Are we customer-centric yet?
If you notice a drop in customer satisfaction rate or an increase in the churn rate, ask this question right away. No more can a business afford to take customer service lightly. If your service isn’t what customers expected, they will likely leave you for another competitor in the market.
Keeping that in mind, a lot of you take extra measures to create an awesome customer service experience for both existing and new customers. Problem is, it is hard to determine what really upsets them during their brand experience. With no solid numbers in hand, you are likely to feel lost.
To help you overcome this challenge, we’ve created a list of statistics that will help you find the likely cause for customer attrition. But before we dive into our extensive list of customer service statistics, let’s clear a few basics below.
What is Customer Service?
Customer service is where you offer assistance to those who have bought your products or use your services regularly. It is a practice where you provide support to existing customers or potential buyers in case they have questions regarding your offerings. When you get back to them with a solution or an answer, you increase the chances of improving their satisfaction with your brand.
Why is Customer Service Crucial to Your Business?
Building a good customer service experience is crucial to any business. That’s because it help you gain the following benefits:
Increases customer satisfaction: If you aim to build an awesome customer service every time, you can guarantee that you’ll have more satisfied customers in the long run.
Increases customer retention: The more satisfied customers you have, the better. When they are happy with your services, they’ll likely stick with your brand for long, therefore increasing retention rate for the business.
Increases referrals and customer acquisition: Satisfied and long-standing customers become brand advocates who spread the good word about your service. They’ll recommend your brand whenever someone asks them about the same type of service.
Increases revenue: With steady customers and more referrals, you can expect a spike in your existing revenue. You can make more profit if your services are customer-centric.
Improves brand reputation: With good reviews and positive word-of-mouth publicity, your brand will experience more visibility in the market. You will notice how your brand reputation improves that results in more buyers coming in and asking about your services.
Besides these benefits, you also get to experience a spike in employee productivity that leads to better job satisfaction. So it isn’t just your brand or customers who benefit from great customer service but so do your employees.
Also read: Guide to Provide 24/7 Customer Service with Tips & Benefits
5 Power pact Ways to Provide Efficient Customer Service
With a great hold on the benefits, it is time to round-off some of the best ways to deliver excellent customer service experience at all times.
1. Be a keen listener
Make sure you are listening to what your customers say. When they approach you, they are already facing a challenge with your product or service. The last thing they’ll want is to not be heard during the support conversation. Try to speak less and listen more when they are explaining the challenges they are facing with your brand.
2. Empathy is the way forward
Don’t keep your responses curt like “I understand.” or “Okay”. They would like to hear more once they are done explaining the problem. Instead of short responses, this is how you can revert back. “We’re sorry. I am sure this must have caused you inconvenience. Here’s what I propose.”
With an empathetic start like that, it will be easier for you to manage the entire conversation. You will let the customer know that you are apologetic for a bad experience and would like to rectify it.
3. Don’t hesitate to admit your mistakes
If customers are complaining to you about your product or service, apologize. And, don’t simply say the word sorry. Try to put it into action. For example, as a token of your apology you can send in gift cards, offer discount coupons for next purchase or send in a free replacement of your product to show your sincerity as a brand.
4. Train your agents regularly
Another measure that you can take to improve the customer service experience is to train the agents and all customer-facing employees regularly. The training sessions can be around product knowledge, conversational ethics, and other aspects of customer service that allow agents to be prompt at providing a response to customers. You can assess where they lack and even create customized training schedules to ensure they help you take the customer service experience to the next level.
5. Set clear expectations
Let your customers know what they can expect from the solution you offer. If you do not clarify what they can expect, they’ll likely keep their expectations high. And if you fail to deliver as per their expectations, customers will get disappointed. Let them know:
- How you normally act when such challenges arise
- How much time your team takes to resolve the challenge
- When you’ll contact them next if the challenge cannot be resolved during the first contact
This will help them understand how your business operates and allow them to have realistic expectations from the customer service experience you build.
Adopting these simple yet powerpact ways will allow you to improve customer service experience and increase the satisfaction rate. With basics clear, it is time to move ahead and explore relevant facts that make or break the customer service experience.
