule a call with our team today.