Seasoned customer service agents may think they know everything there is to know about the industry and how to handle certain circumstances. But it doesn’t matter how many years of experience you have working in customer service, there’s always room for growth and improvement. Sometimes, re-evaluating and unlearning everything you think you know about customer service can actually be beneficial to managing your business. There are a lot of myths about customer service that have been perpetuated so much over the years that people believe them to be indisputable facts.
Keep reading to learn about the most common myths and learn the truth about customer service.
Myth #1: The Customer Is Always Right
This is typically the first thing that customer service agents are taught during their training sessions, that the customer is always right. As good as this sounds in theory, it doesn’t always work in practice.
Pandering to your customers only makes them think that they can keep getting away with bad behaviour and your customer service agents have to bend to their will. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do everything in your power to ensure customer satisfaction, because you absolutely should. But it also means that you shouldn’t allow customers to just walk all over your agents. Instead, empower your agents to resolve customer issues to the best of their ability while still following company protocol.
Myth #2: Customers Care More about Low Prices Than Quality of Service
In most cases, we’ve found the opposite to be true. While most customers appreciate low prices, they still value good service quality as well. Being able to offer both low prices and good quality service is an even bigger bonus. But most of the time if given the choice between one or the other, many customers would prefer good quality and satisfactory service that meets all of their needs even if they have to pay a little more to get it.
Myth #3: Customer Complaints Can Always Be Handled with Free Stuff
This is another common myth about customer service that’s aligned with the one about the customer always being right. Offering free items or special promotions to appease dissatisfied customers every time they get upset or hostile is equivalent to rewarding bad behaviour. It sets the precedent that as long as customers contact your business to complain about something, regardless of whether or not it’s a legitimate problem, they’re going to get something out of it.
Yes, you should do everything you can to resolve a customer complaint, but some problems are far beyond the possibility of reaching a resolution that doesn’t involve freebies. Some customers make up complaints just to get free stuff.
Furthermore, offering discounts or free products is a band-aid solution that doesn’t actually address or fix the problem that the customer is facing. It’s important to work with customers to figure out the root cause of the problem, so that you can improve future customer experiences.
Also Read: The Do’s and Don’ts of Good Customer Service
Myth #4: One Good or Bad Customer Experience Doesn’t Define the Business
Customer experience is defined by how customers feel about and view your business on the whole. It’s not just one particular circumstance, but a culmination of micro and macro-interactions that make up their entire perspective throughout the customer journey.
Unfortunately, all it takes is one negative interaction or product defect for customers to be turned off of your business and switch over to your competitor. Once that happens, it’s rare for customers to give brands a second chance because they know that once they leave, there’s another company that will happily meet their needs. Brands can adopt sustainable customer service protocols and solutions that focus on creating a well-rounded and positive overall customer experience instead of short-lived satisfaction.
Myth #5: No Complaints Means There’s Nothing Wrong
Don’t assume that this is a no news is good news type of situation. Not all customers who have bad experiences will contact your business to complain about it. Depending on their level of dissatisfaction, some customers won’t even bother to tell you that there’s something wrong unless you ask them for feedback.
A lack of customer complaints isn’t always a good thing. Silence can sometimes mean that the customer took matters into their own hands by just deciding to no longer support your business. This presents a serious issue for you because it means that there are unresolved problems that you don’t know about and therefore can’t rectify.
Getting customer feedback after every interaction or sale is a good way to truly gauge their satisfaction levels. Honest feedback also provides you with data you need to make product or service quality improvements.
Myth #6: Higher Call and Email Volumes Mean More Unhappy Customers
Not every customer-initiated interaction is a complaint. Most of the time, customers contact businesses when they have a question, need support, or need assistance with something.
Even if they do contact you to issue a complaint, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, complaints are an opportunity to resolve a problem and turn a negative situation into a positive one. A skilled customer service agent that shows empathy and excellent problem-solving skills can even help increase your customer retention rates.
Myth #7: It’s Better to Invest More in Marketing Than in Customer Service
Investing in marketing is vital to every business, but your customer service team is the face of your business. They’re the ones that handle all customer inquiries and complaints, so it’s important to make sure that they’re well equipped with all of the appropriate tools and resources to maximize their job performance.
Marketing and customer service are mutually exclusive and therefore, the importance of one doesn’t usurp the importance of the other. You should be investing just as much money in your customer service protocol development, training, and equipment as you do in marketing your brand.
Get Quality Customer Care from 3C Contact Services
3C Contact Services offers a wide range of inbound and outbound customer support services that enhance the overall customer experience and help you grow your business. Contact us today to learn more about our services.