100+ Customer Service Statistics Your Business Must Know
In this section, we aim to state some of the popular and well-researched customer service statistics that your business must know of going ahead. These statistics will help you understand the relevance of customer service and common reasons why businesses fail to build an awesome experience even after putting in so much effort.
We’ve divided the customer service statistics in the following sections:
Growing Importance of Customer Service
1. 75% of customers expect brands to offer 24×7 customer service. (Source: Document360)
2. 71% of consumers (age 16-24) believe that a quick response from a service team can drastically improve their customer experience. (Source: Comm100)
3. 70% of the customer’s journey is based on how the customer feels they are being treated. (Source: Mckinsey)
4. Nearly 90% of consumers trust a company whose service they’ve rated as “very good” to take care of their needs. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
5. 90% of consumers worldwide consider issue resolution as their most crucial customer service concern. (Source: KPMG)
6. 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company. (Source: Microsoft)
7. 63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations, while 76% of B2B buyers expect the same thing. (Source: Salesforce)
8. 59% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service than they did just a year ago. (Source: Microsoft)
9. 60% don’t see customer service as getting any easier. (Source: Microsoft)
10. 33% say getting the issue resolved in a single interaction (no matter the length of time) is the most important aspect of customer service. (Source: Statista)
11. 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of loyalty to a brand. (Source: Microsoft)
12. 73% of consumers say a good experience is key in influencing their brand loyalties. (Source: PWC)
13. Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers. (Source: Superoffice)
14. Companies with initiatives to improve their customer experience see employee engagement increase by 20% on average. (Source: Mckinsey)
Also, Check out our blog on Knowledge management in Retail industry
Common Reasons Why Companies Fail at Customer Service
15. 28% of customers hate to repeat themselves to multiple agents during the same call. (Source: Document360)
16. 23% of customers find it infuriating that their issues do not get resolved during their first contact. (Source: Document360)
17. 23% of customers explained how they wait for responses on various communication channels such as social media, email or via live chat. (Source: Document360)
18. 12% of customers feel infuriated if their previous conversations with the brand have not been taken into account during their existing customer service call. (Source: Document360)
19. 10% of customers feel disappointed with a brand if their preferred source of communication channel is not offered to them by the brand. (Source: Document360)
20. 54% of customers report that customer service feels like an afterthought for most of the businesses they buy from. (Source: Zendesk)
21. 59% of customers say it feels like most businesses need to improve the training of their customer service agents. (Source: Zendesk)
22. 53% of shoppers believe their feedback doesn’t go to anyone who can actually act on it. (Source: Microsoft)
23. The top reason customers switch brands is because they feel unappreciated. (Source: Vonage)
Impact of Poor Customer Service
24. 73% of customers end up switching to another brand due to poor product performance. (Source: Document360)
25. Close to 15% of customers leave a brand due to poor customer service experience. (Source: Document360)
26. High pricing prompts 13% of customers to leave a brand without a second thought. (Source: Document360)
27. According to our study, 34% of customers left a brand once in the past year. (Source: Document360)
28. 79% of consumers who used feedback to complain about poor customer experience online were ignored. (Source: Harris Interactive)
29. After more than one bad experience, around 80% of consumers say they would rather do business with a competitor. (Source: Zendesk)
30. 78% of customers have backed out of a purchase due to a poor customer experience. (Source: Glance)
31. About three-quarters of consumers who give a company a “very good” CX rating are likely to forgive a company for a bad experience, but only 15% of those who gave a company a “very poor” CX rating say the same. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
32. 56% of customers say a brand’s customer service often doesn’t match the image they portray. (Source: Freshdesk)
33. 20–33% of customers rated their provider’s online services from “needing improvement” to “horrible.” (Source: Airkit)
