According to a survey conducted by the consulting firm PwC , “59% of American consumers said they would turn their back on a brand, even a beloved one, after a few bad experiences. Outside the United States, 47% of respondents would do the same […] and 45% said they would not interact with a company again after a first bad experience.”
These results reflect the value of efficient customer service and how important it is for the relationship between user and company.
What is customer support and how does it help build long-term relationships?
Customer support is any interaction that a company maintains with the user of its product or service, before, during or after the purchase. Also known as customer service (SAC) or simply customer service , its main objectives are user satisfaction and loyalty .
To offer an optimal customer service, it is not enough to provide consultation channels. Today, users have access to a large volume of information and their purchasing decisions guadeloupe email address are influenced by other people's previous experiences with the same product or service. A large part of this satisfaction or dissatisfaction originates from customer service .
According to Jonathan Brummel, Senior Manager of Premium Support at Zendesk, “… While your customer support team can fix a technical issue in the short term , providing great customer service helps build relationships and establish a true long-term partnership…” .
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Evolution in customer service: automation and personalization
The current customer service system emerged in telephone exchanges or call centers, one of the most popular systems of the 20th century. Companies in all sectors use the SAC to answer questions, schedule consultations, receive complaints or provide technical assistance. And while traditional face-to-face and telephone support is still essential, the advance of technology introduced new platforms, resources and strategies dedicated to customer assistance .
Technology applied to customer service has naturally progressed towards automation . The growth in user-level demand and the interest of companies to provide more and better information created the need to introduce automated tools — such as Help Centers , Chatbots or other forms of artificial intelligence — to provide support and increase the productivity of customer support teams .
At the same time, the collection of personal data by companies has made it possible to personalize service. According to a study by Zendesk , consumers do not object to companies using their personal data, “as long as it is used to improve their customer experience . ”
Stored responsibly, customer personal data translates into valuable information for the brand, which can now approach each customer with prior knowledge of their purchasing journey and predict behaviors.
In this way, companies have learned to diversify customer service according to user preferences, communicating through their preferred channels, sharing offers and recommendations.
A current example is the music streaming company, Spotify , and its Twitter account Spotify Help , dedicated exclusively to providing customer support . The company identified that most of the service's users choose this platform for exchanging messages and perceived the benefits of activating its online community with topics of interest and solutions available to everyone.
