The importance of customer satisfaction cannot be understated. Now, before you respond with a very boisterous “duh”, hear me out. It goes beyond what you may normally expect, as a business person. See, it’s not just that a satisfied customer is a returning customer, though that is absolutely part of it. It goes beyond this, and today, I’m going to talk about how.
When looking at the importance of customer satisfaction, we have to consider all of the potential scenarios in which it has a bearing, above and beyond customer loyalty. But, since customer loyalty is an important thing, let this be my statement that it is indeed one of the more obvious and significant aspects of why it is so important.
Now, the next thing to talk about, though, is that when all is said and done, it is your customer service for which you are judged. When your company, products and entity are regarded in retrospect by your customers, they will remember good customer service more than outstanding products, and they will remember bad customer service as well.
Things will go wrong, and it is how you handle these problems that you are judged by in the future, so that lasting impression is so important it’s not funny. If you leave a bad taste in peoples’ mouth with your customer service, then your good product is moot.
Now, beyond that, there can come a time when your company may need to defend itself, be it legally or just in the court of public opinion. When this happens, it is once more your customer service which will be the determining factor in many verdicts. If something goes wrong, it is how you handle it, not the mistake itself, which you are logically judged by.
If your customer service is poor, you’re going to be in a heap of trouble here.
Finally, the importance above all comes from the way the zeitgeist propagates in modern times. In this digital environment, what anyone says or does is instantly known by anyone who is paying attention, and word, rumors and opinions spread like wildfire. As a result, we’re all far more beholden to the public than we were in the past, and this is only going to continue as a trend in the future.
Customer service is becoming part of our presence in this social dimension, and as a result, focus on quality customer support with new technologies approaches and philosophies must be embraced by everyone if the corporate concept is to endure.
In the recent past, much of what businesses held as keynote philosophical tenets have been overthrown by the voice of the people, entirely due to the prevalence and reduced distance brought on by the digital social sphere of the internet.
The importance of customer service is that it is how you represent yourself to your customer. Your identity, your branding, your marketing are all merely displays to ensure interest and introduction of novelty. It is your customer service by which you are identified, through which you speak your view of your customers, and by which you are ultimately judged.