34. Unfortunately, only 19% of consumers believe customer service is exceeding expectations. (Source: Gladly)
35. Studies suggest that 64% of consumers aren’t able to get help or solve their problem through their provider’s customer service. (Source: Airkit)
36. Customers switching companies due to poor service costs U.S. companies a total of $1.6 trillion. (Source: Accenture)
Top Reasons for Awesome Customer Service Experience
37. 34% of customers feel that receiving accurate and quick responses builds a good customer service experience for them. (Source: Document360)
38. 22% of customers agree that if they get to resolve their doubts without contacting a customer support rep, then it is a good customer service experience. (Source: Document360)
39. 17% of customers believe that friendly customer support agents build a good experience during a support call. (Source: Document360)
40. 15% of customers define receiving 24×7 support as a sign of good customer experience. (Source: Document360)
41. 12% of customers believe that if they can avoid repeating themselves to multiple agents during the same call, then it is a great service experience for them. (Source: Document360)
42. If the company’s customer service is excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with a company again after a mistake. (Source: Salesforce)
43. 94% of consumers who give a company a “very good” CX rating are likely to recommend that company. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
44. 47% of customers feel a brand is being their best on social media when they offer good customer service. (Source: Sprout Social)
45. 56% of customers say that they would be willing to pay a premium price for a product to get outstanding customer support. (Source: PR Newswire)
46. 82% of customers will spend more money on companies that deliver great online service. (Source: Gladly)
47. 62% of business leaders agree that more customers are making buying choices based on CX than they were in 2018. (Source: Forrester)
48. A mere 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profits. (Source: Bain & Company)
49. Well-connected teams show a profitability increase of 21%. (Source: GoRemotely)
50. Companies with a customer experience mindset drive revenue 4-8% higher than the rest of their industries. (Source: Bain & Company)
51. Companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80%. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
52. 83% of companies that believe it’s important to make customers happy also experience growing revenue. (Source: Hubspot)
53. Companies with initiatives to improve their customer experience see employee engagement increase by 20% on average. (Source: McKinsey)
54. Did you know that companies with engaged employees outperform the competition by 147%? (Source: Gallup)
55. 92% appreciate companies giving them control over what information is collected about them. (Source: Salesforce)
56. 90% of people are more likely to trust a company if they have a strong privacy policy. (Source: Salesforce)
57. 88% of people trust companies that vow not to share their personal information without permission. (Source: Salesforce)
58. 79% of customers are willing to share relevant information about themselves in exchange for contextualized interactions in which they’re immediately known and understood. (Source: Salesforce)
The Growing Importance of Speed in Customer Service
59. According to the Deconstructing Delight Report, 22% of customers feel call center wait times were too long. (Source: Freshdesk)
60. 64% of customers want a reply within an hour of posting on Twitter, and 85% of customers said they expect a company to respond within six hours. (Source: Social Stamina)
61. Forrester claims that 66% of US consumers agree that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online customer service. (Source: Forrester)
62. Deconstructing Delight Report also suggests that 80% of customers said they want quicker responses from companies. (Source: Freshdesk)
63. Gartner report suggests that 75% of customers who use the phone for issue resolution report the interaction taking longer than expected. (Source: Gartner)
64. The Deconstructing Delight Report further claims that 52% of customers expect a quick resolution. (Source: Freshdesk)
65. 90% of customers rate immediate responses as important or higher when they have a question. (Source: Hubspot)
66. 71% of consumers under 25 believe that quickness in responses from customer service representatives improves their experience. (Source: Comm100)
67. Did you know that 66% have a more favorable view of brands that offer proactive customer service notifications? (Source: Statista)
Also Read: What Is Call Center Knowledge Base Software and Why Is It Useful?
