Growing and curating a public reputation is a complex operation for brands in today’s consumer landscape. Brand image is now influenced by multiple factors, from product efficacy to consumer reviews of customer support.
The ways in which consumers interact with brands shape how they talk about businesses. In fact, online reviews have become major influencers in brand perception.
Consumer-facing companies know this already and are constantly pivoting to ensure alignment with customers. Many brands optimize customer service outsourcing to guarantee their operations provide a quality customer experience.
Today’s customers have the know-how to research products online and share experiences. According to recent data, nearly 70% of online shoppers read between one and six customer reviews before making a purchase decision.
How Is Customer Support Crucial to Business Success?
Customer service impacts shoppers in different ways through various formats. Managing this process to create meaningful brand-customer relationships is an intricate process that combines a range of important strategies.
Research conducted this year reveals that customers felt a quick resolution to their problem was their most pressing priority. 24/7 customer support was the second most popular request from brands.
Consumer geography is constantly changing, but personal interactions with quick responses are key to the pursuit of excellent customer service ratings.
There is a distinct correlation between proactive customer support and improved customer reviews. Your competitors already know this, so just doing the minimum is no longer an option.
This is where moving from good to exceptional customer service helps your brand go from survival to sustained growth. Great customer service management and lower customer complaints are intrinsically linked.
5 Ways to Improve Customer Service by Minimizing Negative Reviews
Brands know that consumer expectation around query response has never been higher. Recent research highlights that 93% of customers expect a brand to reply within 24 hours.
1. Customer-first approach
Customers want to be heard when they have something to say about a brand’s products or services. If they wait too long for a response to a question, then this can increase frustration levels.
In fact, 52% of consumers expect to get their questions answered within one hour of posting. This presents a challenge for customer support management, but one that needs to be tackled to ensure customers feel listened to.
On the way, businesses can seek help from outsourcing services to achieve better results and enhance their performance. For example, a furniture company succeeded in reducing its average issue resolution time by 62.5% with the help of such solutions.
A customer-centric vision means that companies put the customer journey at the heart of their processes and make sure that customer feedback is collated through every brand channel.
Online reviews have surged since the pandemic. The connection between good customer service and lower complaint rates on review platforms matters for today’s consumers. Brands who want to observe the quality of customer relationships can leverage key review information.
2. Proactive personalization
Customers expect companies to understand their unique needs. Maintaining this level of customer satisfaction is a huge undertaking for any brand, and many are turning to AI to help them fulfill these requirements.
Even though consumers are more at ease now with AI solutions, brands need lots of data to ensure personalization is accurate. Customers want increased control over data collection and how it is deployed.
It may be useful for brands to provide feedback opportunities for customers to supply their perspectives on AI and data collection so that consumers feel more accepting of their use.
3. Omnichannel service
When customers express their feelings about a product or service in online reviews or posts, it can be tempting for brands to take the conversation away from public view. This may be a misstep, as other consumers see the issue but don’t witness the resolution.
Serving customers where they like to be online is becoming a more natural pathway for many businesses as they see that customers enjoy the quick and open communications that come from online reviews.
For customer support, this means agents need to be comfortable interacting with customers on calls, in chat, and online. Flexing to suit the customer’s needs will boost credibility and decrease the impact of negative review posts.
4. Accessible information
There’s nothing more empowering than finding that piece of information you need by yourself. Customer service management can’t cover everything all of the time. So it makes sense to have easy information availability in obvious places for customers to find.
Statistics show that 81% of consumers want more self-service options with the ability to resolve simple questions by themselves. This can be delivered through website FAQs, community forums, or social messaging for speedy, simple communication.
However, not all companies offer these services, with only one-third of businesses enabling customers to self-serve. Allowing customers to find out essential information on their own can help them to feel more satisfied with their brand experience as they don’t have to take time to contact customer support.
5. Enriched training
Transforming negative reviews into something positive can be challenging but achievable. One actionable strategy is to take clear points of development from negative reviews and turn these into training threads for customer support teams.
It’s tough to accept critical comments, but when paired with clear strategic pathways that result in better customer support procedures, training becomes much more purposeful with measurably better real-case results.
Can Negative Reviews Improve Customer Support?
Supplementing your brand playbook with insightful, proactive processes that deal with negative reviews as a learning tool can only enhance the ways your customer support teams manage and nurture customer relationships.
Making it easier for customers to be your brand cheerleaders is essential in our noisy digital world. It’s a way to help your brand stand out for its high-value experiences for customers – a gold star when it comes to brand reputation.
