How Customer Service Builds Brand Loyalty

Karen Free­man, Patrick Spen­ner, and Anna Bird bring up Three Myths About What Cus­tomers Want in the HBR Blog Net­work. These myths are based on infor­ma­tion from their recent con­sumer study. While the arti­cle is directed toward mar­keters, there are impor­tant lessons for cus­tomer ser­vice man­agers as well.

Myth #1: Most con­sumers want to have rela­tion­ships with your brand.
It turns out only 23% of con­sumers in the study want to have a rela­tion­ship with a brand

Myth #2: Inter­ac­tions build rela­tion­ships.
64% of con­sumers in the study said, no. Inter­ac­tions don’t build rela­tion­ships; shared val­ues do. For exam­ple, Patag­o­nia devel­ops brand loy­alty among a cer­tain group of con­sumers because of their shared com­mit­ment to the enviornment.

Myth #3: The more inter­ac­tion the bet­ter.
Again, not true. The study found no cor­re­la­tion between the num­ber of emails sent to cus­tomers and the like­li­hood they will com­plete a pur­chase, make a repeat pur­chase, or rec­om­mend the brand. In fact, in this age of cog­ni­tive over­load, what the com­pany per­ceives as help­ful infor­ma­tion quickly becomes infor­ma­tion over­load for the consumer.

So what can be done? This is where the cus­tomer ser­vice and sup­port depart­ments come into play. Accord­ing to the authors, “Instead of relent­lessly demand­ing more con­sumer atten­tion, treat the atten­tion you do win as precious.”

To do this, be sure your cus­tomer ser­vice reps use world-class cus­tomer ser­vice skills from the moment the call comes into your cen­ter. Lis­ten to calls. Do your reps:

• Open the call in a warm, friendly manner
• Use strate­gic ques­tion­ing skills to under­stand cus­tomers’ questions
• Present ben­e­fits to callers for tak­ing a par­tic­u­lar course of action
• Use pos­i­tive lan­guage, telling callers what they can do for them rather than what they can’t
• Have in-depth knowl­edge of your prod­ucts and pro­ce­dures, and access to a knowl­edge base so they can solve cus­tomers’ issues on the first call
• Tell callers what to expect next to elim­i­nate callbacks
• Close the call in a way that adds value and makes cus­tomers happy they called

If not, then an invest­ment in cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing will pay off many times over. Think of the money your mar­ket­ing depart­ment spends attempt­ing to engage cus­tomers in a mean­ing­ful dia­logue. Once they get a cus­tomer to engage, be sure your cus­tomer ser­vice depart­ment is treat­ing them as the pre­cious cus­tomers they are.