Issues That Define A Bad Customer Experience (And How To Fix Them)

Customer experience is an important cog in any business, but how important is it? Loyalty hinges on delivering a great customer experience. It's not enough to have a good product—companies are distinguishing themselves by providing exceptional customer service.

Research says, "83% of companies that believe it's important to make customers happy also experience growing revenue.

Similar products are abundant/available in the market these days. Customer service has emerged as an authentic brand differentiator for both B2C and B2B industries. A company that wants to thrive must prioritise customer satisfaction. Because the consequences can be disastrous. So, what exactly is a bad customer experience, and how can you avoid it?

What is Bad Customer Service?

Bad customer service occurs when a company fails to meet the expectations of its customers in terms of service quality, response time, or overall customer experience. Inefficient support staff, a lack of real-time support, and an inability to understand your customers' needs are all factors that have a negative impact on customer service.

Poor customer service not only ruins existing customer relationships but also jeopardises potential opportunities and erodes your company's bottom line. According to Microsoft research, "58% of consumers choose to switch companies due to poor customer service experiences."

How Does Poor Customer Service Affect your Business?

Ignoring customers' needs and providing poor service experiences leads to customer loss to the competition. According to the Microsoft 2018 State of Global Customer Service survey, 61% of consumers have switched brands. This is due to inadequate customer service. This is due to inadequate customer service. As a result, poor service results in lost revenue and profits. Poor customer service costs businesses more than $75 billion per year, according to the Serial Switchers report.

According to a WalkerInfo report, by 2023, customer experience will outperform price and product as the primary brand differentiator. For many customers, the customer experience (CX) remains a deciding factor. Businesses must understand how a poor customer service experience affects the overall brand.

Top Reasons for Bad Customer Service and How to Fix Them

What are the reasons that businesses may be labelled as having the worst customer service? Let's get specific and talk about the "how-tos" that businesses can use to improve their customer service.

1. Fail To Offer Real-Time Support

Customers expect immediate responses. Hubspot research says, "90% of customers rate "immediate response" as very important when they have queries". It implies that the response time of the channels you provide should be adequate.

Businesses that focus on providing real-time support 24 hours a day, seven days a week increase customer satisfaction, which drives revenue and builds loyalty. When it comes to providing real-time support, live chat and chatbots are the best communication channels.

How to fix it?

• You can use live chat for offering real-time sales and support assistance to customers.

• You can also combine both channels and deliver hybrid support to your customers.

• You can engage your customers 24×7 by chatbots.

1. Inefficient Customer Support Team

If your company falls short in this area, it may be unable to provide proactive support, which may result in the loss of loyal customers, a deterioration in brand reputation, and an increase in customer complaints. This emphasises the importance of having a knowledgeable and competent support team.

How to fix it?

• All employees should receive regular product and etiquette training. It should be the same in all departments and teams.

• You can share all critical business information with the entire support team to keep them informed of the issues and solutions.

1. Not Measuring Your Customer Service

Measuring the quality of customer service is an important aspect of any business. If ignored, it can have disastrous consequences for your company. Companies that fail to measure customer service miss out on the following benefits:

• Do not get insights into how your business is performing

• Unable to know your customers’ perception of your products & services

• Not able to identify the gaps between business and customers.

Thus, it has a negative impact on your company's ability to achieve complete success in team productivity, customer satisfaction, and retention.

This demonstrates the significance of regularly defining and measuring customer service KPIs.Here are the key KPIs and metrics for measuring customer satisfaction.

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

• Average Response Time (ART)

• First Contact Resolution (FCR)

• Several touchpoints

How to fix it?

• The higher the CSAT score, the higher the level of customer satisfaction. You can collect feedback in real-time, such as immediately after purchase, to learn what is and is not working.

• You must either scale your support agents or use chatbots to reduce response time. When agents are unavailable, bots can handle basic queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week, reducing the number of support tickets.

1. Not Taking Customer Feedback Regularly

Have you ever wondered if your customers are satisfied with the quality of your service, products, or overall brand? If you don't, you're missing out on a critical component that leads to poor customer service examples: customer feedback.

As it said, "Your most dissatisfied customers are your greatest source of learning. Customer feedback is critical to the success of any business.

How to fix it?

• Collect customer feedback regularly. It will provide a clear picture of how your company is performing.

• You can solicit feedback immediately following a customer service interaction, a product demonstration, or a successful transaction. You must analyse and act on customer feedback to value it and make it effective.

• Collect customer feedback, categorise it and distribute it to the appropriate departments for work.

• Create a plan of action by combining all of the results. Train your support team to ask the appropriate feedback questions at the appropriate time and through the appropriate channels.

1. Not Using The Right Tools

Using the right tools is an important aspect of providing good customer service. The tools aid in reducing the negative impact of assistance. When you equip your company with the right tools, you can benefit it in the following ways:

• Helps to improve your team productivity

• Make better communication with customers

• Gain valuable insights about your customer journey

• Boost customer satisfaction

How to fix it?

• Identify your business needs and select the right tools to ensure a higher level of customer engagement and better customer satisfaction.

• Use customer feedback to create better products and services that meet customer expectations. Also, make them feel like they are an important part of your company.

FAQS

How Does Bad Customer Service Impact Businesses?

Ignoring customers' needs and providing poor service experiences leads to customer loss to the competition. As a result, poor service results in lost revenue and profits.

What Should You Avoid To Prevent Bad Customer Service?

The first and most obvious is failing to respond to or ignoring a customer request. Other customer service issues include long wait times, insufficient employee knowledge, and a lack of etiquette and manners.

What Are The 5 Main Causes Of Poor Customer Service?

Hiring the wrong people, a lack of training, employee burnout, misunderstanding customer expectations, and a lack of employee engagement is the five main causes of poor customer service.

Leave Bad Customer Service Behind For Good

Poor customer service is harmful to any business. If, on the other hand, your company is customer-centric, providing a better customer experience becomes the top priority. You eliminate the negative impact of customer service by becoming CX's first brand and building lifelong customer relationships and brand loyalty.

You can hire any BPO Company that provides an automated customer service platform that allows your business to deliver real-time sales/support assistance. Outsource omnichannel customer experience services today and Create Smarter Customer Experiences to deliver a great customer service experience.

Alex Hall is a customer experience specialist and a content contributor in customer experience domain at Ncri