Indications and Consequences of Poor Customer Service

When you call customer support to inquire about a service, pay bills, or seek help, what response do you expect?

You may want them to be polite, swift, emphatic, and most importantly, willing to solve your problem, right? But how often have you encountered a support agent possessing all the above qualities?

In today’s world, doing business without effective customer support is no less than suicide. Apart from offering good quality products and services, many customers may demand after-sales services too.

In this article, we’re going to discuss some factors that indicate a failing support system. In addition, we’ll also discuss some repercussions that come with it.

Without further ado, let’s get started:

Indications of Poor Customer Support:

Undercooked Support Agents:

It’s understood that support agents must solve people’s queries. However, that’s only half of their job. Most customers, when they reach out to a customer support center, are already in a foul mood. Simply because they may be facing issues with some product they bought for a hefty price.

One of the vital features of a support agent is to be emphatic toward the customers. If a customer representative fails to provide true support and empathy, it may leave a lasting negative impression. So, it’s important to train the customer agents effectively and help them understand what customer support is all about.

Limited Ways to Communicate:

Nowadays, people may not want to call or email a customer support center. Instead, they may want to reach out to social pages and comment or ask in online communities. It simply indicates that with advancing technology, people’s preferences have changed.

Now, diverse sources of communication appeal to them more, instead of traditional, old-fashioned ways to connect to a support agent.

Neglecting what people want, many support centers don’t diversify themselves. Instead, they stick to the traditional ways and compromise on people’s satisfaction. When customer support doesn’t offer flexibility to people the company may start to face losses in no time.

Cox sets an example for being one of the best support centers. Providing exceptional Internet, TV, and Phone services, they soon found a growing Latin customer base. Instead of forcing them to communicate in English, Cox introduced Cox atencion al cliente en español, a designated customer support for Spanish speakers.

Inept Management:

Sometimes, it’s not the customer reps who’re at fault, but the management itself. Chances are, the management fails to deliver every bit of information a support agent may need to handle the customers.

Chances are that many companies may not see customer support as part of their business operations. So, they may linger on to solve the problems faced by the reps or focus on quality improvement.

Another factor that contributes a lot to making support operations ineffective is faulty gadgets. Faulty gadgets such as systems or headsets create unwanted trouble for the support agents. To avoid this trouble, management should equip customer representatives with quality equipment so they can work seamlessly.

Moving forward, let’s discuss some consequences of subpar customer service.

Repercussions of Poor Customer Support:

Forgetful Customer Experience:

A dismayed customer experience may not only create a gap between the company and the customer. It also creates an opportunity for the competitors to embark on. And once your customers are in the competitor’s backyard, it may become an arduous task to win them back.

Apart from providing bad quality products and services, ineffective customer service is one of the biggest reasons for bad customer experience. Most people may give some chances when it comes to product quality.

However, when it comes to customer support, customers may not give many chances to a support center to solve their problems which they may think is a problem itself.

Low Team Morale:

Motivation plays a vital role in a team’s staying on the right track. A team may feel motivated when they’re aware that customers are satisfied with the services provided.

Poor customer support may increase the frequency of unsatisfied callers. In the long run, it may become a major source for a team to lose morale. Once individuals lose morale, they may not feel appreciated by the company or the customers. In most cases, companies may experience a high turnover rate.

Decreasing Profits:

Most people may give several chances to an average customer support before actually giving up on it. With time, companies have realized how important after-sales services are. Yet, some may not pay attention to it.

In the long term, such companies gradually see a decline in their profit margins.

Why?

Because after multiple interactions, people may know what to expect from a company’s support services. Once they find those services to be of no help, they may altogether stop bringing business to the company.

Bottom Line:

Customer services can make or break a company’s image, for sure. Poor customer service may be equivalent to no customer service at all. If you’re running a support center, keep a vigilant eye on the causes mentioned above. This way, you may refrain from losing valuable customers.

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