The Power of Personalized Customer Service Experience
68. Salesforce found that 63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations, while 76% of B2B buyers expect the same thing. (Source: Salesforce)
69. Your online conversion rate can improve by roughly 8% when you include personalized consumer experiences. (Source: Trust Pilot)
70. 80% of customers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences. (Source: Epsilon)
71. 54% of consumers say they expect all experiences to be personalized. (Source: Zendesk)
Customer Service & Word-of-Mouth Publicity
72. Loyal customers are five times more likely to purchase again and four times more likely to refer a friend to the company. (Source: Experience Matters)
73. 72% of customers will share their good experiences with others. (Source: Salesforce)
74. 72% of customers will tell six or more people if they have a satisfying experience. (Source: Esteban Kolsky)
75. 94% of American customers will recommend a company whose service they rate as “very good.” (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
76. 13% of customers tell 15 or more people if they have a negative experience. (Source: Esteban Kolsky)
77. Only 17% of consumers would recommend a brand that provides a slow but effective solution. (Source: HBR)
78. Only 13% of consumers will recommend a company whose customer service they’ve rated as “very poor.” (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
Various Mode of Communication or Support Platforms Customers Prefer
79. 36% of customers prefer to have a word with customer support agents over call. (Source: Document360)
80. 30% of customers would choose live chat to connect with support agents to reduce wait time. (Source: Document360)
81. Only 6% of customers prefer raising a support ticket with the brand to get their queries resolved. (Source: Document360)
82. Only 3% of customers prefer using a chatbot to connect with a brand and get their doubts resolved. (Source: Document360)
83. Did you know that 40% of customers expect brands to solve their problems in their channels of choice? (Source: Freshdesk)
84. 62% of customers are likely to use email as their preferred communication channel followed by live chat at 43%. (Source: Finance Online)
85. 31% of customers pick email as the preferred channel for making a complaint and 28% of them use it to track their order. (Source: Freshdesk)
86. 64% of shoppers surveyed want mobile and contactless pickup options, with 79% saying contactless store pickup is very important. (Source: Digital Commerce 360)
87. 68% of WhatsApp users believe that it is the most convenient way to engage with a brand. (Source: Freshworks)
88. 61% of customers don’t want to install a new app or migrate to a new messaging platform just to communicate with a business. (Source: Zipwhip)
89. Nine out of 10 consumers want an omnichannel experience with seamless service between communication methods. (Source: CX Today)
90. 65% of customer service decision-makers want to invest in chatbots to drive operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction. (Source: Forrester)
91. Brands have reported a 7% increase in CSAT scores as a result of successful bot implementations. (Source: Freshworks)
92. Live chat is used by 67% of B2C businesses solely for customer support. (Source: Finance Online)
93. 42% of US online buyers said it was important for retailers to offer live online chat on their websites. (Source: Forrester)
94. Over 85% of businesses will offer live chat support by 2022. (Source: Software Advice)
95. Messaging channels prove to slash up to 60% of costs per customer interaction. (Source: Freshworks)
How Does Self-service Knowledge Base Help?
96. 22% of customers believe that self-service knowledge base articles help them get answers faster when compared to other channels. (Source: Document360)
97. 78% of customers expect a brand/product to have an online self-service portal over traditional customer service support. (Source: Document360)
98. 88% of customers expect companies to offer an online self-service portal. (Source: Statista)
99. 92% of customers say they would use a knowledge base and 83% say they’d use a community forum for self-service support if it is available. (Source: Vanilla Forums)
100. 39% of customers say they can resolve issues much quicker using self-service options than other customer service channels. (Source: Freshdesk)
101. Only 13% of customers are fully able to resolve their issues through self-service as the only channel. (Source: Gartner)
102. 39% of customers would rather use self-service options than have to speak to a company using any other channel. (Source: Freshdesk)
Wrapping Up
To gauge what customers think, you need numbers. These numbers can help you understand why customer service is crucial to them and why it is good or bad customer service for them.
Surveys are one of the most effective and widely used methods of expanding your business both locally and globally. So, at Document360, we wanted to conduct a feedback survey using appropriate survey data. The purpose of this survey is to learn about the importance of customer service in promoting loyalty and to value customer feedback on the most common types of services offered by businesses.
Furthermore, to understand customers’ perspectives on cutting-edge services such as self-service knowledge bases, which was seamlessly achieved through a survey conducted with team members internally, with our customers, and with other enthusiasts.
We hope that the survey results with over 100 statistics have provided you with a better understanding of today’s customer expectations for traditional and modern customer service.
Also, check out our Guide to Creating Customer Service Policy
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